PA with Ed Hart yesterday. Ed is a podiatrist from Bethlehem & knows the Monacacy like the back of his hand-or the back of his foot? I met Ed & his son, also named Ed, out on the Madison River in Montana in June. Not only was Ed from Southeastern PA, but grew up in the Olney section of Philly. He couldn't get over meeting someone else with an Olney connection all the way out in Montana, nor could we. Ed was also nice enough to leave us his park pass to Yellowstone National Park with the hotel concierge before leaving Big Sky Country (lots fly-fishing guys in the same hotel!). Anyway, we planned to get in touch over the summer & get together for some fly-fishing in the Lehigh Valley. Ed's pride & joy is the Monocacy Creek. You could see how excited he was as we approached the stream, happy to show me some of the best spots he knows. I had only fished the Monocacy once before: last spring. I didn't have too much success there, either. This stream is by no means any secret. It is well known & well fished by locals & even non-locals. The Monocacy is a Lehigh Valley limestone stream that maintains its temps around the 50's pretty much year round. It boasts a very healthy & diverse environment for trout. Although the stream is stocked a few times a year, it is able to sustain a viable wild trout population & is designated with a Class A Wild trout distinction by the PAF&BC. A recent biology study conducted by the PAF&BC showed very good results & a nice trout poulation. This will be available in full soon on the PAF&BC website. As for the fishing, we arrived on the stream a little after 6AM. Ed put me in a spot he told me would really come to life during the spinner fall. He assured me that all the water from there upstream past a concrete bridge was some of his favorite water. He fished downstream past another bridge.
I worked my way upstream with some nymphs. It was a cool morning for August, high 50's. The Trikes were probably affected by this & we did not see them doing their mating flight until maybe 8AM or so. Needless to say, the fishing started out a bit slow. I worked my way upstream methodically using a small baetis nymph, getting short drifts, quartering upstream & drifting down, or straight across towards the banks. By 8:30, the Tricos were swarming up in the air pretty good. I changed up my tactics & my leader a bit & tied on a parachute style Trico that Ed had supplied me with earlier. I started to fish a bit upstream when Ed returned. He told me he had no luck down below, but said there were a lot of bugs in the air where I first started. I cast the little parachute trike upstream & was rewarded with a nice little brown, who unhooked himself just as I was about to pick him up & before Ed could get a photo.
We took a break & Ed showed me some good spots upstream, which were presently occupied by some old-timers, who said they hadn't had any luck. We went back down below to where I started the morning & tons of trikes were dancing in the air.
After a little while, Ed bid me farewell & I continued to fish. Already we had begun to see a few rises. It was just after 9AM. Not long after the water began to come alive with rises & with fishermen. The two old-timers had made their way downstream to just above where I was standing. After a real bad hangup, which included some leader rebuilding & tying on yet another trico fly, one of the old guys asked if he could pass by & fish below me. I told him sure & I got back to work. I tried the female pattern with a cream-olive abdomen. Although I had a few hits & near hook ups, I didn't do nearly as well as I did with the smaller black pattern with white poly wings that represents the male trico. Two fish were rising petty consistently about 30 feet upstream. An old guy in a straw hat had tried but failed to coax these feeding fish. After a few casts, I hooked & released one of those nice little brownies. Rises were appearing all over the surface. I tried to hit these different spots where I saw rising fish, even in some shaded spots near the bank in front of me, but no cigar. Those rises upstream kept up, so I put a few more casts in the seam just to the right of where I caught the other one. I got a few good drifts & once again, a tough little brownie nailed the fly. All three fish had beautiful color & markings. When I turned, I saw that the other guys had left. I don't think that they had caught anything. I guess I should consider myself lucky that I had the success I did. Sometimes good things come in small packages!
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