June 29, 2015 – The Bushkill Creek After Another Round of Summer Rain

A big paddle of a tail and great fins on this healthy 14 inch rainbow.

After having such an unexpectedly good trip on Sunday with my son, I decided to take advantage of the good creek flows and take Monday morning to fish the Bushkill near Easton.  Kenny and I had fished this general area earlier in the month with good results.  We were spin fishing that day, and at the time I wished I had brought the fly rod, as I watched fish rise all around us in the post-rain morning to what looked like blue winged olives and a couple small caddis.  I checked the gauges for the creek and the nearby Little Lehigh before I went to bed, and the water was coming back down quickly, but the area must have gotten another shot of heavy rain overnight because the creek was still pretty messy when I arrived around 5:30 AM.  

This guy hung with me for an hour looking for a handout or just entertained by my angling prowess in the mud flow...

Not knowing the stretch I had decided to fish all that well, wading was tough, and determining how deep I was fishing or needing to target involved a lot of trial and error, not to mention lost flies.  Heavy streamers have a way of finding every hidden rock and submerged log, and I lost the first cone head bugger within minutes of dropping into the creek.  This place is tough to wade even when you can see your feet and the rocks on the bank aren’t wet, but this morning only the fastest, shallowest runs allowed me even a clue as to where I was walking and casting.  Fittingly enough, today I was wishing I had brought a spinning rod and big flashy plug or spinner that I could sneak through undercut banks and low hanging trees covering bankside eddies and such.

A brown that found his way into an unstocked stretch of water.

While tough going, it ended up being a decent day, with at least 6 good fish winding up in the net or my hand.  Although I was fishing an area that usually has a good mixed population, the wild fish were hunkered down, nowhere to be found today—though while using a big cone head wooly bugger I hooked and briefly fought what appeared to be a bigger wild brown late in the morning.  The rainbows I did hook and land were healthy and strong.  One looked to be nearly wild, with a huge paddle of tail and a full set fins the bright color of a wild brown trout’s.

Besides a couple on the streamer, the big flashy copper john was the only consistent producer.

I saw no rises or even actively feeding fish all morning, and I expected more follows on the streamers.  The two I did catch on the cone head took a slow pulsing retrieve as it swung in the current near the bottom.  The wild brown just mouthed it, and came unbuttoned as a result, I am sure.  The most memorable fish was the one pictured at the top of this post, a good 14 inch fish that would not quit in the fast water.  I could not get his head above the surface long enough to glide him into the net until the third or fourth attempt.  I am thinking that he’s been around these parts for a while, as he was in a prime holding spot against a bridge abutment in a tangle of tree branches and rip rap.  The shine of a big size 14 copper john coaxed him out of hiding, as it did for four of the other six fish I landed this morning. It was a good, short trip with plenty of solitude and quiet.  Even being adjacent to the city limits, my only company was my pet goose, who fished beside me for a good hour.

Another rainbow in good shape.

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