9/23 - Early Sunday AM Valley

[NickR]

Where did you folks end up meeting? The meeting place I was instructed to meet at was on Bradford Road in Oreland. That is about 25 minutes from Valley. I drove out to vc but didnt really see anybody.

 

[SNJChef]

One of the huge fish I landed today. And the one that kept rising but would not take anything I threw at him

 

[pcray1231]

Good meeting. I failed at getting Stagger a fish. He had a lot of hits, brought a few to the surface, but couldn't keep the hook in em. Most of the larger fish seemed to have lockjaw, so it was mostly dinks messing around, and I'm sure that had something to do with the difficulty with hook setting. He's on the learning curve, it won't be long. I have a mission now, I have to show him a good day somewhere.

Surveyor and I got a few on various nymphs. I got 5, I think, and surveyor probably 3 or so. He took off at around 10, and Stagger and I stayed till noon, so surveyor was on the same pace I was. All dinks. Spent most of our time trying and failing to set Stagger up, and generally only fished the more difficult spots.

Stream was lower than I've ever fished it. It's a slow stream to begin with and as it was, you just can't get a decent drift. Cast out, and there it freakin sits. Indicator fishing might as well be a bobber in a pond. But there was a nice touch of color to it. Had that "whitish" look.

 

[djs12354]

pcray1231 wrote:
Good meeting. I failed at getting Stagger a fish. He had a lot of hits, brought a few to the surface, but couldn't keep the hook in em. Most of the larger fish seemed to have lockjaw, so it was mostly dinks messing around, and I'm sure that had something to do with the difficulty with hook setting. He's on the learning curve, it won't be long. I have a mission now, I have to show him a good day somewhere .

This is the most consistent message (underlying) that you will read through many posts by longer time members of the forum regarding how they feel about fishing with us newbies......They all share a passion to get us onto the "first fish" and then to improve that experience to catch fish consistently.

Thank You! from this lucky beneficiary to the guys and gals who take the time to mentor us who are behind on the learning curve.

 

[surveyor06]

Pat, I was wondering how you guys made out. Conditions were def. not in our favor, but it was still a really nice morning. Glad we could fish together again. It wont be long till Stagger is a Valley Creek pro.

 

[Stagger_Lee]

Great meeting more of you guys yesterday and putting faces to the posts. FYI .. you made 2 kids very happy ystrday b/ you left all the doughnuts for them. I think the only one I missed was the Chief but not sure

Had a really nice AM fishing with pcray and surveyor. We headed to a different part of the stream, parked the car and hiked for about 20 minutes. This area was tight and had a decent amt of bends (new conditions), but very slow too still in some areas, low and clear; I thought even tougher than the July jam on the LL.

Much appreciation to these 2. I listened and watched picking up some more knowledge on how to fish these conditions, 1st time I ever fished from the banks on my knees. Funny thing is I didn’t hook a fish yet it was one of the more successful days for me. 10+ hits and I felt’em, just have to get that hook setting down. Was also doing a decent job landing the fly with they would direct me too. One hit was when my indicator slid down to my fly and a fish came up and attacked it .. the 3 of us where like “huh? That fish just tried to eat ur indicator.”

Good morning and looking forward to fishing with all you guys again. Thanks again pcray and surv for taking ur time and having patience with me.

 

[Stagger_Lee]

Fox wrote:

Yikes the OT forum spilled over here!

No spill over fox. Nice guy though I still feel subconsciously he sent me that Dunkin just to have me do laps around the King of Prussia mall. Another thing he likes about me is my New Yawk accent :-D

 

[Stagger_Lee]

Apologies to NickR. I posted in #74 & #97 abt some possible issues with local. Hopefully we'll hook up next time.

 

[Foxgap239]

Glad you guys had some fun. We did okay up north and got Martin0206 into some fish on Penn's and Spring. Good time but as Pat said in his post, water was as low as I've seen it even up there. Better days are a coming!

 

[SNJChef]

I made it there abut a half hour late. Ran into a few guys in the parking lot before heading to the park to fish. See you guys october 6th

 

[docsab]

Really enjoyed the morning. Beautiful weather, beautiful stream. Many thanks to English Prof and SRoach for spending alot time trying to get me into some fish- they are a class act. Got a couple dinks but that sounds like what everyone was into. The "monster" in the tree roots that almost was, will remain in my mind for awhile!

Of course what would a day on Valley be without 5 Guys? Although I'm starting to wonder about a couple guys who headed home with some pink cupcakes.....

 

[sroach]

LOL.. Pink Cup cakes.. They went over well with the Wife and Son..

Really cool story, English Prof was walking the banks and saw a really nice fish (looked at least 12" to me, but hard to tell in water) held up under a tree and between a couple of branches. He was pointing towards the bank, because the of the direction of the flow.

DocSav, on his second cast was able to get it through the branches (don't know how) and float it over. EP and I were able to watch as the fish went after his fly.

Really cool to watch the fish held up and then get attracted by the fly..


Had a blast meeting everyone, it was a really good showing, thanks for throwing out there Stagger!

Couple people asked me about my infra-red thermometer, after seeing this very cool gadget FoxGap had I did some searching and found this one:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002MYMSOI/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00

it's water proof and works very well for the price.


Speaking of the water temps seems a bit cold all day, 55.6 and it didn't move much as the day moved on.

 

[sroach]

Couple of pictures I grabbed with my phone:

 

[Foxgap239]

I know those spots but I ain't saying. LOL

 

[sroach]

Shhhh....

 

[Stagger_Lee]

One of the other things I enjoyed yesterday was surveyor was discussing part of the enjoyment of FF is the adventure when you are hiking in/to a new area/spot on a stream. This was the first time I had hiked a lil “off the beaten path” (basically as OTBP as you can get a VC) and then working your way upstream.

//haven’t mentioned the hi-wire act pcray tried for a moment on the downed tree that spanned across the creek … thought he was nutz even trying it.

 

[SNJChef]

I am fishing that same area again wednesday am, if anyone is interested. I have to visit a property in chester springs to visit so why not fish and call it a day.

 

[sroach]

What time are you thinking, pretty sure I can do that.

 

[pcray1231]

I live for that adventure aspect. That area obviously wasn't "new" to me. I rarely repeat stream or stream sections in the same year, when alone. Maybe in winter or night, when getting too far from the car is not a good thing, and familiarity helps. But on Sunday, if not for the meetup, I certainly would've been to a new stream somewhere.

But when with someone who hasn't been there, you can kind of relive that new feeling. When taking someone else out, I often do go somewhere I know.

As far as the high wire act, it'd have been easy in felts. I'm still getting used to this whole rubber sole thing. For most things, there's not much difference. Kind of lulls you to sleep and you forget about it. Then suddenly you're on a surface where the difference is huge and apparant. I guess wet, smooth logs is not a strength of Simms soles. I did bite off more than I could chew there, and got in a bit of a hairy situation.

 

[SNJChef]

I am thinking early I am coming from nj so I have to beat that rush hour traffic . Shoot me a pm.