the giant summer extravaganza continues

Extravagant extravaganzas have rough patches just like other happenings, events, and goings on. And the GIANT FUCKING SUMMER EXTRAVAGANZA is no different. Michael "The Plucky Irishman" "R" Kelly canceled the North Carolina leg of the summer extravaganza. He's "in Canada" and "just has too much going on man". So we're scraping that leg. Which means I get to stay in the Dub-C [insert hand gesture here] until Sunday AND fish throughout central PA next week, including trips to hidden wilderness Brook trout streams with 70kg of fish per hectare. That is a shit ton of brook trout. I will also hopefully get to hang out with the Plucky One in Clairton and perhaps even be lucky enough to spend some time with Princess Kathy Yeo in Pittsburgh before she departs for the Iberian peninsula.

So, anyway, I fished West Valley Creek last night in the delayed harvest/artificial lures only section. I grew up fishing West Valley Creek, but the section I fished growing up is now closed. Remember when we got kicked off the property? Bitch.

Anyway, West Valley Creek is a small limestone stream that is about 5 minutes from my folks house and, somewhat miraculously, 2 minutes from Victory Brewing Company. There are a TON of fish in the delayed harvest section, but they weren't very interested in eating any of my flies. I missed a couple rises and a take or two on nymphs. I did catch a FAT Brook trout on a wooly bugger though. Which is weird considering the Pennsylvania Fish Commission says they only stock the creek with Rainbows and Browns. This makes me feel somewhat worse about making this fish bleed. Maybe it's a giant, secret native?

Anyway, the fish was hooked pretty deep and bled some, but after a minute or two of recovery darted off into the deep dark hole from whence it came.

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