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Storm Chasing Season Has Arrived

1K views 10 replies 5 participants last post by  troutdoorsman 
#1 · (Edited)
Every year, actually far sooner than mid July usually, there comes a time in the trout fishing year that in order to experience exceptional trout fishing you have to be willing to drive all over gods creation in search of quality water levels brought on by summer storms. I wish I had the pick of the litter here in Eastern Pa like a lot of other guys around the state do but we’re just not making out as awhole when it comes to rainfall this summer. I can’t complain for this time of year and streams are in pretty decent shape for July but for the large part 95% of local (and non local) waters are far below optimal for interesting and productive spinner fishing. This seems to change daily right now as isolated storms pepper this area or that area providing small windows for the aggressive spin chucker such as myself. There’s a lot of fortune and luck involved and as luck would have it a nice storm passed over an area within striking distance while I slept the otherday and following a day to settle, I knew it was time to pounce!
Since I hadn’t fished in a solid week I set the alarm very early as the forecast was for a sunny day and I didn’t want to miss a second on the water before the sun peaked over the tree tops and put a damper on things.
I arrived a bit earlier than quality fishing light so I satin my truck and wondered how things would work out. Storm chasing isn’t an exact science. Sometimes the streams aren’t what you’dexpect. They could be high and muddy when you get there or low and clear. Sometimes they can be perfect but the fishing can stink anyhow. This day was going to end up a little blend of all of them but it started out with amazing promise when I saw that water levels were perfect!

20180504222546_IMG_2558by Zak Appleby, onFlickr

The fishing was pretty good to start. I was catching modest number of wild browns from the get go but there was an air of excitement about things that was missing. It was a cookie cutting brown type of day in the making.

IMG_20170716_132607by Zak Appleby, onFlickr

One can’t complain if you’re catching fish though, which I was including some pretty leftover rainbows on top of the wild browns.

IMG_20170716_132438by Zak Appleby, onFlickr

While the air temp was in the high 80s and terribly humid I was hardly breaking a sweat in the 64 degree stream water

20180504181950_IMG_2546by Zak Appleby, onFlickr

20180504230222_IMG_2586by Zak Appleby, onFlickr

About mid way through the morning, as has been the case the past few weeks things finally started to get interesting when this 18.5”rainbow shot off the bottom of the creek an zapped my deep running retrieve.

IMG_20170716_121934655by Zak Appleby, on Flickr

And, as often happens, 2 pools later another big fish, thistime a wild brown smacked and the battle was on. It fought a good fight but couldn’t get the better of me.

IMG_20170716_132528by Zak Appleby, onFlickr
Being that the water was warming to the upper half of 66 degrees I didn’t want to stress the 19” brown anymore than needed so I released him quickly to retreat to his deep pool to recover for the day.

After that excitement things settled back into the cookie cutting pattern again and lots of small browns came to hand. The setting was as good as it could have been for a day on the stream. The Rhody lined the stream at every turn.

20180504230729_IMG_2589by Zak Appleby, onFlickr

This old wrecking ball made for an interesting piece of habitat No clue how something like that gets into such an out of the way place.

20180504214825_IMG_2552by Zak Appleby, onFlickr

A short time later the water began to feel a bit warming on my ankles and I took a temp to see 67.5. it was getting late and although I don’t have a large concern with fishing a high gradient stream with spinners at that temp I knew the temp was only going to continue to rise so I figured it was as good a time as any to bail out. I’d caught a workmen like 100+ onthe day. For mid July that’s always something to feel good about!

It looks like there will still be at least a few decent weeks ahead as streams continue to drop to seasonal normals. You never know though….maybe they’ll be more storms to chase!
 
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#2 ·
Nice story. Nice photos. Nice big trout.

That's a very pretty stream. It actually looked a little high to me and maybe even a little off-color. The key though is whether it is giving up trout -- and it sure did.

The forecast calls for t-storms this weekend (July 22 -23). I'm hoping some of them put down enough water to make the storm-chasing worthwhile in my neck of the woods come Sunday or Monday. We could use a shot of H2O about now. There's something special about fishing a freestone stream in July or August that has a great flow. Good things can happen.
 
#4 ·
Storm chasing really is fun. It keeps you on your toes, always waiting, watching, monitoring a few data sources trying to put it all together in one place at one time. My wife(and others) thinks I'm crazy, constantly checking my data sources to see if I can put an outing together. You seem like you do quite well finding perfect water while chasing. My question is how far (time wise) will you travel to chase good stream conditions after a storm? I'm sure it depends on work and which day of the week you are fishing...
 
#5 ·
If it's on a Saturday or a day off from work I will really go. Up to 2 hours without a blink of the eye and further if I'm really desperate. Closer the better obviously! Those long long trips are pretty rare though. Usually I can find something within 90 minutes just because I live in a nice central area with a great diversity of water types.
 
#6 · (Edited)
Two hours drive is child's play:laugh:.

There are few good wild trout streams near where I live, so I'm used to driving 1.5 - 2.5 hours. Last year in late July a favorite but far away stream got a good overnight rain that put the stream at a good level. The forecast called for overcast conditions so I made the 3 1/2 hour drive. I didn't catch a lot of trout, especially for the time I fished, but I caught five trout over 16 inches and two were at least 22 inches. One of them was 22 3/4 inches and was my largest trout of the year.

This was an extreme example that shows that storm chasing can be risky, but it can also be very rewarding.
 
#9 ·
Two years ago I was finally starting to branch out, extending north and east up to about 80 minutes driving, and then a kid came. I never drive more than 30 minutes anymore. As long as I'm home by 11am I can fish every day from the last week of may through the end of august and still get 4 hours on the water.
 
#10 ·
It's nice that you have good streams so close. Most the streams near me are marginal streams. One is well stocked but gets intense fishing pressure. I haven't fished that stream for over ten years.

I don't mind driving fairly long distances.
 
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