[size=x-small]The second attempt in the last week to get on the board for 2020 turned out to be an outstanding day of fishing at Muddy Creek. Maurice hit me the night before to get out today to Muddy Creek on Monday. I quickly abandoned my plans for the Gunpowder and started packing up the SUV.
We arrived at about 11:00 with temps in the mid-forties and cloud cover. The clouds stayed with us all day and temps moved up to the upper forties. Water was just a little off-color, running at 180 CFS and at about 46 degrees. It could be considered a normal winter day in SEPA.
Maurice pointed out what really made conditions work is the very warm weather and rain just two days before. On January 11th the water temps reached about 51. January 12th was 65 degrees with about .8 inches of rain after midnight. This raised the water temps and changed the clarity of the water to just a little off-color when we got there. The normally sluggish deep holed trout were moving around more, with a better chance of them feeding.
We started out pretty quickly getting some hits and trout My first fish landed just before noon and Maurice followed right along or vice versa I can't recall. I pretty much stuck to fishing a black Palmer streamer all day.
The best section of the stream for me was a longer deep bending hole. After we caught a couple, I was now drifting my streamer at the end of the hole. Frist cast is a strong bump and miss, second cast strong bump and miss, third cast bump and miss and now I got a glimpse him. The fourth time, bam he came back for more and made the hook-up! A lot of fun.
Most of my fish were pulled out from opposite bank and the fish striking on the swing. An occasional little twitch helped give the streamer some slight action.
Maurice stuck to nymphing for the day with a bead head and wet fly dropper 18” up the line hitting more of the deeper holes and runs. We did really well catching many fish for the day. We had fall stocked bows, TU holdover browns and Mo caught a wild trout to close the day. The stocked fish looked in good shape and were all 10"-14".
I even saw a few ~#26 BWO? coming off sporadically a few times during the day. There were a couple rises at one hole. Enough excitement for me to put on a dry fly, but really it was only a Hail Mary and had no luck.
We wrapped up the day after 4:30 and made our way back up the hill to the cars talking about one of the best days we had for a January in a long time.
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We arrived at about 11:00 with temps in the mid-forties and cloud cover. The clouds stayed with us all day and temps moved up to the upper forties. Water was just a little off-color, running at 180 CFS and at about 46 degrees. It could be considered a normal winter day in SEPA.
Maurice pointed out what really made conditions work is the very warm weather and rain just two days before. On January 11th the water temps reached about 51. January 12th was 65 degrees with about .8 inches of rain after midnight. This raised the water temps and changed the clarity of the water to just a little off-color when we got there. The normally sluggish deep holed trout were moving around more, with a better chance of them feeding.
We started out pretty quickly getting some hits and trout My first fish landed just before noon and Maurice followed right along or vice versa I can't recall. I pretty much stuck to fishing a black Palmer streamer all day.
The best section of the stream for me was a longer deep bending hole. After we caught a couple, I was now drifting my streamer at the end of the hole. Frist cast is a strong bump and miss, second cast strong bump and miss, third cast bump and miss and now I got a glimpse him. The fourth time, bam he came back for more and made the hook-up! A lot of fun.
Most of my fish were pulled out from opposite bank and the fish striking on the swing. An occasional little twitch helped give the streamer some slight action.
Maurice stuck to nymphing for the day with a bead head and wet fly dropper 18” up the line hitting more of the deeper holes and runs. We did really well catching many fish for the day. We had fall stocked bows, TU holdover browns and Mo caught a wild trout to close the day. The stocked fish looked in good shape and were all 10"-14".
I even saw a few ~#26 BWO? coming off sporadically a few times during the day. There were a couple rises at one hole. Enough excitement for me to put on a dry fly, but really it was only a Hail Mary and had no luck.
We wrapped up the day after 4:30 and made our way back up the hill to the cars talking about one of the best days we had for a January in a long time.
