Tulpehocken Creek - Berks County - April 20

[wbranch]

Took my time getting to the Tully. Arrived at noon. Parked at the Paper Mill. No one in the flat pool all day, neat to have all that flat water to myself. Two guys down in the riffle where that little creek comes in. River must have been dropped over night because when I arrived it couldn't of been much more than 200. I had looked at the gage last night and thought it was running something like 350 cfs.

I could see fish rising from the path to the stream. There were over half a dozen riseforms within 20' of me. I sat down and took off a two fly nymph rig and put on a new 9' 5X leader and added 3' of 6X tippet and a #18 tan Lafontaine emergent pupa.

I know it sounds flip but every fish that I cast to either ate the fly and was hooked or ate the fly and I missed the hook up. I landed XX, rose at least another XX, hooked some but they got unbuttoned and about 6 I just plain missed. By 4:45 there were no more rising fish but I didn't want to leave so waited a few minutes and found one 2' off of the bank and it ate the fly on the 2nd cast. Most were little 8"-10" browns, one was 12" and two were 14". For me it was just great to have so many targets and being able to cover them effectively and have them eat the bug.

BTW yesterday the flow was slightly over 300 cfs. The gage right now is reading 228 cfs.

It's funny how yesterday when I fished the Wisconisco I got blanked and today I couldn't do anything wrong. Perseverance pays off!

 

[lestrout]

Yo WB - I saw your car parked at the bend there, but the flat looked pretty quiet. So I decided to see if they fixed the potholey road on Water St. (they sort of did). There was a guide and 2 sports there and several different caddis in the air, along with midges. Once the trouts knew I had arrived, 2 of them rose. So I geared up with my Kenney glass and got in the water above the anglers at 2:40. Before I got to the block, one of the risers came up several more times, so I caddissed him and had him on for a bit.

The trouts started to feed, breaching the surface once in a while, but they were mostly chewing on pupae coming up. Enough of them came up to hit at my caddis, and if I had stayed attached to all of the hitters, I would have hit 3 digits. I don't know how these trouts can make the fly disappear and yet I never feel a thing. I did get 2 on the pickup, so that partially vindicates me.

Unlike the session on the Breeches where I went through 2 dozen flies to land just 4 trouts, I used the same caddis for the first 15 fish. Every fourth one was a brown, and most were fat, strong and 10-12 inches. Only a couple were 14". My fly, which had caught some other trouts in the past, was getting pretty shaggy, so I thought I would see what else they would hit. I only got several hookups on them, so I went back to the same pattern, tied on that funky reverse bend barbless hook. I thought as it got darker and the feeding intensified, I would raise my hookup ratio, but nooooo - the trouts got harder to move to my fly and even harder to get to hit, much less hookup, keep connected and land.

Still, I did get a goodly bunch more, and curiously now I was landing mostly browns. What made me quit at 7:35, when there was still plenty of light left, was the last rainbow took off on a fast run, taking my fly with it. Poor line management on my part, but I figured I must have been getting tired and sloppy. I had done what I came for, which was to see how the stream had changed (it hasn't) and if the buggies were healthy (they were). So I decided to go see if the Paper Mill flat had any risers (it did).

The light and weather were wonderful, and only a couple more anglers were able to brave their cars down the road. I don't think they got too much since they left before I did.

 

[McSneek]

I fished the flat water above the Palisades riffle from about 2:00 to 5:00pm today. Got down to the stream and immediately noticed many caddis in the air and rise forms everywhere. Also realized my box with my caddis dries was home in the closet. Only had two tan #16 cdc caddis with me. Only needed one. After sort of a slow start I tagged fish after fish on that pattern. Some really nice fat rainbows in that stretch. Several I think were holdovers from the fall fingerling stocking. Caught a lot of fish by drifting my fly downstream over them. In between watching fish eat my fly it was really cool to watch many caddis struggling to get airborne and the inevitable splashy rise as fish ate them. Decent water level. I had the stream to myself. Noticed plenty of guys in the other popular spots on my way home.