the fish gods don't care

The fish gods don't care
by Kevin huntington

Over the past couple of months I’ve spent nearly every weekend on the water chasing trout in VA, MD, PA and NY.  From stockers to native brookies and wild browns and bows, I got into a little bit of everything and had a blast doing it. 

As is the case with this wonderful sport, each new piece of water presented a fresh tactic or challenge, which to me is a big reason why we do what we do.  There are no words to describe the feeling you get when you stick that first lunker on a new piece of water, totally out of your comfort zone, wondering in the back of your mind if the trout are rolling because they are hungry or just plain laughing at you.  Regardless of success, each trip out on the river is a chance to sharpen your tools, add crucial experience, and put more arrows in your quiver of fishing expertise, so never pass up an opportunity to learn something new. It may just pay off down the road.      

Starting in early June, my pops and I had a couple father-son trips on the books to some blue ribbon trout streams that we were both anxiously awaiting.  The first long weekend took us up towards Penn State University in State College, PA to fish the fabled Penn’s Creek and Spring Creek— two of PA’s more famous trout waters.

 That said, the Fish God’s could care less. The entire week leading up to the trip was unfortunately filled with rain….lots of rain…which promptly threw a wrench in our plans. The rain mercifully subsided on Wednesday evening and since our first day on the water was Friday, I was cautiously optimistic that maybe, just maybe we’d have fishable water.  After the 3½ hour trek up from the Philadelphia area, we got our first look at the river on Friday morning and it was obvious my optimism hadn’t done me much good.

 We had hoped to arrive to a gently rolling river and green drakes so thick you can barely see.  But as is fishing, we got a temperamental river and not a single drake in sight.  The river was high, dirty, and flowing hard. Our first day was spent throwing dries at sparsely rising fish, and nymphing standard pheasant tail and drake nymphs.  Pops brought a couple decent browns to hand, but your boy had nothing to show on Day 1.  That’s just how it goes sometimes.

The next day we called an audible and drove about 40 miles out to Spring Creek right next to Penn State University.  It turned out to be one of those trip-saving calls as Spring Creek was in prime shape – just slightly full from the past rains and slightly off color.

 We started our day off dead drifting the same fly choices as before, but when you’re fishing a spring creek, it’s never a bad idea to throw one a scud or cressbug to see who’s home.  Size 16 olive scuds were the choice of the day, and produced a bunch of nice fish throughout our time on the water.  That said, Hawg Johnson and a shot at the 20/20 club eluded me once again.  I saw the monster finning in a tailout at the end of a skinny side run –often, a fatal error for any large trout. As I got mentally prepared to take on this beast one-on-one, I proceeded to throw about 6 different nymphs at him with no love.  WHAT GIVES?

But in times like this, sometimes you just have to go back to basics. I tied on a crystal bead head #20 zebra midge, and the fish couldn’t say no.  After setting hard on him, the beast immediately bolted downstream towards the next riffle, with me running along the side of the stream doing my best Brad Pitt impression.  Dodging logs and rocks all while trying to keep some tension, I wrangled him into some slower water, and had him 5 feet from me. Five fucking feet from pay-net.

 As I reached for my net, I felt a small tick. The line went slack and immediately was filled up with that oh-so-awful feeling that can bring any fly angler to his knees.  The fly came out clean. My entire effort dashed in the span of half a second. In disbelief, I watched him swim away without ever as much as getting his head out of the water. 

But that’s why we fish.

Hawg will always keep me coming back for more.

A couple weeks later, my dad and I ventured just across the PA border into New York to fish the West Branch of the Delaware River.  As far as the East Coast goes, the West Branch is a place where you can catch monster browns on dry flies on a fairly regular basis.

 You have to wait for your shots, and make them count, but when it’s on it can be off the hook.  That being said, 2014 has been an odd weather spring with the rough winter we had.  The bugs just didn’t arrive in numbers as early as usual.  Again, the Fish Gods bullied us and we arrived to a river with very little insect activity.  It would not deter us.

We floated different sections of the river the next two full days.  The first day was spent stalking big fish, and we only really got a couple decent looks at 2 fish.  Neither of which wanted to come out and play.  But the first evening saw the biggest brown of the trip caught. He munched a greyfox collar style dry fly and put up a great fight—topping out around 18” with a big old butter belly. 

The second day was spent nymphing faster water with mostly pheasant tails and iso nymphs.  We got into a few more fish, but not the monster brown we came to hunt. Hawg would remain elusive. The best fish of day 2 was an 18” rainbow that munched an iso nymph.  I was fishing a 10’ two-handed switch 5 weight that was built to nymph, and this brute almost took me into my backing running downstream.  

After a good 10 minute fight, he was eventually brought to the net, and we got a couple grip and grin shots for the folks back home.  The biggest lesson learned fishing for these larger fish on smaller tackle was get the fish ON THE REEL.  For better or for worse, many of the smaller trout streams around the DC area often don’t require the drag a reel provides.  However if you try to strip these fish on light tippet, you’re going to snap them off fish after fish. It’s worse than death by a thousand cuts.  We highly recommend that whenever possible - get your fish on the reel and let it do its job!

Overall both trips were a blast and time well spent with good company.  We had a lot of laughs, kept sharpening our tools each day out, drank plenty of frothy beverages and even caught a few fish to boot.  I’m sure we’ll be back to both State College and the West Branch soon.

Hawg Johnson is always lurking around the next bend.

Stay Fly.

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