Phillies Parade down Broad Street, near Porter St., South Philly
A lot has happened in the southeastern part of the state of PA since the last post. That's why I haven't gotten out more posts. In case you haven't heard, the Philadelphia Phillies are the 2008 World Champions of Baseball. This, as you probably know, doesn't happen around here all that often. If I'm not fly-fishing, I might either be at the ball-park, or watching, or listening to the Phightin' Phils, work schedule permitting, of course. So, between celebrating the Phil's win on Oct. 29th & going to the victory Parade on Halloween, I haven't gotten much bloggin' done. (Nor fishing, either!)
Well, to put us in the patriotic spirit of Election Day Eve, I was inspired by the raging flows on the Tobyhanna, below the dam in the previously mentioned undisclosed location of other sites. Wow! That sounds kinda like some political intrigue, no? Not to mention the dam gates lettin' loose at full throttle, into the already high, cold flows below. I thought, "Gee, 'Watergate.' " Then I looked at the pure white flows rushing down the dam into the Toby. Then I thought, "Hmm. 'Whitewater."? Whatever the political scandal name tag, one thing is for sure, I was standing in some deep water. I definitely lost some voters, aka, nice rainbow trout, which I originally managed to sway in my favor, as they nailed some Bow River style wooly bugger streamers & minnow patterns, but later elected to spit the fly. Those @#%& swing voters! Most of it was my fault. I tried to horse them in, rather than patiently work them. Not the best "campaign strategy" on my part! Other than the lone 'bow in the picture, which was a decent fish in its own right, I lost about 4 or 5 more, a landslide of sorts. Chazz was holding his own rally of sorts below, way downstream. He had no luck, but he had an extra day to campaign, so maybe Tuesday, he'd hit the trail early, hoping to get some last minute undecided trout to vote to eat his fly. (Ok, ok!! No more political allusions, alliterations, or puns, I promise!) For Monday, though, the water was not only too high, it was pretty cold. The temps were not horrible, but it was a bit overcast & rain soon followed. Time to get out the neoprene waders. A nice fire & some hearty soup that Chazz made awaited us at the cabin. This most likely will be the last time fishing this stretch until next spring, unless we have some mild winter days. Last week, Mother Nature dumped 13" of snow up in this region of the Poconos. Remnants of the white stuff were present all throughout, including down by the creek. And the cabin isn't really winterized. Probably be hitting some streams closer to home, especially the limestoners, from here on out. Time to order some hooks & get down to some winter fly-tying. Tight lines!
