Pennsy trouting: just barely beat the skunk

[Doug Vitale]

Pleasant temperature: 52 degrees, check.
Cloudy skies: check.
Healthy water level + flows: check.
Charming scenery: check.
Solitude on the stream: check.
Ideal water temperature: non-check! 41 degrees!
Trout were biting: non-check!

I visited a section of a Pocono stream which I had never visited previously. Despite many conditions in my favor, I only managed to land one brown which I assume was wild. You can see my lure in its mouth. I tried a couple of other lures in some very trouty-looking holding areas, but no dice. When I make multiple quality casts into a holding area that just looks like it has to hold trout ("prime lies" as they are called) and I end up getting no strikes, damn does that make me grit my teeth and clench my fist.

Winter trout fishing can send even experienced anglers home cursing.

Still, the whole experience was worth the drive there and back.

[thmyorke1]

looks like one of the streams i would fish in PA. Odd how you weren't finding much fish given the decent conditions. Might help trying to use a bait to let soak on the bottom. I was picking up some myself in PA like that, tipped a small spoon with scented bait. Trout would pick it off the bottom like a smallmouth on a ned rig. Yet I was doing that when i already knew there were fish hitting in a hole and they turned off on a moving lure.

[FASTEDDIE29]

Great conditions and scenery. Tough fishing is what drives us to go back again and again. We must keep going and learning every day!!!