I had the pleasure of fishing with Spurky (aka troutnspoons) this past Saturday. When not posting pictures of bikini clad fishing women to my Facebook wall, he had been persistently texting & facebooking me about fishing Valley Creek again, and last week he basically told me, “Valley on Saturday. Be there at 7 AM. What exit do I take again?” I guess he was telling, not asking, so I didn’t have a choice…not that I’d say no anyway…
Meeting in one of the larger parking lots we geared up and headed down to the stream, walking in a bit before starting to fish at around 7:20 AM. And let me tell you…it was freezing. Literally. You know, frozen guides type of fishing. We both started the morning fishing spinning tackle and managed a couple follows and “love taps” from the resident trout, but no hookups. In addition to the cold, the water was on the low side and very clear. I always like Valley a little high and dirty (just like my wome….ah, forget it).
Catching up on all kinds of things, it was a pretty enjoyable morning despite not catching anything to that point. Spurky likes to talk, and is a pretty good storyteller, so I was entertained by all kinds of dirt on the locals (local to him – I don’t know these people), and time flew as the sun finally decided come out to warm us up a bit.
As we doubled back to where we parked the cars, I wanted to stop for two reasons. The first was to switch out my spinning rod for a tenkara rod. Spurky had never seen me use it, and asked if I’d give it a whirl. The second was to find a freakin’ band aid in the car. I had acquired a nice slice in my left pointer finger from the fishing line…don’t ask how, it just sort of appeared…and even though it didn’t hurt, it was bleeding like a S.O.B. and wouldn’t stop. I usually keep band aids in my pack, but Lilly knows this little bit of information and gets into them and sticks them all on her stuffed animals. Anyway, bloodletting crisis avoided, we moved on.
Well, the smell of blood must have been in the air because as we settled into fish the next section of water, out of nowhere, I got buzzed by a bat like 3 times. Spurky had moved upstream a bit, so he wasn’t there to see it, but it freaked me out a bit. It wasn’t a big bat or anything but I don’t like anything flying around my dome. After it calmed down and took a break on a nearby tree, I snapped a picture of it. The zoom on my camera sucks, so this picture does too.
We fished a little bit more, but by now we started to run into some legit creek traffic. It was now 10ish and it seems that all the late risers decided to show up at once, so we had to play leapfrog a bit to get to some of the better water. While I played around with tenkara wet flies in the shallows, Spurky hit some deeper water about 30 yards ahead of me. It was in that spot where he finally brought in a fish, his first at Valley, mercifully putting our fishless morning to an end. I wish I had a picture (he was supposed to send one to me that he took on his cell phone, but I never got it), so we’ll put this in it’s place for now.
I wish I could say the floodgates opened from there, but they didn’t. We both ended up going fishless the rest of the morning as we continued to weave in and out of other anglers, before packing it up and calling it quits around noon. Spurky had a two-ish hour drive ahead of him and there was no sense sticking around for this nonsense. Even without catching our limits, fishing with Spurky is always a good time, I look forward to heading up his way for brookies the next go round.
It has been slow in this side of the river as well. It's still great to get out.
We have those little bats in hordes, but only in the summer time. I guess they migrate to Pennsylvania in the winter. We have one that's taken up residence on the screened in porch out back. Every once in a while, the cat catches it and I have to throw it outside. For some stupid reason it keeps coming back. So when you're done with them, you can send them back to California.Mark
Lol! This sounded like a real RD adventure! I'm proud of you in finding a little blood, a few bats and what is that exactly that Spurky caught? Ha! I'm glad to see a smile on it's face, regardless. : )
For whatever reason, the thought of a bat going all Kamikaze on your head made me giggle quite a bit. I've had a few run-ins with bats, but they were always trying for my fly. Maybe you should eat more garlic or somethin'. 🙂
Next time, man-up and grab that bat, shove a hook up it's arse and tie some leader around it's neck. Give it a chuck. I like bats. They have a taste not unlike chicken, which I also like. And bacon.
I do not know why it says “unknown” on my comment above. I posted that, and I am here to proclaim as much, publicly.
Isn't Valley Creek catch and release?
It is, and no fish were kept on this outing. That said, I assume you're referring to the use of spinning gear as opposed to fly gear. Valley is “artificals only” water…i.e. not fly fishing only, you can use spinners, lures, flies, whatever, just not bait like worms or minnows.