A free weekend and lots of brook trout

I had a free weekend. I mean, really free. No homework, no lessons to plan for Sunday morning, no work, nothing. Not to mention, temps were very nice.

I kicked it off w/ a Friday evening trip to Hammer Creek. The bait slingers were EVERYWHERE, but none of them came down stream to where I was fishing. I guess they figured there were no stocked trout down there. They were right. All the trout I caught were wild. A few wild browns, but more importantly many native brookies including one very nice 10" brook trout.

After sleeping in and spending some time w/ the fam on Saturday, I set out for some small stream exploration. I met up w/ a newbie on PA Fly Fish who wanted to tag along. The stream I was planning on fishing is a tributary to Hammer that I never fished before. I made it known to the noob what kind of fishing I'd be doing, yet he still decided to show up! So we headed up this tiny little trib. I'm glad I did. Despite the tight quarters, there were a lot of brook trout in that stream. I know this, not from catching a lot, but from spooking a lot! Gin clear water, blue bird skies, and a stream you don't know leads to a lot of darting trout. Still, I managed to land a few. Very pretty and very orange were the brookies in this stream.

After the exploration, I headed up another trib to Hammer that I know very well. On our hike in, I noticed two other fly fishermen. Now, I'm generally not very social, but I had never seen anyone else fishing this stream, so I had to go talk to them. I'm glad I did because it turned out that they were two members of PA Fly Fish! A very pleasant surprise indeed! One of the guys was very excited because the trib was fishing very well. This stream got nailed by the floods 3 years ago, and didn't seem to recover as well as the other small streams in the area. Saturday showed us just how resilient nature can be, though. The brookies were out in force, and taking dry flies! We had an excellent day working our way up this trib, and I'm excited to see this stream recover even further.

Today was going to be my sabbath rest. However, after coming home from church, the wife decided to take a nap and I found myself alone thinking about fishing. Some friends recently fished a very small stream not 15 minutes from me in the next town over, a stream that I've been meaning to fish for several years. They gave me an access point and I headed out. As I said, this is a very small stream, and very tight, but there were indeed a lot of trout. Every little pool had brookies willing and ready to take my elk hair caddis. The best fish of the day was an old brookie with a big head and bright orange belly. Absolutely beautiful trout in this little stream. I can't imagine trying to get around it in the summer with the brush fully grown in, but in the spring its a great stream to hit and I hope to fish it again soon when I have more time to really invest in exploring it.

The air is warm, the water is warming, and the brook trout are rising. Is this never-ending winter finally ending!?