Lehigh River, Carbon County, 4/1/ 2012

This is crazy, yes, with the mild winter the swarm of insects will make at least some people happy!
 
They're gorging themselves on pupae, your legs were probably covered with a crawling mass of bugs.
 
Last summer was kind to the trout in the river. Lots of rain and the river stayed cool, for the most part of the summer.

The numbers of trout that are being seen in the river this year is a direct result of being able to keep the river cool with a good flow. The trout will respond accordingly. River levels are perfect right now for surface activity, so that helps too.

Shane - wouldn't it be nice to have it this way every year??? It is possible you know.

That vid is amazing for the amount of bugs. I've seen days like that in the past during those caddis hatches. Were those the grannom caddis (black body) or the green body?

BH - that first trout pictured with limited spotting is most likely a wild or fingerling grown up. The 2nd, larger more spotted, brown is likely a holdover stocked fish, but is a solid fish.

Regardless...both are nice fish to catch in a large trout river.

With all these fishys being caught, I hope people will fill out the surveys. http://www.thelehighriver.org/survey.php

Last year anglers participation was very poor, however that was likely due to river levels being almost unfishable the entire summer.
 
LehighRegular wrote:
Last summer was kind to the trout in the river.

Last year anglers participation was very poor
Click to expand...

Maybe there are more trout IN the river now because less were taken OUT last year than usual?

 
Hey Becker, I was one of the 2 guys you saw while you filmed this. Ditto on the caddis hatch. It was unreal only to be outdone by a few white fly hatches I have seen on the Susky. My guess is they are gorged on what is underneath.

I played with the rising fish below you until he finally stopped and I could not see. Did catch one big brown earlier in the fast water on a Hendrickson.

By the way, we have a bet. Did you fall in over your waders or not?
 
Maybe there are more trout IN the river now because less were taken OUT last year than usual
Click to expand...

Troutbert

Very possible...but I think it might have to do more with water temps then creeling. Big river and its hard to "fish it out".

When the water stays cool the trout won't concentrate at the tribs/springs. Then the locals can't hammer on them and fill up their coolers.

But it doesnt hurt the trout numbers if people can't catch and kill them.

 
AugustWest wrote:
Hey Becker, I was one of the 2 guys you saw while you filmed this. Ditto on the caddis hatch. It was unreal only to be outdone by a few white fly hatches I have seen on the Susky. My guess is they are gorged on what is underneath.

I played with the rising fish below you until he finally stopped and I could not see. Did catch one big brown earlier in the fast water on a Hendrickson.

By the way, we have a bet. Did you ,fall in over your waders or not?
Click to expand...

I would not describe it as a fall. More of a gradual slide that I could not stop, till I began to float. 🙂. There were some real beasts on top. Those fish were like a whales swimming across the top of the water with their mouths open. Taking in all of the insects that floated near them.
 
There were three different kinds of caddis hatching, possibly four. Green, cinnamon, tan, and black body. I saw more green bodied below Palmerton. I then moved up river and saw black and tan and cinnamon. All different sized caddis as well. This is why we had such a hard time picking up fish. So many different kinds and sizes on the water all at once. Throw in spent caddis, hendericksons, and spinners. Just impossible to determine what exactly they wanted. Wt tried everything.
 
Those massive caddis hatches are fantastic. What time did you start fishing. The fish in my local stream that gets grannoms seems to turn on to the egg layers in the afternoon from around 11-1, then I'm assuming you caught some of the spent caddis in the evening. Having that many bugs can be a crap shoot, even if it's just one type. The fish can gorge themselves, but also be very particular at the same time. You have to make your presentation stand out amongst the naturals in a good way. Check out my "skittering" technique I posted about in the tips forum. That can help.

Glad you had a great day on the stream. Those days are few and far between, but what we all look for on a daily basis.
 
I concur with Becker The spent caddis in the afternoon were green and pretty big. And yes the only fish I caught was on a Hendrickson. Then @ 5 PM the hordes of caddis were in the air and zooming upstream, all sizes and dark to tan. It was fun to watch but frustrating not to hook the very nice fish rising to them as the evening moved in.

Last week I was successful with caddis emergers in the film but did not have the answer last night.

I will take your word on the slide and call you safe.
 
Even though the fish catching was disappointing, knowing I live less then 5 minutes from those fish, is reassureing we will tangle again soon.
 
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Hey I finally figured out how to upload pics...I was out that same day as Shane (we'll have to catch up sometime). I figured it wouldn't hurt to beef up the original post although its somewhat dated at this point...

I was further north up near Rockport.
There were a lot of bugs, but it was heavy with Mayflies...I didn't experience the caddis blizzard. Found a bunch of nice browns that were willing to play and a random bow that took a streamer as I was walking upstream (trolling?).
 
Look at those little things lol ;-)
 
Great report and really nice pics Sb. Good times on the water.
 
Is the river wadeable now or have flows increased too much? I fished the Rockport area mid April and it was extremely wadeable.
 
I was there 5/13, not much experience fishing there and got my *** handed to me. The river seemed very tough to wade with discharge increased to 450 for the weekend. I love the setting of the big river, but I've never had luck finding really good spots to wade. I fished From Glen Onoko upstream, saw some sulphurs and a MB or two but nothing significant. Hung around till 6 waiting for something to materialize but left with the skunk.
 
Re wading. Generally folks prefer 300cfs as the maximum from the dam for easier wading. Now depending on how aggressive of a wader you are, you can get around in the Rockport area with a higher release - say 450cfs. Now the other thing you must factor in, is how much trib influence there might be at the current time.

I will say the March and April levels were unbelievably low. The gage at Lehighton was setting daily all-time record low levels for the date.
 
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