I finished finals earlier this week and all I wanted to do was to go out and go fishing. I had read internet reports of ice and slush. I had heard that the rivers are all locked up for the winter. Then I drove by the upper part of the river, there was some open water so I figured I go out and give it hell. I fished for about three hours this afternoon. The air temp was 24 degrees and it was sunny out. There was a lot of shelf ice and slush flowing in the water. The only water I could get a decent drift in was too fast to hold fish when the water is this cold. All the slow winter holding water was either solid on top or had major slush flows. Icy guides and ice on the fly line and leader was a bit of nuisance, but you deal with it. I tried breaking up the ice and pushing it down stream to open up some water. I put on a twice the amount of split shot to penetrate the slush, I did everything I could think of to get the fly to the fish, I fished hard. It just was not meant to be today. I didn’t even get a bump. Even with out any fish, it was really nice to get out.
I think the only place I'm going to find fishable water durring my break is to find some spring fed creek in Pennsylvania. I'm thinking about heading to State college and fishing for some trout.
Lower river frozen solid... this is what I expected to find when I got to the river
Winter warrior... all geared up for 24 degrees
Icy guides were a pain
Open water, but slush everywhere
