12/26

Warmer than average temperatures, way warmer. Record highs have been falling left and right, we are still lucking out (or striking out, depending on how you look at it) with this El Nino. It was Christmas Eve when I figured it was about time to try the Schuylkill River for the warmwater species of Catfish we know and love, the Flathead, so I met up with Mike and Tan to fish a deep 30 foot pool for a couple hours. Flatheads are typically active in water temps above 50 degrees, with 60-75 being their prime range. Right now with water temps holding in the low 50's it is expected that there should be a bit of action. Low and behold, right at dusk on Dec. 24th, Mike got a promising run which ended up being the first December Flathead I personally have ever seen come from our river. Most years, we're lucky to catch Flatheads in November, on average our season ends sometime around Halloween, whenever water temps dip to around 50 degrees. There have been numerous times this month where I thought I should go down to the river and try for the December Flathead, but never did, not until right now, around Christmas, when water temps popped up and over 50 degrees, to now almost 55 degrees. As you can guess, by now there is a Flathead bite on the Schuylkill, if you can get some cutbait or fresh meat into their wintering holes, there is certainty of hooking up. I fished again today, this time with Romo way up the river, upstream of Black Rock. We fell victim to the 5 minute curse when a Fully Scaled Mirror Carp made a meal of my gob of nightcrawler. We intended on using cutbait for these Flatheads however couldn't find anything to chunk, so therefore opted for plan B which was worms from Wal Mart. We just had a good amount of rain which bumped our flows up to around 10x of what they average for this time of year, 10k cfs or so, receded now to around 4-5k cfs. Right after a rain is always a good time to throw some worms. Tomorrow (Sunday), is a sure bet for Schuylkill Flatheads, hopefully someone gets out there and puts a hurtin on them. James and Owen, a couple buddies of mine, were in on the bite way downriver of us today, in Philly, where they landed 6 fish to about 15lbs. Welcome to the new age, where we're catching Flatheads after Chrismas.

In other news, Stripers to 50" were reported from the beach today around IBSP. I didn't see any pictures of the alleged miracle cows, however did see proof as a couple 40"+ Bass were weighed in to the shops in central NJ. To whoever caught 40"+ Bass from the beach today, my hat is off to you, somehow 2015 just keeps producing. No word on many details but there are certainly enough Herring along our beaches to hold these fish, I wish I was there today. There are very few surf anglers left out there. 8'+ seas on Tuesday will but the brakes on the surf bite for awhile, who knows how long that action will last.

2 times I Flathead fished, and both times struck out. I witnessed 2 caught, both runts. Our buddy James wins the prize for December Flatheads, as him and Owen had 6 fish with a few 15lbers in the mix, all tonight from the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia where water temps are pushing 55 degrees. My skunking's didn't go unnoticed however, as the fish gods gifted the gold in form of full scale mirror-