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Trip Report: Low Water (Long)
Thursday morning, I set the out-of-office autoreply on my work email.
It always feels good to do that, almost as good as watching the cell phone's bars vanish, and hearing the warning that accompanies "No Service." It means you can measure communication differently. I packed the beer, the guns, the chainsaw and the fly rods, and I was on my way. I pay close attention to the song that first pops up as I'm pulling out the driveway. In the aftermath, it might've been significant, lending some mystical approval to a fishing trip. I heard the tenor of Eddie from Live singing "You are the World." Skip the mysticism and approval - I love the sounds in that song but I have no idea what he's talking about. Stop for gas and ice, so my Victory All-Malt Lagers can reach the appropriate temperature for quaffing. At the Upper Bucks STAB Lagering Station, also known as the Dinsmore Residence, we packed more stuff in the back of Andy's pickup. Fishing gear, wet weather gear, more food, more beer, more gear, restocking for the cabin, snacks for the ride, enough **** to fill an F150 with a cap. As Zak observed, carrying the second backup to the first alternate cooler, we're only going for six weeks. The first hundred or so miles flew by. Zak and I talked me about his recent trip to Eastern Europe and all the fantastic beer-and-sausage dinners other fishing trips, books, some mutual bonehead friends, writing, the state of affairs in the world and our love lives. Lunch at the I-80 Wawa was the traditional Hot Roast Beef Hoagie, a sort of Dinty-Moore-inna-bun contraption, snarfed down on the tailgate of Andy's truck. With high expectations, we jumped onto I-80, cruised ten miles and began the PennDOT crawl: miles of elaborate traffic routing expressly designed to minimize the efficiency of the highway. Were massive improvements underway, it would be tolerable. Seeing scores of men running compactors, welding, setting steel, floating concrete, surveying, that would've made the traffic understandable. As it is, we saw one guy parked in a truck drinking coffee and another leaning on a core saw. The joke goes like this: What do Pennsylvania road construction sites and the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra have in common? No Pennsylvania road construction workers. If the wading shoe fits... We'd never have thought it, but we were glad to see Williamsport. In the clear sky, a blimp was circling. Ameriquest it said on the side. I guess I don't pay enough for Goodyear Wranglers when I get new tires. Five cars came the opposite direction on Route 15, and Andy made a snide comment about Canton Rush Hour. After the million traffic barrels on I-80, I think I'll take rush hour in Canton. Route 15 is a pending interstate, soon to become I-99, and it looks like an interstate: Plenty of clearance above, wide shoulders and no curves. Jump off onto Route 14, and the story changes. The curves get sharp, the bridge decks are low, down close to the streams and the trees overhang it. You know you're going the right way when the first town off the big highway is Trout Run. The temperature cools ten degrees down there. We twisted and turned up into Canton, rolled rolled up the dusty dirt road, hung a right at the sheep and there was the cabin. There are three steps that vie for primacy on arrival: opening the cabin up to air out, starting a fire and drinking a beer. Zak had a new lighter, Andy had the keys to the cabin, and since there was only one other job available, I took to it with gusto, wielding a Simms bottle opener my wife got me and dispensing Dog Fish Head Aprihop, Spaten Munchen, Saranac Lager and various Victory brews. Before long, we'd managed to start a sizable forest of empties on the porch window ledges, we were howling with laughter and flinging logs into the fire. About that time, Roger showed up with dinner. A friend of ours, invited but unable to attend, sent along deer steaks, marinated and ready to go. We beered him and cooked the deer steaks on sticks over the fire. Cigars and scotch came out. Dirty jokes were told. For sixteen dollars, I bought a fleece sleeping bag from Cabela's, this one being special because it is ninety inches long, rather than the usual seventy-six. It worked great on that humid night, and it wasn't that hard to escape it for the three A.M. call of nature. When in Tioga County, we don't believe in rushing things. About half past eight, I rolled out for breakfast. Coffee without bugs, sausage, bacon, eggs (except for me - they won't let me near them), toast, all you would expect. We had another round of coffee while doing the dishes, then plinking at soda cans while waiting turns at the outhouse. After the important things were taken care of, we began to debate the location of the first fishing stop: The esteemed representative from Upper Bucks (the Right Hon. A. Dinsmore) recited a list of traditional locations for fishing: the county bridge picnic area, the drivable trail and the lakes at the state park. The esteemed representative from Chester County (the Right Hon. Z. Binder) produced an unprintable exclamation on missing the upended beer can with a volley of rifle fire. Upper Bucks pointed out that the esteemed representative from Lower Bucks (the Right Hon. S. Cain) had failed to discharge his duty of procuring and transporting bread for sandwiches. Lower Bucks responded with a series of self-recriminations. Chester pointed out that not having lunch to accompany us eliminated both the trail and the state park, as they were to far to go without a lunch and possibly a fine malted beverage. The esteemed representative from Frederick County (the Right Hon. R. Clark), by means of deduction, declared that only the county bridge picnic area was within range. Lower Bucks, having just drawn a bead on a ratty old potato, shot it, and dodged starchy shrapnel, posited a plan: Inception at the county bridge picnic area, going to the store afterwards. Lunch would commence at home base and be followed by a quick siesta and a trip down the drivable trail during the early afternoon. Frederick seconded the motion via a belch of excellent tone and duration, and the motion was passed. By eleven, we packed up and drove down to the river. While driving a dirt road through the state forest. I spotted a dappled tan chicken running along the side of the road. I thought the bird's coloration was unusual for a chicken, but that's how it ran. As the bird took flight into the underbrush, it spread its orange fan-shaped tail. I've never seen a grouse in the wild before, and after my recent introduction to the fascinating sport of wingshooting, I made a mental note to check the seasons and locations for a trip up during the fall. We knew things were not exactly as they always were when we crossed the county bridge. The water was very low. The pool just upstream of the bridge was about a foot lower than usual. We kitted up, blinking in the hot sun, and trudged down to the river. It isn't really a river here, more of a creek. The flow runs about fifty CFS, mostly. It has a low gradient and not a lot of overhanging stuff, despite the otherwise verdant mountains surrounding it. There are pools and riffles, the occasional solid rock sluice and flat pebbly runs. The river is also cold and full of fish. You can go fish ninja-style here and pick up spooky natives on dries, and I started that way. I kneeled on a rock and cast a stimulator to an eddy near a rock and a brookie nailed it. I stood up to fight the fish and half a dozen fish bolted for the riffle at the head of the pool. Ah, well. A nine-inch brookie came to hand, cold and struggling hard. It wasn't in spawning colors, but the green vermiculations on its back and tiny pink and blue dots were wonderful. Those fish are truly the most beautiful fish to ever fin water. I crept up the river, doing it again and again, taking mostly smallish fish, on the order of seven or eight inches. There weren't as many young dinks as I recalled from last year. The might've had a hard time in the lower water, getting shouldered out of the good lies by bigger fish. A convenient rock presented itself, carved into an excellent seat by many thousands of years of water, so I took advantage and had a snack and a smoke. It was a glorious day for doing anything, though a bit too bright and hot for fishing. Still, we drove five hours to fish, so we fished. The sky looks different through hemlocks lining a stream bank, much brighter and clearer there than even five miles over through the maples over the cabin. I thing it might be a function of some sort of vapors released by a trout stream that cause subtle changes to the optic nerves of a man sitting by that stream. It provides a clarity of vision that can be compared to cleaning a really dirty set of eyeglasses. No matter the cause, it was good to watch the tops of the hemlocks get tousled by a cooling breeze. I hiked back down, examining the pools where I had luck and dunking my hat in the cool water. At one of the first pools I tried, I saw three fish rising tight to an undercut bank. Well, I thought, why not? I cast with little success: It was hard to get the fly under the bank without the current pulling it into the middle of the pool. The fish never went down, just continued to rise. I hiked a bit upstream, crossed the river and climbed the bank to the road. A bit more hiking downstream and I came in at the tail of the pool. One fish spooked ahead of me and moved himself ten feet upstream. I kneeled in the cold water and began to work out line. I hung a stimulator in a bush above the undercut bank, broke it off so as not to disturb the riser below. In situations like that, I like to take a minute to gather. The fish was still rising, the sky wasn't threatening, the water was nice: I had plenty of time, but with the fish rising, I sometimes rush, mistie knots, make bad casts. I reeled in, lit a smoke, opened my box of dries and thought a bit. I listened to the birds and ever-so-slightly, the buzz of grass hoppers in the weeds. Hmm. I disposed of my smoke and put a size ten tan hopper on my drying patch. My leader was clipped back up into the 0X region, so I took it off and put on a fresh 5X tapered. With exactly seven turns on a clinch knot, I put on the hopper, pinched the barb and dosed it with Albolene. A slight shift to one side, and I had a clear back cast. I worked out some line, and with a little catch at the end of the cast, got myself a three-foot dogleg under the overhanging shrub willows. I must've cast twenty times to twenty feet of bank, drawing a strike from a fish on every other cast. At length, there were three rising fish left between the men and the end of the pool. On a bad cast, the first of these fish took the fly three feet from his cover. The take indicated that this fish was no dink, not even a fish similar to all the other brookies I'd caught. This was a big fish. Closer in, I saw that the fish was too light to be a brookie. Closer yet, and I found a big khaki brown on the other end, trying to break me off over a stick. I netted him, and thrashed to the bank for a photo. He was beautiful, with pink moles and heavy. I guess fourteen inches, and for the river, that was a monster fish. I think the PFBC only stocks rainbows there, so this brown was probably a wild one. There wasn't a good place to set him down, so I held him up and took a picture. The fly was deep, but lightly hooked, and it popped right out. I turned the fish out of the net and it started to float belly up. I felt a chill and grabbing the fish by the tail, began the fishy version of CPR. I had him in the water the whole time, the water was cold, I thought everything would've been okay. My camera fell out of my pocket (good thing I bought a dive camera), my rod fell into the bushes, the net lanyard was wrapped around my arm twice, but I kept it up. The fish gave a few half-hearted twitches, nothing like the usual when they take off like a bat outta hell. After perhaps five minutes, I was about to resign myself to killing the fish and having him for breakfast when he have a heavy shrug and cruised off into the pool. I let out a deep breath and began to untangle my gear. That fish was exciting, certainly, and the biggest I'd ever caught in that river. It was a most probably a wild fish, born and bred in that stream. It was pretty and strong and rose to a big dry, but there was something missing. It just wasn't a brookie. The next fish wasn't, either. It was a foot-long holdover rainbow that pounced on the hopper six feet upstream from where the brown took. He jumped out of the water and took the fly on re-entry. The fight was excellent, the fish jumped and took line and made a grand spectacle of himself. I netted this fish and the fly popped out in the net. He had a pattern of dark grey scars on his back, near the head, three parallel ones on each side of his body. My first thought is that he'd been grabbed by a raptor and managed to escape. These were too unusual to release this fish unrecorded. This photo shoot went much smoother this time, and the rainbow leaped into the water and headed for New York. Again I was slightly disappointed that it wasn't a brookie, and slightly disappointed that I'd just caught two of the best fish in the river and I was still disappointed. It's as foolish as being upset that a free glass of scotch is only a fifteen-year-old single malt, not an eighteen. I cheered myself with a smoke and the thoughts that I'd just caught a Pennsylvania Grand Slam, from the same pool. *** Back at camp, we made ourselves sandwiches, had a beer, and set up dinner to simmer: Corned beef simmered in Victory Hop Devil. Zak wasn't up for the drivable trail, so he stayed to tend dinner and, probably, drink beer. The trail clings to the hillside and follows the river from above. If your suspension is up for it, there is a nice place to fish, unavailable to the casual fisherman, but open to anybody with ground clearance. After twenty minutes of kidney abuse, we parked and geared up. I was expecting low water, since this is a downstream section of the same river. Still, it was a bit of a shock. A small feeder creek was completely dry, but it might've been an ephemeral stream. The first hole we fished was too deep to wade last time we were there. This time it was a nice spot to stand thigh-deep and cool off. There also seemed to be a lot of blowdowns in the river, relatively fresh. With the shrunken pools and the downed trees, there wasn't a lot of water in the pools available for a fly. Add the clear water and bright sun and the fishing was tough. In the holes where one would expect good trout, there were dinks, and where one would expect dinks, there were no fish. The stream, despite the canyon, is fairly low-gradient here. No plunge pools or serious rapids, just riffles and pools. The streambed here is mostly rock, including a few spots that almost look like carved raceways. Rog and Andy were teasing some trout in deep blue pool, and having no luck. There were four nice fish, holding deep, and nothing we could toss could get a look. The brookies moved and chased each other, cavorting and taunting. Eventually, a host of excuses (any one of which was insufficient to deter us, but in total were enough) chased us back to the truck for a cold drink of water and a judicious retreat. Dinner was excellent, especially the gravy composed of beef fat, Victory Hop Devil and flour to thicken. It went well with a lager or two. After dinner, we took care of serious business: cigars, scotch and cards. Sleeping was tough, since the spins compounded the general grunginess of a sweaty sleeping bag and skin coated with multiple layers of bug spray and sunblock. Again, at the leisurely pace of Tioga County, we were forced out of bed by the heat and urgent morning calls of nature. The standard breakfast was augmented by the beauty of a couple of blackened striper filets, courtesy of Roger's most recent trip to Cape May. I don't know what he rubbed on the filets, but the bacon fat mellowed the spices and made them stand out. We made sandwiches and packed some gear, both governed by committee and accompanied by plinking: The esteemed representative from Upper Bucks (the Right Hon. A. Dinsmore) posed a query as to the nature of lunch meat and cheese combinations to ensure all parties concerned received a tasty sandwich. The esteemed representative from Lower Bucks (the Right Hon. S. Cain) decried that any sandwich would be just fine and questioned whether the coffee pot had or had not been emptied and recharged. The esteemed representative from Chester (the Right Hon. Z. Binder) suggested that lower Bucks use the mandated one-and-one-half scoops of coffee and recharge the coffee pot his ownself. Chester also pointed out that he was allergic to lettuce on sandwiches. The esteemed representative from Frederick (the Right Hon. R. Clark) indicated that he would prefer turkey to ham in his particular sandwiches and that he had indeed recharged the coffee pot with the requisite number of scoops. He then proceeded to shoot a hole in a bottle cap nailed to a tree at fifty feet. Lower Bucks produced a stream of epithets regarding the obligation to improve on the shot achieved by Frederick and stormed off for a fresh cup of coffee from said recently recharged pot. Upper Bucks politely averred that Chester was not actually allergic to lettuce, that Chester's true motivation was an aversion to almost all things vegetable. Chester revealed that this was, in fact, true and went in to construct a sandwich, followed by Frederick and Upper Bucks. We left for the lake at 11:30. Friday had been hot, and that was just fine, under a halcyon blue summer sky. The heat ain't so bad when standing in a cold mountain stream, with a hat recently dunked in the stream. Saturday was hot and humid, cloaking the mountains in haze. Standing on the verge of a sloppy goose be****ted lake bank casting across the algae was a totally different kind of fishing. For one thing, with all the available clinging crud in the water, I was loath to wet wade. For another, in the heat, my water bottle went warm almost instantly. Still, with small poppers, Rog and I stood on the bank taking fine crappie, bluegill and assorted sunfish from the clear water just beyond the muck. It was, for the most part, sunfish at will. The fish would tug and wrangle and go generally bonkers until they got wrapped up in all the muck and calmed down. On a five weight, it is a challenge to land a six-inch bluegill attached to three pounds of miscellaneous filamentous algae. Andy didn't fare as well. He pulled out his excellent collection of bassin' goodies to work the holes in the algae, but every cast resulted in a long down time as he cleaned the much from the bullet weight. It was tough going. Zak, perhaps the smartest of all, hiked down to the swimming hole and bought an ice cream cone. We relocated to the opposite side of the lake in hopes of avoiding the muck and finding shade, but the stuff clung to the shores. We had our sandwiches in the shade and contemplated the muck. This piece of Hills Creek State Park is quite beautiful, and the algae only diminishes the beauty slightly. Heavy firs crowd the banks, and trails over thick needle rugs run rampant. The only light that penetrates into the fir forest on this side of the lake is from the lake. It seems there that only I am muffled. The trees absorb my breathing, but the birds still sing clear and the insects buzz. The breeze rustles through, but the scuff of my boots on the needles is muted. It's like the forest knows that my noises are just static to be filtered from Mother Natures's soundtrack. It was too hot and too bright, even in the firs, to seem eerie. At length, we gave up and drove back to camp. The ride to and from Hills Creek State park is worth any quantity of goose **** or lack of fish. The hills, some rolling and some sharp, give way to dairy and wheat farms, with hay bales punctuating the lesser slopes. Silos, old barns and fully functional farms sprawl out. Every so often, a small creek will cross under or a small township, clustered around a church, will pass by. It is a different place than I'm used to, and I like it very much. I think about what it would be like to move there, to live where everybody waves at you, whether they know you or not. The clich=E9s are powerful here, small-town America and all that happy cow****, but they seem to be valid. It is a slower pace. Things are done differently up there. Priorities are different. Em could find a job, I'm positive of that, but could I? It would be a spectacular place to raise a child and an excellent place to raise yourself. Thanks to high-speed internet, the disadvantages of living in a rural area are vanishing, but the advantages are myriad. It doesn't matter right now, though. I have medium-term obligations that can't be shirked and besides, with beer in the cooler and dinner waiting to be cooked, I couldn't really afford the belly-button inspection time. The first thing we did when we got home was to prepare dinner. I had three fine pheasants I shot and immediately froze in the early spring at the end of the season. They were stuffed with bread stuffing, onions and mushrooms. Since the birds were skinned rather than plucked, I mummified them with wonderful dry-cured bacon my mother gets from an Amish butcher. We covered them in a roasting pan. In order to prolong our welcome at the cabin, we try to replenish at least some of the firewood we burn by cutting and splitting deadfalls. It was wickedly hot, but not to be helped. I took the saw spot and we daisy-chained split logs up the hill. It wasn't much, perhaps two nights of firewood, but better than leaving nothing. After that saw and tools had been put away, that ice-cold Victory All-Malt Lager tasted sublime. I even rubbed the cold bottle on my neck, like in the beer commercials. Until the second beer was opened, we took potshots at the bottlecaps nailed to a log. After a bit, I found the right point of aim for the shorter range and proceeded to punch holes in caps for a few minutes. Dinner, centered around the birds and augmented with mashed potatoes, stuffing and pan gravy, went down nicely with Pinot Noir that Andy had smuggled along. It really hit the spot. The pheasant was a little dry, but without a stove probe and monitor, I don't think I could've done any better and still managed to cook it thoroughly. Only one shot pellet was found, and it caused no damage (other than to the bird). Drinking of scotch and cold lagers was proceeding faster than scheduled, so the dishes were swept aside in favor of a serious card game. My luck was terrible: even had I been a master card player, I could've done little better than I did. I protested loudly that those good-for-nothing asses had no gratitude. I didn't merely saunter to the store in a nice warm car and pay somebody to fetch me a pheasant - I walked the hills in the rain and killed those birds myself, expressly for them. Those flint-hearted monsters continued to take advantage of me. We retired, sated and pleasantly tipsy. The morning dawned humid, hazy and hung over. It took us over four hours to produce breakfast, clean it up, clean the cabin, pack our crap and dispose of the trash. It was a very difficult time for me, sweating profusely, fragrant with three days worth of sunblock, sweat and bug spray. No amount of baby wipes or deodorant could cover that. I had last shaved four days before, and the itch was starting. At long last, we crawled out on the dirt road, destined for showers two hundred miles away. |
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Steve wrote:
At long last, we crawled out on the dirt road, destined for showers two hundred miles away. damn!!! i need a shower *and* a cigar... and i don't smoke afterwards (or beforewards). that was as sportin as it gets. thanks! jeff |
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"Steve" wrote (snip) At long last, we crawled out on the dirt road, destined for showers two hundred miles away. i always look forward to digesting your work. thanks for one of your best efforts. yfitons wayno |
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On 30 Jun 2005 13:55:04 -0700, "Steve" wrote:
Thursday morning, I set the out-of-office autoreply on my work email. It always feels good to do that, almost as good as watching the cell phone's bars vanish, and hearing the warning that accompanies "No Service." It means you can measure communication differently. Made me feel as if I were there. Except for the sweat and the actual catching of fish. Cyli r.bc: vixen. Minnow goddess. Speaker to squirrels. Often taunted by trout. Almost entirely harmless. http://www.visi.com/~cyli email: lid (strip the .invalid to email) |
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Thursday morning, I set the out-of-office autoreply on my work email. Steve, you've raised the bar on TR's to a heretofore unreachable level. Awesome. -- Frank Reid Euthanize to respond |
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Frank, you don't have to toady up to me.
Seriously, I'm glad other people enjoy my writing. From roff denizens, that sort of response is truly high praise. In the last month or so, I've read quite a few excellent bits of writing. Some of it was even about fishing. I sent off rolls of film for developing, so I hope to have some pictures for ABPF to go along with the story. Steve |
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"Steve" wrote in message ups.com... Frank, you don't have to toady up to me. (snip) so I hope to have some pictures for ABPF to go along with the story. Steve Hi Steve, Enjoyed the prose. I gotta get out more. Looking forward to pics. BestWishes, DaveMohnsen Denver |
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Yup, I think I saw that same construction worker on I-80 somewhere
near Clearfield. On the way there and on the way back. I think he's stuffed. Graet TR BTW. Peter turn mailhot into hotmail to reply Visit The Streamer Page at http://www.mountaincable.net/~pcharl...ers/index.html |
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Steve wrote:
snip The sky looks different through hemlocks lining a stream bank, much brighter and clearer there than even five miles over through the maples over the cabin. I thing it might be a function of some sort of vapors released by a trout stream that cause subtle changes to the optic nerves of a man sitting by that stream. It provides a clarity of vision that can be compared to cleaning a really dirty set of eyeglasses. I've read many other fine TR's in this venue, but I can't remember having any more fun reading the others. An absolutely fine piece of work. Thanks, Steve. -- TL, Tim ------------------------ http://css.sbcma.com/timj |
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