Late report on the Littie Lehigh. 7/5/15

[gunshy028]

Arrived at 6:00am. Weather was beautiful. Air temp was 61 degrees. Water was very low despite all the rain. No water temp reading but as usual, refreshingly cold. Fished the area in the parkway between the iron bridge and the gauging station. Picked up 2 on zebra midge/beadhead pheasant tail combo. Around 7:30ish, tricos appeared and the "semi" blizzard was on. The hatch was pretty decent and the fish were eating. Had luck with a #24 Al's trico at first then switched to a #28 polywing spinner. Ended up with a bunch ranging from a 7" streambread "football" brown, and the largest estimated around 14". All beautifully colored streambread browns.

All was over by 11:00am. I had a blue herron follow me upstream all morning trying to get a free meal. He was obviously looking for risers just like me. He finally prevailed with what was a really nice brown about 12". Swollowed it whole. :-( I know they need to eat but it makes me wonder if thats where all the LL trout are going. There used to be many fish but lately over the course of the last few years, numbers seemed to have dwindled. Still very happy with the outcome.

 

[SNJChef]

We had a decent hatch in the morning yesterday also. Shut down around 1015 or so.

 

[Takem]

Decent hatch today but not many fish rising. It was a little crowded.

 

[CLSports]

There has been good hatches of Tricos the past two weekends I have been there. The fish are on them, but I saw fewer rises than past years in sections on the lower creek. Maybe that fishing derby they had there this spring affected the wild trout population a bit this year . . .

 

[gunshy028]

Back in the late 80's and early 90's, the fish population below the c&r was huge. I think the derbys over the years kept the stocked population replenished year after year. Stream bred or holdover never mattered. I was able to target the larger fish in each pool. All the larger holdovers that weren't caught after a derby would eat trikes. They were good times. I'm just glad I can still find a few here and there.

I never tried above the c&r but I think I should check it out.