a river runs through it........twice

[salvelinusfontinalis]

we have all seen this..... walking a stream and it splits. sometimes the split is equal, most times it is not. one of the splits is almost always larger than the other. also just like fishing difficult lies and hard to reach holes, most anglers skip the smaller of the two splits. in most cases this is the best course of action, that is, at least temporarily. i try to come back to these splits and fish the smaller one on the way back to the car. i can name quite a few cases where the smaller split yielded the biggest fish of the day. these are not to be overlooked. these splits are not like a high water pathway, they are a natural free flowing characteristic of the stream. the fish use them, keep this in mind.

 

[live2fish]

I know a few streams that split and fish both. Usually the fish in one split are harder to catch than the other because of the character the stream. Than you get splits that hold no fish at all.

 

[MKern]

This happened to me this past year. It was a hot day in July, and the action on Fishing Creek, Clinton Co. was slow. A buddy and i split at a fork hoping to meet where we thought the creek would rejoin. On my side there was another split. The smaller one was a mountain stream. I decided to walk this one and to my surprize it was packed with 8 inch browns, and probably held brookies up farther. but not to loose my friend I decided to walk back. my guess is that everybody takes the side of the stream that he took because my side got shallow andthe brush formed a canapy over the water. Hopefully i can find this sport next year, i would like to fish the moutain stream.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

ah a success story. you explored and was rewarded. sometimes this happens and sometimes it doesnt. live2fish is right also. the fact is it cant be ignored. there might just be a 15 inch brown waiting the next hole down. just give it a look! :-D