April 8, 2017 – NEPA Mentored Youth Day with the Boy

Action shot.  No hits on the plug, but we didn't lose any in the trees either!

My son and I took a trip about 90 minutes north today to take advantage of the freshly stocked trout and Mentored Youth Day for the rest of the Commonwealth.  The creeks were ripping pretty good, a few close to official flood stage, but they were clearing up and falling, so I figured what the heck.  The boy charged up the Nintendo DS for the ride, while I loaded up with snacks and waters.  The plan was to fish one spot for a little while, have lunch somewhere, and then hit another spot for a bit.  We got on the road at a leisurely 10:00 AM, and he actually stuck with me until 3 PM.  We landed only 5 trout, but they were all memorable, big fish that put on a good show.

First of 5 on the day, all really decent sized fish.

We realized that we forgot boots for him about halfway into our drive, but we found some inexpensive and cool chore boots at a Walmart for 15 bucks, which my son enjoyed, especially at our second creek where recent flooding was definitely more evident.  As we crossed the first creek a couple of times, it definitely looked high but fine.  I was disappointed when we finished our walk to a spot I thought would make a great bank fishing location, only to find that the rocky beach was covered in water.  

Like river fishing for walleye or smallmouth in high water, the plan is rather simple: find an eddy and hope that the fish have been in long enough to figure out where to hide when the current is ripping, something bass and walleye and wild trout know very well in the early spring.  The boy took a few casts with a Rapala CD 5, but I had a suspicion that the fish were even deeper than that sinking plug could go.  Thankfully, I had another rod rigged up with a makeshift slip bobber rig.  I had a 1 inch thingamabobber rigged above a small barrel swivel to which I had connected a 4X leader and a heavy yellow and black mop fly.  A few heavy split shot above the swivel and a rubber band tied on the running line to act as a stopper, and we had a good way to cast the fly while making sure it would get deep enough.

An 18 inch brown in great shape.

Once I got the right drift along a seam and into the eddy in front of us, it didn’t take long to hook a nice brown of about 13 inches.  I handed the rod to the boy, and he fought him while I did the net job.  A quick picture and he was back in the water.  The next cast in the same spot yielded an indicator burying strike.  I set the hook and handed the rod to the boy, who fought a huge brownie.  He had never seen a fish so big on the end of his line!  He didn’t panic, though, and brought a fat 18 incher close enough for me to net.  This fish was a good looking fish.  Despite some wear on the tail fin, the rest of the fins looked very good, and it even had the blue dot near the eye—I hope this is a preview of the type of fish that were stocked in NEPA this year!

Big brown in the net.

Following a few good casts, the boy occupied himself by digging out rocks and exploring the bank to find cool sticks and whatever else gets 9 year-olds excited, however briefly.  In the meantime, I got another good fish on the line and called him over.  This time it was an 18 inch rainbow with some shoulders.  Like me, my son rarely gets demonstratively excited, but I could see how surprised and pleased he was with landing two huge trout in a short period of time.

Humoring him and checking out a couple spots upstream that were just moving a bit too fast to fish effectively, especially without waders, we then decided to take 5 more casts and take a break for lunch at McDonalds, of course.  I couldn’t talk him into hitting one of my old favorite pizza places, but it was his day.  The luck continued there, where he scored extra chocolate milk.  The first girl gave us drinks while we waited for the food, and then the food tray had another cup and another chocolate milk with the order when our number was called.  Keep it, she said, and we did.

After a good break, I convinced the boy that one other spot on a smaller creek may be better and would allow him to really test out his boots and fish independently.  It had also gotten significantly warmer than the 45 degree morning start.  Well, at least I was right about the boots coming in handy; I could have used them myself, honestly, as this creek had flooded a lot of the lower land around it.  The highlight was getting stuck in quicksand, both of us, which was good for a laugh and added to the getting dirty fun factor.  It was a mess, so he made a few casts at a few accessible spots, tested the limits of his calf-high boots, and even found a snake hiding on the bank. 

Other highlights.

I forgot the camera at this creek, but my son took the keys and ran back to get my phone to take a few shots of the reluctant reptile.  After some water for me and the bonus chocolate milk for him back at the Subaru, we packed up and headed home in time for dinner.  I am not sure what he enjoyed more, unlimited Nintendo DS Pokémon battles on the rides up and back, or the time outdoors, fishing with his dad, but I can tell when my son is having a good day, and he had a good day—and therefore so did I.

 This bow was also 18 inches, like the earlier brown trout.

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