New Life on The Lehigh
When I was a child I lived just 40 miles away from Pennsylvania’s Lehigh River. In the 1950s, most of the large rivers in northeastern Pennsylvania were polluted with mine acid from nearby anthracite coal beds. The river within 200 feet of my childhood home, the Schuylkill—and all of its branches—ran black with coal silt. We referred to all of these waters as “Black Creek.”
At that time, the Lehigh River also had sewage problems, nearly continuous chemical spills, and siltation from some of its tributaries that flowed through anthracite coal fields. The upper Lehigh in the Pocono Mountains has been a great fishery for years. The section most affected by pollution was the 30 miles of river from the town of Jim Thorpe downriver to Northampton.
If anyone told me then that many of these rivers would return and have some great trout fishing and spectacular hatches, I would have had them committed. But the rivers have recovered, and the Lehigh is at the head of the class. The lower Lehigh is emerging from years of abuse, and the many trout now rise to mayflies, stoneflies, and caddisflies that hatch through much of the fishing season.
The Lower Lehigh
The Lehigh River begins as a mountain stream in the Poconos and flows into Francis E. Walter Reservoir, built in 1960 for flood control. Below Francis E. Walter Dam, the river flows through Lehigh Gorge State Park and offers prime walk-and-wade fishing opportunities for 30 miles. Part of the rails-to-trails network, the upper Lehigh has miles of river where you can hike or bike and enjoy great wade fishing for trout.
As tributaries enter the river, the Lehigh grows in size, and by the time it flows through the town of Jim Thorpe, it resembles a large Western river, best suited for fishing out of a drift boat. Casting to pods of rising trout from a drift boat is a rare experience in the eastern United States, matched only by a handful of larger rivers.
There are six different drifts on the lower river, each about five miles long. From the upper to lower river is Jim Thorpe to Lehighton, Lehighton to Bowmanstown, Bowmanstown to Palmerton, Palmerton to Walnutport, Walnutport to Treichlers, and Treichlers to Northampton.
Brian Tartar, Jim Slinsky, and I selected the Bowmanstown to Palmerton float for my introduction to the Lehigh. As we drifted through many sections of this 100- to 200-foot-wide river, I glanced toward the mountains to the right and thought for a second that I might be fishing in Montana or Colorado. But we were in the heavily industrialized Northeast, just 50 miles from Philadelphia and 70 miles from New York City.
Even with the hot, late-June sun, the four of us caught 15 trout before we took a late lunch break at 3 P.M. By 4 P.M. the water temperature rose to 72 degrees, and it seemed to shut off the feeding. Brian managed to land several trout over 17 inches long on the seven-hour float trip. All told, three of us landed about 30 trout and missed another 30 fish. That’s not bad for an extremely hot and humid day. Several trout in the 20-plus range came up under my dry fly and refused it.
Although many major roads parallel miles of the river, it is difficult to access. Once you do get on the river, you encounter large slippery boulders and deep treacherous banks. A float trip down a section of the river gives you a good idea where you can enter by foot later. You’ll also be able to locate many of the springs and cooler tributaries by floating the river.
The river holds plenty of deep pocketwater, productive riffles, and some long deep pools. Even in the heat of the afternoon, we saw trout feeding in foot-deep water. There are springs and cool tributaries throughout. One of these tributaries, Pohopoco Creek, is a tailwater that enters the river near Parryville. The Lehigh River has many Class-A trout streams running into it such as Mud, Hickory, and Drakes Run (below White Haven), Bear Creek (upstream of Jim Thorpe), Pohopoco Creek (Parryville), and Mahoning Creek (downstream of Lehighton).
Hatches
Brian Tartar has studied the hatches on the river for ten years and says that it holds every major hatch except Green Drakes. New hatches seem to appear almost every year. Recently Tricos have begun to appear on certain stretches. Some of the heaviest hatches on the Lehigh are Sulphurs, March Browns, Light Cahills, Slate Drakes, and tan caddis. Slate Drakes (Isonychia bicolor) have two generations each year, so if you see a hatch in June you can expect another generation, albeit a size smaller, in September and October. If you plan to fish the Slate Drake on this or any other river, remember that some of the nymphs crawl to the edge of the water to emerge. Also, more Slate Drake nymphs emerge in the middle of the river in swifter, deeper water. Those emerging in shallow, slow water tend to crawl out of the water to emerge.
On cool, overcast, drizzly days, the river comes alive with Blue-winged Olives ranging in sizes from 14 to 22. Stoneflies are extremely common on the river, and heavy hatches of Golden Stoneflies and the large Pteronarcys dorsata, a close relative of the western Salmonfly, are common in late May and June. The river even holds a few Brown Drakes.
If you want to fish over hatches on the river, the two best time slots are early May to mid June and September and early October. Caddisflies make up a major portion of the Lehigh trout’s diet. Make certain you have plenty of black, dark brown, tan, and olive downwings in sizes 14 to 18. Joe DeMarkis, owner of Lehigh Gap Outfitters, says that the many caddis hatches begin in mid-April with the emergence of the Black Caddis. Locals call the hatch the Easter Caddis because of the time it appears.
Copyright © 2012 Intermedia Outdoors
Comments