Before the Flood - 9th Street Bridge

9th Street Bridge - Livingston, Montana

Anybody remember the 7 1/2 feet of snow on the ground up at Colter Pass last March and wonder where all that runoff is gonna go come June? Well, despite the Army Corp of Engineer's best efforts to date, the Yellowstone River continues to try and meander back and forth across it's fertile floodplain under the burden of melting snow with little concern or remorse for the intentions of man. Say goodbye to the old 9th Street Bridge and say hello to some new habitat structure on the Roche Jaune. The bridge was a familiar and accommodating structure to the local residents of Livingston, as well as many visiting angler's who enjoyed fishing the 9th Street channels while taking a break in town.

Click on over to George Anderson's Yellowstone Angler for the latest scoop on runoff conditions on the inter-mountain West's quintessential wild river.

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Electric Peak And Yellowstone River

9th Street Bridge in Livingston

The PMD's have started their emergence on the spring creeks south of town and the integrity of those creeks seem safe -at least for now- but one can't help but wonder how long those ACOE berms can take this knd of abuse. Just like roads, or fire, floods can be wonderful servants but dreadful masters.

The Road Goes on Forever...

Editors note: I'd like to extend a sincere & well deserved thank you to both, Glen G & Greg G, for their outstanding contributions to this blog over the past few weeks. Not only did their work stand apart from and above the usual trite posts that gets thrown up here but it also allowed me to go off my medication for a few days. I'm hoping we'll see more quality content from the both of them in the near future. Thanks guys.

Bald Eagle State Forest

The month of June is one of my favorite times of the year here in Pennsylvania. A time of fecundity. The forest is lush and green after soaking up the spring rains and the fish are fat and healthy after bellying up to a chow line of seemingly endless diversity; sulphers, cahills, caddis, green drakes, slate drakes, yellow drakes, olives and this years etymological tour-de-force, periodic cicadas.

Mountain Laurel - Kalmia latifolia

Pretty poison: The ridgetops and shaded ravines are now awash with the pink & white blossoms of Pennsylvania's state flower. Their blossoms typically herald the start of summer here in Penn's Woods and, while pretty to look at, every part of of this evergreen shrub from the roots to the leaves and flowers are poisonous to both animals and humans alike.

No Extra-Terrestrials Allowed

You can't run around on fossil fuel forever. Time to put on those walking shoes, shed the mechanized world and make some trax to the river.

The Ghost of Charlie Wetzel?

Nah, it's just a svelte looking Greg G making one of "the toughest angling classrooms in existence" look as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. Greg used a 9' Sage fly rod instead of a 12 gauge Browning shotgun to take a multitude of overstuffed fish that had obviously also been enjoying the fullness of the season.

Greg's fly line gracefully cuts through the evening fog like a surgeons scalpel. Official diagnosis: The trout here have been infected with Swirling Disease. Every time Greg's cicada pattern hit the water it would eventually be accompanied by a large swirl, a gulp and a dancing rod tip.

Cicada Chomper
Like this one with Greg's black foam imitation in it's choppers and the real deal on it's tail.

Painter Run Bridge

Another G-man; Glen G, decides to escape the heat & humidity of the day by fishing a small mountain freestoner than incises a cool ravine in the mature second growth hardwood forest.

Painter Run

It seems that every year we lose a few unfortunate fisherman to wild man-eating panthers back here. Glen reassured me that the adult panthers would all be on their day beds during the heat of mid day and there was nothing to fear but fear itself so I followed along with my camera.

Those wild brookies are pretty tasty but not nearly as delicious as his own baby back ribs & homemade BBQ sauce so Glen released all his of catch back into ice cold crystal clear waters from which they came.

Shady Grove

Glen plays yet another wild brook trout in this refreshingly cool sylvan glen. Amazingly, shortly after this shot was taken Glen was stalked, ambushed, hauled off, and partially consumed by one of the many hungry panthers that are known to inhabit this part of Penn's Woods. The DCNR is now considering declaring this location a Panther Management Area where the big cats can roam at free will and human traffic is prohibited between the hours of 7 pm and 9 am. Signs to that effect should be posted real soon. If Glen were still with us he would prolly say the sooner the better.

Well, seems like the Panthers are now well fed so there was no sense in letting a fully rigged fly rod and productive brookie crick go to waste. I picked up Glen's vintage 6 1/2' Orvis Brookie fly rod and landed a brook trout of my own. Man, I miss that guy already!

Blockhouse Style Home on the Old Karoondinha Indian Path

"Home - is where I want to be
But I guess I'm already there"

Parting Shot
PA 192 - Samuel Miles "Great Road" runs across Brush Valley from Lewisburg to Centre Hall.

The road goes on forever and the party never ends...

Brookie Cricks

Perhaps I’m biased, and there anglers in other regions of the Appalachians, and the northeastern US, that would object to me stating that the term Brookie Crick originated in Pennsylvania. But nonetheless, regardless of the location of the origin of the term, there is probably further dissention still about what defines a Brookie Crick. To me, a Brookie Crick, mostly should be defined by those streams that possess turtle sized rocks, covered in the most verdant moss imaginable, and outstanding riparian vegetation. Whether it is pine and hemlocks, maples, beeches and oaks, or perhaps a combination of all, and others as well, the trees shade the water and keep the stream banks intact. The gradient of these streams is usually substantial and creates miniature pools and chutes of fast water in some areas, and generally if you can see far enough in front of you, and go far enough to the source, at some point of time, you’ll see a staircase of pools and riffles in such streams. The simplification of the water character of these types of streams would be “bubbly”. The combination of rocks, trees, plants, and essentially drift wood, in these streams would make the most creative water landscape artist green with envy, and no man could even hope to ever re-create. Simply put, these streams that lace the mountains from Georgia to Maine all along the spine of the Appalachians are among the most beautiful places in the world.

And perhaps it rings so true that in these pristine watersheds, the water they give forth is the gift of life itself, and a by product of the health of the watershed. And in these, pristine, cold waters, populations of wild trout thrive and flourish. Some may argue that brown trout should go and do not belong in these streams, and generally I agree with that. We absolutely should preserve populations of Brook Trout. But, it’s not like these two trout species are rivals in the sense that in these small brooks, Browns will win out and Brookies would be no more. I have not seen any evidence of that. In fact, go far enough to the source of the stream, and Brookies always prevail. You’ll find these tiny trout in streams that you can leap across, and they seem to be doing fine in areas that are not degraded, and have clean cold water. And yes, Browns eat Brookies, but Brookies also eat other Brookies too. So these two species survive generally well together where the water is cold enough to support Brookies in addition to the Browns. And then it is fitting that where there are native, wild, Brookies, you then and only then have a Brookie Crick.

There are minor differences between a Brookie Crick in say, North Carolina, and one in Pennsylvania, and one in New Hampshire. But suffice to say, you’ll know one when you see one. This scene pretty much says it all……And you could find similar scenes anywhere in the Appalachians and the northeast, though this one is in Pennsylvania.

The scene is a display of the lushness of late spring/early summer, climatologically speaking. This is the time of the year that spring’s ample precipitation and cooler temps are giving way to drier, warmer weather. In terms of the life of a trout, and the people who fly fish for them, its Green Drake time. This is the grand finale of spring’s insect feast. Jumbo sized mayflies that hatch during this season, and provide abundant protein for the denizens of the stream. From this point on through the summer, except in wet, cool years, life gets tough for the trout. The water continues to be reduced in volume, and also warms, at times too warm to keep the fish active and healthy. They are anxiously awaiting September’s cool nights and fall’s more frequent rains, which allow the fish to once again spread out and colonize areas of the stream that were off limits for the summer. Overall, these fish live in a most dynamic environment, and are as tough, tenacious, and durable as life itself.

Perhaps that is a trait of these places that makes me wants to be there and fish for these survivors. Or more superficially, maybe it’s just because these are places of outstanding beauty. Or perhaps I just like being able to catch these jewel-like wild trout, that make up for their shortcomings in size, with vigor and reckless abandon. What ever the reason, and for certain there are more, not only my reasons either, but for other anglers that are limited only by their imaginations; they have their reasons too.

And fish these streams I do, whenever I get a chance to do so. Recently, I was fishing a very famous stream, where the water was too warm, and the fish had too much to eat, and the sun was too bright, and the water was low, and a thousand other reason why I was not able to catch more, or any fish that day. And so, there was only one fishing tactic left to resort to – I had to fish a Brookie Crick. These streams are the perfect elixir when the more famous, filthy rich with food streams, that kick your angling confidence down a few clicks. These are not the streams to contemplate whether the fish will take a dun, an emerger, or a spinner. These streams are the elk hair caddis, or parachute Adams type of fly selection streams. Nothing fancy, or cute, just a basic, buggy looking fly that sometimes represents a half a dozen different types of insects will usually suffice to get a fish to rise and take the imitation. Here’s one such place that the fish like an elk hair caddis pitched into the foam lines. There’s a bunch of lemon and lime Sallies, or in lay terms, small stoneflies that inhabit this stream, and the trout are acutely aware of them.

This is one of those quintessential, prototypical Brookie Cricks, that when you’re on it and catching fish, you find it hard to stop fishing. As you always have to see what’s up around the next bend or see what the next larger size pool looks like, where the biggest trout in the stream may have taken up residence. The allure of these streams is endless and at times they are as addicting as heroin when the fish are compliant, the weather is pleasant, and you are in the process of shaking off the doldrums of winter. They are nothing short of a celebration of spring time angling and the warm weather to come.

Sometimes these streams are actually quite large for what one usually considers a Brookie Crick. Here’s one of these larger waters.

Yep, I know what you’re thinking; this is a big fish pool. I would also have to agree. However, I do not have any tangible evidence to support that theory. This pool only yielded a 6” Brookie that fell to my offering, and nothing more. Perhaps the larger fish in this pool are strictly carnivorous, and do not rise for a #14 dry fly. For some reason, even the prospect of catching one of these kings of the stream, is something that I am not going to pursue with great vigor. The thought of pitching a streamer (even though I did fish a streamer in this pool) to all the likely looking lunker habitat, and constantly changing from dries to streamers and back again, is something that carries little appeal to me. I like the dry fly for these waters. The water below is a fine, moderate flow dry fly stretch of a Brookie Crick.

Note the perfect stream banks with vegetation right down the stream. This stream does not dirty from normal, and even slightly above normal precipitation. And if it does cloud, it clears as soon as the deluge stops. And because of that, it hosts all sediment sensitive aquatic life. Probably much as it was 400 years ago. On the day that this picture was taken and we fished this stream, we found a fawn, no more than a day or two old, hunkered down and it did not bolt from us. Of course, we left the fawn as we found it after taking a couple of pictures. Mom was probably within sight distance, though we never saw her.

On more than one occasion over the years, I almost had perfectly good underwear ruined from fawns exploding from the vegetation right under my feet. It’s an event that you don’t soon forget, but it always takes you by surprise when it occurs.

Speaking of surprises, here’s the best Brookie of a recent excursion to the head waters of a famous tributary of a famous trout stream. Best I can tell, he’s back in the same spot, waiting for an elk hair caddis……

Parting Shot

The picture below is what a watershed that hosts many such streams looks like in the Northeast. Note the miles of unbroken forest canopy. Also worth noting is that this land was timbered off around the early 1900’s. And while to the casual observer this looks like the restoration is complete, that is not true. The original forest, was predominately pines and hemlocks. The distinction is that the old growth forest of pines and hemlocks was like a giant sponge, and absorbed immense amounts of precipitation, and then slowly released the cold water into the seepages and trickles. The pine and hemlock forests also shaded the under story and forest floor, so that evaporation was very slow. As opposed to the mostly deciduous forests of today, in which evaporation is high when the trees do not have leaves. And when the trees have leaves, deciduous trees tend to be quite thirsty as well. The flows of years gone by were more consistent and less subject to spate conditions, than today. This in turn was good for the native Brook Trout. But the forests are still evolving and if left to keep evolving, will gradually become the thick, dark forests of years ago. This is a critical characteristic for long term health of Brookie Cricks.

Oh, one more thing, us anglers that fish these gems, are very protective about them, and are almost paranoid about other anglers fishing in their secret beat. Myself, I might tell someone in person about where I fished last, but the vast abyss of cyberspace is not the place to divulge such information. They exist; go find ‘em.

Trico's for Sale

Note: The editors here at WRWT would like to thank our good friend & kindred spirit of the angle, Greg Glitzer of Doylestown, Pa. for the following engaging post. It gives us a much needed breather while at the same time our faithful readers get a shot of diversity and a breath of fresh air. The Drake Magazine has nothing on us now. Thanks again, Greg.

I really struggled to come up with a catchy title worthy of Wade River’s piscatorial and editorial wit. Perhaps “A Moveable Feast” in honor of Hemingway. Or “Creature Double Feature” as a cheekier allusion to the low budget monster films of our youth. But after hammering fish for four consecutive days on size 4-8 dry flies on 3X tippet, I chose inspiration from words the legendary Nez Perce leader Chief Joseph* might mutter if he were a fly fisherman: “ From where the sun now stands, I will fish tiny trico’s no more forever.”

It’s central Pennsylvania in June 2008 and that means green drakes and extraterrestrials - periodic cicadas. Riparian protein of the finest kind.

I arrived streamside** Wednesday night in some of that sideways rain that Forest Gump described. I half-heartedly ventured forth in the thickening water, slinging a rabbit strip sculpin. While I moved several fish in a side channel, it wasn’t what I had driven from the flatlands of southeast PA for. Cicadas clung to the brush and grass, and a shake of a tree branch brought a flurry of green drake duns and spinners. Just my luck to have (apparently) nailed the timing of a hatch and terrestrial swarm of biblical proportions only to see the expected dry fly nirvana swirl away in a torrent of high, muddy water. Sunnuva@&!#%!!!***

However, I noticed the main channel appeared slight cleaner than the side channel that I was sculpinating, albeit flowing with a force that would threaten to buckle my rickety knees like I was Gumby. I tried a cicada pattern (I had several dozen left over from the Brood X emergence in 2004 that was a trout fishing bust, for me at least), but the fish showed no interest. Bahhh, cicadas are just so much fishing hype to fill magazine space, I concluded. I replaced the cicada pattern with a hair wing, extended foam bodied green drake trailed by a drake nymph, and started to move fish along the edges. Maybe I’d actually get a full evening in before the expected muddy tsunami from the upstream watershed turned the water to rich, chocolaty Ovaltine (“A crummy commercial?!? Sunnuva@&!#%!!!” )

Drake Eater

The expected mud wave never made an appearance, and the mixing effects from the cruddy side channel didn’t impact the river where I chose to fish. The rain slowed to a drizzle but never really stopped, and the trout took big buoyant dry flies well into the darkness. All in all, it was an excellent evening of fishing to my favorite mayfly. A fully hackled drake with bright yellow-green hair wings and extended foam body provided the necessary flotation in the heavy flows. This brown didn’t mind the coarse wing outline (I usually rely on wings cut from a hen saddle or a broad, flat CDC feather), and had no trouble finding the hook through the soft foam extended body. In fact, she inhaled the fly so deeply that the tips of the hair wing are just barely visible in her mouth.

On Thursday morning, I was happy to see that the expected apocalypse by mud hadn’t occurred after all. The receding hydrograph revealed that the food pantry was overflowing the night before. What could motivate these fish to feed with in the middle of a hot muggy day when the evening would bring this kind of bounty of drake spinners?

Here’s the motivation:

I tossed in a few hapless cicadas and watched them drift completely unmolested. I really started to believe it was all hype. I saw a few gentle rises to cream cahills, but not wanting to re-build my leader from the previous night’s drake fishing, I knotted one of my foam cicadas onto my heavy tippet. 3X, a sunny day in June, and a giant black and orange foam bug. Who am I kidding. My mind drifted to a daydream of salmonflies on the Bighole River…

Galoomph!!!

A heavy rise and the bucking of my 6 weight woke me from my daydream. Sunnuva@&!#%!!! Maybe this brown mistook it for one of the giant egg laying stoneflies that were present in good numbers throughout the day and night.

Gulp!

Well, just maybe we’re on to something. After all, I think I’ve got a pretty decent imitation:

He certainly liked it – notice the lumps in his bulging belly. One fish disgorged a headless, waterlogged cicada which pretty much confirmed they knew the situation. As my daughter would say, “Well duh!!”

It wasn’t just trout, this smallmouth thought them quite tasty. That doesn’t mean I’m going to start chasing after carp though.

To cut to the chase, the one-two punch of day-time cicadas and late evening green drakes provided some of the best and most unique fishing days of my life.

Saturday’s heat wave sent the thermometer well into the nineties. It is often said that only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noon day sun. Well, woof-woof and God save the Queen, give me my box of foam and I’ll be right there with them. This cicada thing is for real.

Enjoy it while it lasts, and I’ll see you in 17 years.

Greg Glitzer

Footnotes, Credits, and Apologies:

*Apologies to the Nimi'ipuu for bastardization of the words of their great leader. We could really use someone like Chief Joseph today.

River names avoided to protect the innocent. But if you can’t figure it out, then stick to wreck fishing with strips of squid.

***Apologies to all for using Sunnuva@&!#%!!! so many times, particularly Ralph Parker, Gene Shephard, and Wade Rivers.

Parting Shot: Ghost angler – Was it all just a dream?