Chocolate Milk Anyone?

After a long, hot, dry summer, the fall has brought it's first serious rains to the area.  The storm we had on Thursday night into Friday morning is the kind that transforms your normally slow 45 minute commute to work into about an hour and 45 minutes of bumper-to-bumper gridlock.  It's also the kind of rain that floods 4 of your employees' basements to the point that they need to call out the next day to clean up the mess.  Not good stuff.

Took the opportunity to check out the flows on one of my favorite trout streams (Valley Creek) during my lunch break.  My office is literally about 5 minutes from where I fish, so it wasn't like I making a big effort here.  Driving back was a sight unto itself, with all of the downed tree limbs (some quite large) and a lot of the creekside vegetation totally washed away. It looked very different from the last time I visited over Labor Day weekend.  It was as if someone took a giant bottle of Hershey's syrup, a giant spoon, and did some serious stirring.

Here's the view looking downstream from atop the Wilson Road (Metal) Bridge:

And a corresponding view upstream:

Since I don't have a "before" picture, it looks like the water was about 3 or 4 feet higher than usual.  That's typically what the drop is from the bank if you want to wade the creek.  As you can see above, there is no drop from the bank.  Valley's flows are also very gentle, these were downright rapids in spots.

I don't think there's going to be much (successful) fishing there this upcoming weekend.

Also made a side stop at the Schuylkill River where it runs through the area.  The picture sucks, but needless to say, it's quite high too. Keep your kayaks in your garage.