Last Days of Winter Trout Besides TCA Waters

One last try at the river trout as only two days remain before most waters close until Opening Day. Oliver Round and Loki the black Lab came today. Fifteen minutes less than two hours. Besides a couple of fish on for a moment I think were also suckers, I might have got hit twice from trout. Oliver had a sucker or carp on for a second. A big scale on his hook. 

Notice my sucker got hooked on the nose. 

I'm glad I caught trout this time around. October and November felt very discouraging, but December yielded just before extremely cold weather resulted in some ice fishing for some anglers. Pretty much for the months of January and February we ice fished. I saw some Facebook posts that prove not everyone gave up on the rivers, though there was a lot of ice on them. Naturally, fishing pressure got reduced. 

I caught trout in March for a change, though that might partly be owing to the fact of that ice covering spots like the one I've been hitting. Trout Conservation Areas will remain open. Last year I fished two of them, catching trout on the Pequest April 1st.

Doubt I'll do the same this year, as I'm eager to go bass fishing. Brian Cronk is out fishing Indian Lake as I write, trying a new glide bait for the big ones. 

After March 31st, I'm done jobbing. By all accounts I can drum up, I'll be done for life. That doesn't mean I won't return the form to the union that will allow me to return to work and preserve my pension for later, but as awful as the economy has become in recent weeks, I doubt it will become so devastating that I have to hold a job. 

I have important to work to do as a writer and photographer. More than I can possibly get done, so I have no natural interest in holding a job after I quit my present one. Only extreme devastation coming from aberrant leadership might mean I can't do that work as fully as I will be enabled by having time I currently have to commit to a low wage. Instead of that eventuality actually happening--amounting to a dystopian society no one would want: mass death, legal chaos, and so much unemployment I probably wouldn't find a job anyway--I tend to believe that things look worse when reflected by the media. 

Reservoir Level Low Exploring Spruce Run Creek Channel

I was curious about the channel of Spruce Run Creek. What that looks like for future reference, if I ever get a boat up there near Van Syckel's Road. I wasn't just starry eyed about finding pike and bass, though I thought that possible. If the reservoir ever refills, it might be a lot easier. 

It will, but when is anyone's guess. 

Surprised at how much rock, gravel, sand, and edgy drop-offs exist as the creek flows, I felt privileged to explore it and got photos to help me remember where interesting spots lie. Surrounding all that is muddy flat. 

Carp water pretty much.

I think I walked almost a mile to access the mouth of the creek as it becomes reservoir. Loki the black Lab had a field day running around that flat and exploring the creek bed. Where the creek widens and slows, as you can see in the photos below, it gains depths of at least three feet, maybe four, so I cast a jerkbait and worked it slow on the surface as much as I retrieved it. 

Something could have moved into that space, it seems, but if anything at all was there, it wasn't hitting. I'm sure the water temp remained in the 40's, though I don't know that for a fact. I didn't bring along a thermometer. One thing to remember about Spruce Run Creek is that it purportedly hosts wild brown trout. Even if it doesn't hold as many as Mulhockaway Creek on the other side of Spruce Run Reservoir, Spruce Run Creek is spring fed and stays cool, compared to streams that don't have the same kind of groundwater influence. 

The reservoir beyond that deeper creek mouth was super shallow. It's just a slow-sinking mud flat. To have attempted--which I didn't do--gaining the edge of water, would have meant sinking in wet mud.