Valley Creek, Montgomery County, 3/8/10

[Mariner]

Hit Valley after dark on Monday. This was my first time doing the "go big or go home" thing for browns with streamers in PA. I've wanted to do it on Penns, but I had a chance to head out for a few hours after dark and hit the lower end of VC.

My partner pulled one out with a #14 PT and I was bank busting with a #4 conehead deerhair and bunny black leech.

We drew some interest from local law enforcement with the headlamps in the woods. They thought trout fishing was illegal until April. After some diplomacy they got it figured out and wished us luck (after asking detailed questions about what the fish "are biting on"...)

I forgot how hard on gear night fishing is. It's so much easier to break, step on, and lose everything. My nice 9-month-old TFO Finesse's reel seat came unglued in the parking lot. Plan B was a new-in-the-tube Cabela's Three Forks. It was functional.

I pulled out my best VC brown to date.

Off to the Yellow Breeches right now...

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

Awesome Brown! Good job! :-D

 

[fly_flinger]

Great fish man. That's the biggest brown I've seen come out of Valley.

 

[timmyt]

flat out awesome dude, I been fishing valley for a couple years now and never caught anything that big, day or night! Way to go!

That fish has to go close to 20 inches right?

 

[vcregular]

Nice fish! Good to know that there are still some biguns in there!

 

[mute]

holy crap thats amazing

 

[philfisher]

Very, very nice!

 

[wgmiller]

Nice fish!

There's an article in the recent Fly Fisherman magazine on a fly called the "Home Invader". It's flies like these, fished after dark that I feel strongly would nail big browns like the one you caught.

I must get out and do some 'after dark' fishing for browns this year!

 

[Fredrick]

NICE fish it has some meat on it too .

 

[smoothlarryhughes]

Hey Mariner...I'm heading out to valley creek today after work...What part of the creek were you fishing? I wanted to check out the lower portion that is not in the Valley forge park, Can you let me know where the creek is accessible further down? Any help is much appreciated. Nice Brown!

 

[govtmule]

great job!...AWESOME fish!....definitely a trophy for valley.

jeff

 

[CLSports]

Awesome fish. I've caught plenty of fish out of that stream, but never anything close to that. Good job.

 

[timmyt]

smooth larry hughes, the lower section of valley is all within the park, its the upper section that is not

I just got back from a lvalley lunch break session, brought a nice 13 incher to hand on a BWO dry about size 16 or 18, he was foulhooked, but I'll take it for the first of the season :-D

 

[marcq]

that brown could eat all the browns ive caught there. by the lower section you mean bellow the water fall? maybe it came up from the skuke.

 

[salmo]

With fish like that I'm afraid to wade. Great job. Is night fishing prohibited on some streams?

Salmo

 

[bam]

Great fish! I new they were in there somewhere. I've beat the 12 inch mark at Valley... but nothing like that

 

[sunra]

That is just beautiful! Looks like a brown from a nice sized river. Were you below the dam at Route 23?


Here's one I lucked into one day a while back at the big bend below the Chesterbrook bridge.

 

[mute]

Gill plate deformity?

 

[Mariner]

Here's a more modest picture of the same fish. It really wasn't that big. As to the locale, if the county borders on Google Earth are correct, I'd prefer to say that the Montgomery County stretch of Valley Cr. is sufficiently specific. To be overly judicious, my run-in with the law was with Tredyffrin LE and they were acting withing a good 100-yd. buffer of their jurisdiction.

Had a heck of a hard time of the Breeches today. Report after I get a photo uploaded...

 

[Fishidiot]

Nice job Mariner. I wouldn't think to go night fishing this time of year but yuh never know. I've always thought that browns were largely nocturnal throughout the year so I suppose one shouldn't be surprised to see big fish being caught even this time of year.