Fly fishing often conjures up images of serene wooded settings, where all an angler hears in the gurgling of the stream. Sometimes, though, you gotta go where the trout are. So Friday evening we headed to the back of the Hampton Inn in Stroudsburg to fish Pocono Creek. And instead of nature, we were serendaded by the traffic rolling along I-80,which ran next to the stream. No matter. Stroudsburg might not be the schwerpunkt of Pocono's trout fishing, but the three streams that run through the city (Pocono, McMichael, and Broadhead Creeks) offer lots of public access, a large population of stocked, holdover and wild fish, and little pressure after the first couple of weeks of the season.
Got on the water around 7:30 PM. Started out with a wooly bugger that a trout slammed on the first cast, but soon after switched to a sulfur parachute before it got too dark to see. Over the course of the next hour and a half we picked up another nine Brownies, all with the deep colors of fish that had escaped the frying pan of the early season. All of the fish caught in a 100 yard stretch of the stream.
Early the next morning we tried the Broadhead at the baseball park off Appenzeller Road. A few fish coming up to emergers, but what was emerging I had no clue. So we flailed away at the water, picking up two Rainbows on a wooly bugger and green-bodied caddis.
Took a short break in the early afternoon to fish spinners in Charlie Cole's (friend of Dad) farm pond in lower Mt. Bethel. Early on the bluegill and crappies were on the bite. Dad had to leave, brother Kelly and his son Jeremy showed up, and as the water warmed up we picked up quite a few bass, one that easily went 5 pounds when it jumped, spit out Kelly's spinner, and no kidding laughed at us as he dove back into the water.
That evening Dad and I returned to the Pocono. It seems from personal experience that fly fishers go through three stages of development. The first is just trying to catch a fish. Once that technique is somewhat mastered, then fishing becomes all about numbers. But finally, (and while you never really stop counting), fly fishing reaches the stage where success is measured by figuring out what the fish are eating. It's like Zen, I guess, except that you spend a lot on mony getting there....
We had done pretty well the night before, but it seemed to me that the fish were going after emergers. So I started out with a bunny emerger. Dad initially stuck to his green-bodied caddis. On my second cast a Rainbow hit the fly and proceeded to take me to the backing. Although I was surprised to see that he was only about 14 inches, he had a lot of fight. And for the next hour the action was pretty steady. It was chuck the fly across the stream, and feel the drag as the fly swung down the current. If a trout didn't hit on the swing, then a couple of short strips at the bottom of the swing enticed a trout to strike. Dad finally relented and tied on an emerger and got in the fun.
A great weekend, made more so by the opportunity to fish with an 82 year old geezer who knows how to catch trout. Happy Father's Day Pop.
-MikeyDFishing
Great shots and great fish
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