Suburban Wild Trout On The Monocacy Creek

Last week I stumbled across an old Game & Fish Magazine article from 2010 called Our Finest February Trout Streams. In the article, Mike Kaufmann, an Area Fisheries Manager for the PA Fish & Boat Commission, mentions a naturally reproducing wild brown trout population on the Monocacy Creek (“Monocacy”). This peaked my interest because the Monocacy flows through the busy suburb of Bethlehem, located in the heart of the Lehigh Valley. Kaufmann also mentions that three rainbow trout were harvested out of the Monocacy in 2009 that weighed over 10 pounds. That really got my attention. I’d never fished the Monocacy before but I’d heard the name. I recalled chatting with a former employee of TCO Fly Shop in Reading that had shown me pictures of two good-sized wild brown trout he’d caught in the Monocacy. I decided I’d head there to explore some new water.

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Searching For Wild Trout On The Gunpowder

On Saturday morning for the first time in a long time I drove south to fly fish. I headed to one of Trout Unlimited’s Top 100 Streams in America, the Gunpowder Falls River (“Gunpowder”), located in eastern Maryland. The Gunpowder Falls River is a tributary to the Gunpowder River, which eventually flows into the Chesapeake Bay. The Gunpowder is a tail water of the Prettyboy Reservoir and the water stays cool year around because of the bottom dam gate water release. The cool water temperatures make it the perfect environment for trout. According to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources website, many years ago their fisheries biologists populated the river with brown and rainbow trout using fertilized eggs and fingerlings. In the years that followed, these trout flourished and began naturally reproducing and the stream can now be called a wild trout stream that receives no ongoing stocking in the first seven miles below the dam. This area is designated as special regulations, catch and release fishing with artificial lures only. In the fly fishing community the Gunpowder Falls River is also well known because it is the water that legendary fly fisherman Lefty Kreh grew up fly fishing. To this day I believe he only lives a few minutes from the river.

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Big Bow And Crowded Jersey Water

I had so much fun fly fishing the Pequest River in New Jersey last weekend that I decided I’d head there again on Sunday morning. I was interested in fishing the portions of the Seasonal Trout Conservation Area that I hadn’t been able to cover because I’d run out of daylight. I arrived at the river around 9:00am on Sunday. The weather forecast was calling for sunny skies with a light breeze and temps in the upper 30s. The sunshine had quite a few more fishermen on the water than the prior weekend. I set up my Winston fly rod with a 9-foot leader and a 5X, 24” section of tippet tied to a Flashback Hare’s Ear Nymph. Below the Hare’s Ear Nymph I tied a #20 Black Zebra Midge, the fly that is becoming my most successful winter pattern. It makes sense being that the midge larva is one of the only things the trout are seeing drifting by them during the month of January. Another new addition to my fly fishing gear was a new pair of Orvis Encounter waders and a pair of Simms Boa boots. It was a luxury to head out fishing with a pair of waders that I knew weren’t going to leak. My 2016 experience with leaking Patagonia and Simms waders is worthy of its own blog post at some point. The Simms Boa boots I wavered on buying because I know they are disliked by fly fishing guides due to the inability to make quick repairs in the field. I ended up going with them anyways because I have been tired of trying to tie frozen laces and get into and pull off wet wading boots.

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Frozen Reels And Rainbows On The Pequest River

I woke up Saturday morning to the sound of snow blowers running outside. A couple of inches of fresh snow had fallen overnight in southeastern Pennsylvania and it was cold outside. The temperatures on Saturday were forecasted to be in the high 20s with a “real feel” that was much lower. This was the only time this year that I paused for a second while rolling out of bed to consider whether or not I wanted to venture out to water somewhere to wet a fly line. But it didn’t take long for me to convince myself to get out there and soon I had my truck packed and warming up. Earlier in the week I’d been continuing my research on trout waters in New Jersey. One name that kept coming up was the Pequest River.

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