****ing awesome weekend

Saturday was a beautiful day here in PA. For once, it was a non-rainy weekend. I had forgot that my wife had a skin cancer benefit walk she was doing, so I wound up spending the day with my son. We had a blast. I decided to take him fishing because his last trip had about 4000 people there and he only got to cast once.

We went to the East Branch Perkiomen creek, about half a mile upstream from my house, below this old covered bridge. It was easy access and there was a mowed grass bank, so I thought it would be perfect for him.

I put on half of a nightcrawler under a bobber on a small ultralight spinning rod, chucked it out, and handed him the rod. I look away to see how many worms I had left in the container (because they were left over from when I dug them up almost a month ago for the opening day kids trout derby and somehow still alive!) and all of a sudden he's yelling "Daddy fish fish fish!". I turned around and sure enough, he's in to a nice fight with a bent rod. I tried to help him reel it in and he wouldnt let me touch it. He had to do it on his own. He brought the fish all the way to the bank on his own and then handed me the rod.

It turned out to be a 13+ inch rainbow. Not bad for a kid who's only 25 months old! I was so proud of him. He even picked it up after I removed the hook for about 15 seconds and let me take some pictures. He was so gentle with the fish. I couldn't believe it. I then brought the fish to the water and Michael said "bye fishy!" as he swam away. It was so awesome. Words can't even describe it.



I would up wearing him out so by the time his mom got home in the late afternoon, he was ready for a nap. Seeing him catch a nice fish got me all amped up to wet a line, so I gave the wife a kiss, grabbed my gear, and headed for the door. There's another creek nearby that is stocked with trout but if you go way upstream there's a nice dammed up run that's full of Largemouth. I've always loved this place. No one knows about it so the bass are usually really dumb. They also have this very unique diamond-like pattern down their sides that is unlike any other bass I've ever seen. You have to park on the road and hike about half a mile back this old tractor trail to get to the water.


Once I finally got there, I found all of the bass hanging up at the head of the run at the entrance of this tiny feeder creek. Unfortunately, I was pretty far upstream so the water was still colder and they were lethargic and spooky. In another week or two it will be better. I did lose one about 2 lbs on a bugger. Luckily, there were a few fish willing to cooperate.



Next came Sunday. My wife gave me the day to fish and I couldn't wait to get on the water. It was partly sunny, and about 70 degrees. I was out in shorts, a tshirt, and sandals and I couldn't be happier. I hit the Little Lehigh and it was on! There was barely anyone there. I had a handful of my favorites spots all to myself, and the fish were cooperating. I saw a TON of black caddis all over the stream.


The weird thing was, they were all over the stream, but just not on the water. The few that did touch down barely had rises from the fish. That didn't matter though because they weren't picky. I landed fish on an orange egg, a size 20 BWO dry, a rubber legged copper john, Shark's caddis larva, and a ton of them on WD40s in grey and tan. It was an awesome day. I left with somewhere between 8-10 fish, the biggest about an 18 inch brown. I also landed a sucker that was about 3 lbs on a size 20 midge! Here's a few pics. Sorry they are poor quality. The water was running fast and I was fighting the fish hard to get them in. I didn't want to keep them out any longer than I had to.