Central PA Summer Trout: Spring Creek

Well, I got back last night from a fishing trip to Central Pennsylvania that encompassed three days and four trout streams. I firmly believe there are too many trout streams in Pennsylvania to fish them all in a lifetime, but Mike Carl and I just might try. On this trip we were able to fish four of them including three that neither of us had fished before. But we started on more familiar waters: Spring Creek. And we would fish there a little bit every day. So, instead of doing a post for each day, I'm going to do a post for each place.

SPRING CREEK

PA has been getting quite a lot of rain this summer. Many rivers have blown out severely for extended periods, and Spring Creek is one of them. Two weeks ago it wasn't simply high, it was flooded. By the time we got there it was still way higher than normal but had dropped and cleared and was very fishable. The trico hatch wasn't going to result in good fishing, unfortunately, and nymphing and streamer fishing were going to be the most productive games. You can probably already guess which of those I was going to be doing the most of. 

After stopping in at TCO to get my license and a few flies we met Mike's friend Paolo who had already been fishing the river for a while. The bite hadn't been strong. I pretty quickly tied on a back woolly bugger, and though I got a take on it fairly quickly I didn't like how much water I covered without takes. There are a lot of fish in Spring Creek, they are just everywhere, so if you aren't getting takes it probably isn't because you aren't fishing over trout. Change what you are doing. I tied on a heavier, bigger complex twist bugger in olive, orange, and rust, and quickly got more chases and grabs. These fish moved quick and there was often little to be done about hooking most of them, they were just swiping at the fly. I just had to wait until one took more aggressively. And, eventually, one did. Unfortunately it wasn't the 16-17 inch bridge dweller.

I caught a couple more fish, tiny ones, on a stimulator, but that was it for the first evening in Pennsylvania. We quit before dark because there wasn't really a late hatch to worry about and we wanted to eat, get to our Airbnb, and be on the water fairly early the next morning.

Thursday morning dawned clear and cool. We finished breakfast right around sunrise and made our way towards Bellefonte. Though the water was high for this trip it wasn't like it had been in February, which was to my liking because we would get to fish water that was barely fishable that last trip. The section we fished both Thursday and Friday morning would have been next to impossible to wade in late February. 

If fishing big streamers is your thing Spring Creek need not be high one your list of places to visit. For most of it's length you'd be best off leaving any fly over four inches in the car. Your best productivity for both larger fish and large numbers of fish will be on 2-3 inch sculpin and juvi brown trout imitations. That is what the carnivorous trout in Spring Creek are eating, not 7 inch fallfish or brookies. For this stretch of water, which harbors bigger browns than much of the river, I fished two patterns primarily, both articulated flies intended to imitate young brown trout. They worked, many trout committed to eating them and quite a few came to hand. 

I fished the fly casting across stream and retrieving with short strips. I cast at shadow lines, seems, bank structure, overhanging brush, cut banks... everything had fish and no one way was best, really.

After a while activity seemed to die down significantly, so we left for Penns Creek. That will be the topic of the next post. While we were away, the flow continued to drop and the water continued to clear  on Spring Creek. There was some hope that we'd get a good spinner fall on Friday morning. Unfortunately, it didn't materialize. The streamer bite had gotten worse in correspondence with the improving water clarity, and I got nowhere near as many takes. But I did get a few.

The last Spring Creek fish of the trip for me, though not even quite an average size fish or particularly colorful, was very satisfying. I caught it fishing a scud at in the fast water at the head of a pool. Fishing scuds and cressbugs is synonymous with nymphing PA limestoners. It isn't really something that we get to do here and CT, and it can be a little tricky. It was fun to catch just one doing that on this trip.

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Thanks for joining the adventure, and tight lines.