Got the chance to meet up and fish a couple of SE wild streams with Salmonoid from the board on Saturday. Salmonoid's a great guy, knows his fishing and his stream geology, and makes for a heck of a fishing partner. Wish we got into a few more fish (trout anyway), but had a great day, and am looking forward to checking out a few more streams together.

A brief (as brief as I get anyway) wrap-up...

We decided to start on a small Brookie stream that I've fished before, but was new to Salmonoid. We were trying to take advantage of Friday night's rain to bring up the water levels and add a little color to the water. The Brookies in this stream are extremely spooky and I usually struggle on it to be honest...mostly because at lower flows it tends to produce long, flat, glassy pools despite it's gradient. It's got a good population of Brookies though and I thought with a little more flow we could probably sneak up on a few. When we got there we were greeted by the water being up a tad, and still having just a touch of color to it. We hiked downstream 1/2 a mile or so and fished our way back up. Salmonoid brought a few to hand, and I hooked into a similar number, but suffered a string of long distance releases. By the time we got back to our put in, the stain to the water had all but disappeared so we decided to make the quick run over to a larger stream, as opposed to continuing upstream.

The second stream was new to both of us, but we suspected it may hold some wild Browns. Our suspicions were confirmed on about the second hole we fished when a 12+ inch Brown charged out of a plunge pool to inhale Salmonoid's Bugger. Unfortunately, he threw the hook just as fast, but that was a very encouraging start! We worked upstream about a mile or so, and Salmonoid picked up a nice 9" range Brown, and together we missed a couple more. I caught a healthy dozen or so Creek Chubs, and Salmonoid hooked into a few too...I'm pretty sure this was the fishing Gods retaliating upon me for busting Squatch about his hatred of Chubs, so I suppose I'll knock that off! I'm not sure the Brownie population is all that great in this stream, but with all those Chubs, it's the kind of stream that could produce a big one I think...so it probably earned a repeat visit at some point.

All in all a very good day, and you can't argue with upper 50's and sunny for the first weekend in March.

A couple of pics...

002 - One of Salmonoid's Brookies from stream 1.
003 - Salmonoid working one of those deep Brookie holes...a 9-10 incher lives there, but he successfully evaded us this time.
005 - Stream shot on stream 2.

I'm pretty sure Salmonoid got a pic of his nice Brown from stream 2, so maybe he'll chime in with that one. Lots of good guys on this board...get out there and fish with them if you can!

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Swattie

Nice post and pics. even without the photos, I could conjure up images of the stream. And, like you said, it has been great weather for this time of year!

Dave

Great pistures and posts. Of all of the posts that I have read, Salmonid's are some of my favorites. He seems like a real good guy. Sounds like you had a great day.
Merf

Nice job swattie and salmo! Two of my favorite posters on here!

Great Pics! The brookie is gorgeous.

We had a very good day; we certainly didn't set any records for the number of fish caught, but the way that I look at it, anytime I can actually catch a fish or two or four in winter is a good day. The weather was beautiful, the scenery was beautiful, the companionship was great, and there were glimpses of history surrounding us.

Conditions on the first stream literally went from fishable with a chance to sneak up on a hole to gin clear while we were fishing, so that made catching a wee bit more difficult. I will be haunted by the larger fish that I missed in Swattie's photo; casts up through the pool yielded no follows but the rock in front of me in the photo is undercut. On the second dap of the bugger in front of the rock, the bruiser took a stab at it, enough that I saw the whole way into the inside of his mouth, and then that was it. The number one mental mistake that I make is not treating each and every cast, even a dap, as if it might yield a fish. Had I not been half paying attention, we might have an even nicer brookie to show.

I didn't know what to expect on the second stream, and am still not sure what population of fish it might hold, because I'm loathe to write off a brownie stream as not having fish, since it was high afternoon when we fish it, and winter is never a good time for me to gauge fish populations in freestone streams. It was a gorgeous stream from a scenic perspective, with little evidences of history all around; a stone wall streamside, holding up an old road bed (look closely on IMAG1448), and the remnants of an iron furnace tell a story of a more industrial day of that area. The 9" brownie was beautiful, with a typical red adipose fin of a wild brown, but he slipped away before I could grab the photo. And back to that mental mistake about not treating each cast as if it could yield a fish; I probably made three casts into the plunge pool before halfheartedly lobbing the fourth in, and thats when you usually end up with too much line out, or a short cast, or something. And that of course would be when the nice brownie chose to strike. He felt the sting of a hook, enough to roll him a little, but it wasn't a fish that I was going to hook by dumb luck or accident.

All in all, still a great day to be out; score one for Paflyfish.com in terms of putting people together to get out and enjoy the resource.

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Nice images... Yeah, it is difficult to guage what a winter trip tells you about a new stream... I found access to some new poconos brown trout water yesterday. Had a brownie hit a dry fly in mid30s air and high30s water. Does that suggest that in better conditions, 55 degree AM water with increasing temps, there would be five times as much action? Thats my guess, but returning in better conditions in the answer.

On another new stream, I never had a hit or saw a fish. Will probably not try it again. Id guess that if I had gone to a familiar place that usually has a lot of browns yesterday, I would have caught a few and seen many more.

Salmonoid

Great images - both mental and photographic. Looks like some very nice small stream waters you were fishing.

Dave

Matt-

Great post as usual. I always enjoy reading your posts, especially on weekends that I don't get fishing.