As proud members of the PAFF Team WWI ("warm water insurgents" :-D) Afishinado and I took yesterday to hit the North Branch Suquehanna River for some fly rod bassin. Afish grew up in this area and has fished the river for decades. Thanks again for showing me the ropes Tom. It was a beautiful day with air temps in the 80s, water was 78 degrees and about 1.3 at the WB gage. In our experience, when pursuing SMBs with FF gear on big PA rivers, the lower and warmer the river, the better the fishin (most of the time). Right now many big PA rivers are at ideal levels for wade fishing. Nevertheless, river bass have rarely treated me well in June and today was no exception. Despite good conditions the fishin was very slow. I managed only several fish and although Afish did better, between the two of us, for as many hours as we fished, we would have expected better. To be sure, a frontal system had blown through on Thursday evening and post frontal conditions combined with perhaps some lingering post spawn doldrums just had the fish in an off mode. The ones I did manage wanted a nymph dead drift. Afish got his mostly on the swing. Go figure. The best bass of the day was a nicely colored 17 incher (see photo). This bass had the typical dime sized wound on his upper back just forward of his dorsal, which can be seen in the photo. These mild scuff wounds are almost always a result of bass that are attacking crayfish and madtoms around boulders and these wounds are incurred by the bass trying to wedge under rocks to seize their prey. As always, it was a nice day on the river but fishin was slow. Things in the North Branch should pick up soon.
We'll have to get Team WWI together later this summer for a warm water mini Jam or muskie hunt.
We'll have to get Team WWI together later this summer for a warm water mini Jam or muskie hunt.
