It's Nearly August, I'll Take what I can Get!

Friday, Todd and I hit Valley Creek.  This is a lovely limestone stream which runs through Valley Forge National Park.  I used to fish it semi-regularly when I worked in Philly.  Now I tend to travel north, and haven't fished it in 4 or 5 years.  But since Todd and I both have PA licenses, and Todd lacks a NJ one, it seemed like a good idea to travel SW.  It's only about 45 minutes from Trenton, which actually makes it closer than just about any wild trout stream in NJ.  And since it's pretty much a limestone, it stays cooler than most of the freestone NJ streams, and is more or less fishable, even now.

Of course, Todd likes to cast only to rising fish, so rather than fish the pocket water (which is what I've always done), we headed for the flatter, quieter downstream runs and pools which dominate the stream as it approaches the Skuylkill River, looking for risers.

We arrived about 8.  For the first 45 minutes or so, we didn't see any fish.  Then, mysteriously, we started to see moving shapes in the nearly crystal clear water.  One or two at first, then a few more.  A few minutes later, miraculously, a rise here and there.  But no apparent hatch.

I tied on an ant pattern, and then a inchworm, and covered a few such risers fish with no joy.  Todd wandered off and did his thing.  We regrouped an hour or so later, and neither of us had experienced any success.

It was by now well after 10, and it seemed like that this would be the last structure we'd fish.  We approached a riffle which emptied into a multi-tongued pocket at the head of a nice, long, deep run, with a moderate current and a distinct foam line.  Perfect for nymphing, and turbulent enough to perhaps mask my presence.  (A big issue in fishing Valley Creek is that the fish are at times insanely spooky).  I tied on a tiny bead-head copper john, and a thing-a-ma-bobber strike indicator, which looks like a small, orange bubble.

On my first cast into the head of the run, a trout exploded out of the pocket and struck my indicator.  Oh, my!  I was expecting Ph.D. fish, and here we have an aggressive fish that is simply looking for something big and bright on the surface!  So I pulled in my line, cut off the tiny nymph, and replaced it with a nice, big #10 Dave's Hopper, with a yellow belly, and a hot red tail.

I then proceeded to cast into the pocket, on a short line, holding the rod tip high to get a nice dead drift through the different tongues of current and back eddies.  4 or 5 casts into it, I was pretty sure I'd covered the spot where the fish had risen, and was starting to doubt whether this would work, when I noticed a slight brown underwater shadow shift in parallel with the hopper's drift.  Just for a moment or two.  The fish had moved slightly, and was now holding about 2 feet further out, in the next tongue of the current.

I cast just into he next seam, kept a nice, sweet drift on the fly as it swept around a boulder and downstream.  As it drifted over where I'd just seen the fish, it was rewarded with a solid strike by a chunky brown trout!

I confess the fish was on only briefly, a dozen seconds or so, then somehow spit the fly and got away.  So I don't know how big he actually was, though I'd guess a fat 11 or 12".  Were I on my own, and if I didn't have an appointment back in Trenton, I might then have gone for a search for similar pockets, tossing the hopper.  But it was late, and time to go.

Still, it's nearly August, and I'll take what I can get.  Actually it seemed pretty good.