Central PA Wild Rainbows and Joe's 90th (Pt. 1)

Mike and I made our way to State College last Thursday for our third trip there together, just 48 hours in front of a winter storm that the media was hyping up as much as they possibly could have.  Though CT was snow-less when we left,  Central PA already had a dusting and while we fished the evening of our arrival more was falling. It was cold and getting dark fast, but we were going to get in as much time on the water was we could, so we set out looking to find some trout.

It was difficult to say the least. The trout we were fishing over get pressured non-stop. They are smart and they are quick. I missed a lot of fish because they seemed to be taking exclusively the moment my fly reached the bottom 3 inches of the water column. I usually didn't see any leader movement, just a flash. Eventually I smartened up and just started to set blind as soon as the fly got into the zone. It worked, I got one small brown and lost a bigger one that was only on for a moment. Not long thereafter, it was too dark to see my sighter.

The next morning, after an appropriately slow start, we were on the water again in slightly warmer conditions. The sun never came out and there were some flurries... to me, this was ideal winter trout weather. We chose to fish an area I thought might produce some bigger fish. I marched off upstream, Mike went down. I started with a Sexy Walt's and a San Juan. When I lost that I kept the Walt's on the point and put a Hump's Cress Bug on the dropper tag. And when I lost that I kept that Walt's on the point and put a very simple pattern that is just black ice dub, olive colored wire ribbing, and a florescent orange tag with a tungsten beadhead. My leader was 9'6" long, my sighter was two lengths of yellow Suffix Hi Vis mono tied onto the leader in nail not fashion. I can adjust where on the leader they are just by sliding them. This gives me more versatility: I can slide them down the leader for fishing very shallow water, up for moderately deep water, and then use the fly line as a sighter when nymphing the deepest water. Now, I don't talk about sighters much and that's because I don't use them much. Why was I using one here? In low light winter conditions it can be much more difficult to keep track of your leader. So even if you aren't full on Euro nymphing, it is pretty smart to use some kind of versatile sighter in the winter. 

 That's basically what I stuck with for a nymph rig for the duration of the trip. If it ain't broke don't fix it. 

The first fish I caught was a cute little wild rainbow. That was a surprise! This was my first rainbow out of Spring Creek. I was even more surprised when two casts later I hooked and lost another. Then, in the next bit of good water, I caught two more and lost a third, all rainbows. 

For the next hour I caught a fair number of fish, missed some, and lost others... not one of them a confirmed brown! Some of the rainbows were clearly hatchery fish, like this one: 

Others, not so much. In fact, most of the bows I was catching were fin-perfect, par marked, and brightly colored. Which isn't unexpected. Spring Creek is unstocked. Some rainbows escape from the hatcheries, others may come up from Bald Eagle Creek, but the bulk of the stream's bows are wild fish. They aren't as abundant as the browns, but for some reason they were just fired up and I was on the right pattern. 

After loosing one quite decent fish, probably 16 inches and hard as nails, I headed back downstream to see how Mike had done. We split water for a little while in a good stretch of pocket water. I found a redd there, and focused my efforts on the nearby holds hoping the builders had been good sized browns and that they were somewhere close by still. 

The Redd

 The redd makers seemed to have skidaddled, which is no surprise. I've seen no correlation to where a big trout holds up and where they redd, to the degree that whole stretches of rivers in my area that are loaded other times of year are just devoid of trout during the spawn. But if it were just a week or two after the fish had gotten off the redd I would not be that surprised to find one in the closest good lie, bulking up. As long as you can avoid stepping into, wading below, or kicking silt into the redd, it is worth fishing close to it.

Clearly this fat piggy young wild bow was not one of the redd builders. But I think it has probably taken advantage of brown trout eggs ending up in the drift.

I did manage to get a few browns there just before we left Spring Creek. It is fascinating how things change work. Mike, Paolo and I fished this same area in August and it was just stacked with browns, the only rainbow I saw was a huge hatchery escapee fish caught by a bait fisherman. And even this time Mike got more browns than bows. Why? There are so many variables to take into consideration. It's things like this that keep me fascinated with fishing.

We decided to go explore a new stream, one with big fish potential. On my way back up towards the parking area I was periodically stopping and flicking casts into good looking water. I picked a few little fish up, then set into something substantial. After the set it just felt like I was lifting a clump of debris off the bottom. But then I saw something big, yellow, and orange coming towards the surface. I had just enough time to register that this was a gorgeous brown of substantial size when the fly popped out. I gasped and uttered a painful "no", staring into the bit of water into which the fish had disappeared. Yeah, that one stung. 

The new stream was picture perfect streamer water. And as much as I love streamer fishing though, I can be pretty lazy about changing tactics especially in the winter. So I fished the nymphs until I lost the entire rig. I got slammed just shortly after getting to the best looking pool in the stretch. Then I caught... a friggen wild rainbow. Apparently they weren't letting me get away so easily!

About 20 feet upstream in the inside seem I hit a brown. He was a pretty good looking fish, very chrome and fin perfect. 

Eventually I lost my whole tippet length to the sharp slate bottom and switched over to a streamer friendly leader system. I started with a brown and tan Complex Twist Bugger. Three casts in it got hit on the pause and the hook was set automatically on the next rod twitch. It was a chunky holdover rainbow. With action that quick I was pretty sure it was on.

150 some casts later with absolutely no takes and I was less convinced. So I lengthened my leader, tied on a much heavier sculpin pattern, and put one split shot ahead of it. A solid whack on a dead drift told me I had made a good choice, and eventually I hooked up to the best brown on the day. It wasn't big, but it fought hard and it was very colored up... I'll take it. Usually I'm about quality over quantity but some days I'll gladly take a steady pick of small-average fish. And I did need the practice, especially the nymphing. Next time I trout fish in CT though you can bet I'll be slinging meat.

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.

If you enjoy what I'm doing here, please share and comment. What best keeps me going so is knowing that I am engaging people and getting them interested in different aspects of fly fishing, the natural world, and art. Follow, like on Facebook, share wherever, comment wherever. Every little bit is appreciated! 

Thanks for joining the adventure, and tight lines. 

Final Hour

Mike and I made one last push on spring creek Sunday morning before saying goodbye. For once, instead of raining all day and being dry all night, it rained all night and brought the level up even more for us. I started out of course, fishing to the trout nymphing up on the grass. I started trying to get one on a dry fly. We had seen these fish and others rise during our time there and a fish in inches of water is an easy dry fly target. No dice, even though I saw a midge type rise while I was rigging up. I switched to a crane fly nymph and was immediately into a very pretty brown.  In the next back eddy up, I got a second. In the third, I missed one. In the fourth and final I hooked and lost a some-teen inch fish that was absolutely ablaze in orange and red. A fish I really would have loved to have gotten a photo of.

No enhancement. This is what it was really like. 

I changed to a streamer and worked down, catching one small fish and getting another that came in fouled. I don't take photos of snagged fish even if they are as nice looking as that one was!

I then crossed a bridge and walked down to a place where clear water was dumping into the creek. Initially all I saw were suckers. Big ones. But after a bit of spot and stalk I found a big hatchery escapee rainbow feeding actively. I tied on a pink Frenchie, added a split shot, and started to work the fish, which was sitting in a very inconvenient spot as far as current goes. It may have taken at on point but I couldn't see my fly or feel anything so I was basing my hook set entirely on what I saw the fish do. I kept making the best drifts I could, focusing right on that rainbow's head, when I got distracted by some motion just next to the bow. There was a big brown that I hadn't even seen, white mouth open wide and head shaking angrily. Now, what I should have done was lightly lift the rod and proceed to carefully fight the fish. What I did was make an aggressive downstream hook set and break the fish off. That really was a good fish. Not huge, but big enough to be impressive. And it would have been a heck of a sight-nymphed trout. But now, what I really have is a looming image of the fish that could have been and a big reason to get myself back to Spring Creek very soon. 

Sculpin Bouncing, and a Legend of the Sport

Saturday was the last Mike and I had a significant chunk of time to devote to fishing on this trip. First off we checked some possible options in Bellefonte, which we didn't fish. It was pretty clear that going back to the areas we'd already fished was the best option so that's what we did. I quickly caught two of the trout tailing in the grass on a cress bug, then switched over to an olive sculpin.

I quickly caught a third brown of about the same size on the sculpin, then missed three others. Thankfully I didn't miss the next grab. I twitched the fly as tight as I could to the bank and an unseen trout ate the fly and left a large surface boil. I lifted to set the hook and the fish, a good sized brown, cleared the water in two spectacular somersaults. Righted itself after the second and tore off dowstream. I got it into some slack water at the last moment before it cleared a logjam I wouldn't have bee able to get around. This ended up being the best fish of the trip, a very healthy and mean looking buck. A proper spring creek sculpin eater.

I continued one, excited to be on a fairly fast paced streamer bite and hoping to break into the double digits.

The fish below was a bit of a surprise. Mike caught two of them and I caught one and lost one. What they were doing in Spring Creek I have no clue.

Eventually I jinxed myself by saying I wanted to get at least ten trout out loud to Mike, and after I caught my ninth one I went on a string of fish missed and hooked and lost. Never do that kind of thing folks, It can put an end to a string of good fortune!

 Mid afternoon the rain become steady and we called to to get some rest and clean up for the evening event, a benefit dinner for the PA Fly Fishing Museum. Joe Humphreys was the guest of honor, with his student and one of the best fly anglers in the world, George Daniel, making a speech in his behalf. Greg Hoover made a very entertaining and informative presentation on the little blue-winged olive dun hatch.

I have been to a lot of shows, been around some really influential figures in the fly fishing community, many of which I have learned a lot from and look up to. But on this night I got to meet the legend himself, an angler and teacher who I owe a huge amount of my trout fishing success to. Joe is indomitable. Mike has known Joe for years, they are close friend.  Hopefully I will get to share a piece of water with him soon.

Limestone Trout

Another day another spot on Spring creek. The water was just as high and just as discolored, but Mike and I didn't come to sit in a hotel room. So we fished. And if you know what you are doing, and we both do, you can catch trout in the worst of conditions. The fantastically dense trout population in Spring Creek was definitely in our favor. It didn't take long.

I worked a spring mouth where the water was clearer first. Out of two takes there I hooked one fish. I then changed from two nymphs to a sculpin and one nymph and fished that in a soft seem behind a bridge abutment. The flies fell quickly and I felt extra weight there. I set into the snag and imediately roll cast to knock the fly free. That's when the snag, a mid teens rainbow, jumped and tossed the hook. I continued downstream and missed a handful of very quick grabs on the sculpin. Eventually I got another solid hookup. The sculpin had actually hung up and the fish hit the shrimp and hooked itself. I had to wade out to get him free from the branch.

Macroinvertebrate biomass is one of the largest factors in making Spring Creek such a strong trout fishery. Mike was keen on showing me this by kick seining. Surprisingly, the first seine turned up a sculpin amongst all the sow bugs and baetids.

There were not a whole lot of shrimp, but there were some. There were even fewer cress bugs. There was, however, a ton of sow bugs.

We moved a couple miles downstream after that. I got one the board there pretty quickly with a nice fish on a Vladi Worm.

And, lest you thought the tailing trout were a one time thing...

The fish in the water.

The fish out of the water.

I've noticed a distinct difference in behavior, color, and strength with these brown trout. There's something special about limestone streams. Their temperature and flow stability is fantastic and they have really spectacular biomass. In my mind brown trout were made to live in these types of streams, and even though they are not native it feels like they belong.

Spring water. Crystal clear.

The rest of the afternoon was frustrating. I missed a handful of fish on nymphs doing the Leisenring Lift then caught one on a black sculpin. I felt like w should have been getting far more action than we were though. Perfect drifts with proven flies went untouched. Today, on the other hand, was a real morale booster. But you will all have to wait a day or two for that.