Semper on the Fly: December Trout

With my freestone SNP streams entering cold water dormancy and Henry and I anything but we set our eyes on the Pohopoco tail water in east-central Pa to slake our fishing thirst.

Hen surveys the spillway and start of the fishable Pohopoco

It’s a hike from Va so I joined the Ritchie’s for one last stay at their Gaskell home and Henry and I headed out Friday morning. Beyond the fishing excitement it was also the maiden journey for some new fishing gear for Henry... A handsome F-150 that like a sled dog is begging to pull something.

It was warmer than we expected, about 45 when we stepped into the water, but with a High PA ridgeline defining the East side of the river and the low December sun, no warming rays ever kissed Pohopoco. The river was running at 48 degrees and at a healthy 60.6 CFS which looks to be the sustainable release level at the time of the year from the Beltsville Dam which loomed just upstream.

There was a bit more green river snot on the rocks than Hen remembered and we had to really work to find the runs amid a uniformly shallow shale-gravel bottom. We fished together exploring hidden runs and chutes which I'm sure sheltered resident browns, but just couldn't raise a strike despite throwing everything at them. After we were skunked at a particularly lovely deep fast cliff-side run we knew it wasn't to be our day on the Poho.

While reassessing our day we met a local who was also having a slow day and he offered that we might drive 30-minutes north and wet a leg at Hickory Run. Fortified by Subway and coffee and excited to check out another well known PA trout stream we motored north on 476 (damn we needed an easy pass) and worked out way into Hickory Run State Park home of both Hickory Run and its somewhat lesser known sibling Mud Run. For geographic reference this is deep in the Poconos, about a dozen miles NNE of Jim Thorpe and just East of the Lehigh Gorge where Hickory Run lends its flow to the Lehigh River.

Hickory Run is a small freestoner about the size of the uppermost Rapidan or Hazel with lovely drops, pools, and chutes. Henry joked that I was very much at home. There are many fishable sections and we concentrated on the stretch to the left from just below Camp Daddy downstream. Trout were not rising in the shaded cut the run had worn into the shale(y) old mountain so we stayed we stayed with standard nymphs under dries and indicators. It was slow as the water was cold, clear and low but eventually we enticed a few small trout to hand. As many of you know, on a slow day any trout is IMMEASURABLY better than no trout so these game little fellows put smiles on our faces.