East Hickory Creek Fly Selection

[Camp]

I will be fishing East Hickory Creek this weekend. I was able to catch a nice Brown on a mosquito pattern opening weekend, but had zero strikes with the same fly last weekend. Planning to try same with woolley bugger and green weenie this weekend. Any other suggestions welcome. Thanks!

 

[pcray1231]

Go upstream....

 

[Camp]

I know there are some nice places to fish beyond the DHALO section. I want to stick there for now since I know there are plenty of fish there with the catch and release regs. There also has been very little angler pressure there thus far this season. I think I have done pretty well with fly fishing with the notable exception of fly selection when it is not possible to see what they are feeding on.

 

[pcray1231]

Fair enough. It's not a stream where, in my experience, gets fished out as long as you stay away from access points.

I used to fish the roadless area from Queen up to FR 119, and that always had plenty of stockies even in mid-summer, with some wilds and holdovers thrown in for good measure. It gets hit pretty hard within about 1/4 mile above and below 119. But above that, then, there are miles and miles of water that, in places, fishes pretty well for wild brookies and browns. It's always been kinda spotty, though, in that there are sections that suck and then you come on a good section. The fish come in bunches separated by some unproductive periods. Middle Hickory isn't bad either.

Perhaps I'm off base, but I always avoided the DHALO stretch because it gets POUNDED.

 

[Camp]

Not so much pressure yet. I am sure Memorial Day will see lots of campers there. I was irritated to see the large wooden Fish Commission signs were missing. Hoping they are just being refurbished. I found the 12 top fly's and that is a good enough list to "fly" with.

 

[Bearski]

I'm one of the campers you mentioned in your post that will be invading the ANF in may, so i understand if you would rather not share information.

Anyways, i'm not interested in fishing locations as much as knowing which roads are safe to drive. i drive a nissan altima, and i just want to be sure that the roads around the DHALO are navigable for a sedan.

 

[pcray1231]

When I was in college, I used to take a Ford escort on all those forest roads in the summertime.

I also frequently replaced tie rods on said Ford escort.

In the summer, you're not getting stuck. And the main driving dirt roads don't have terrible ruts or anything like that where you need to be worried about clearance (some of the sometimes gated side roads, on the other hand....).

Really, it's potholes and washboard. They are long distance dirt roads in the ANF, and as long as you don't try to drive them like a rally racer, like I did in school, you'll be fine.

Winter is a totally different story as there is no winter maintenance on the dirt roads within the ANF. Hunters in trucks drive them, and beat down that snow into hard ice. You end up with deep ruts in deep snow, and the ice at the bottom of those ruts looks zamboni'd. Not to mention that the loggers mounded up those roads so it's often a long slide off the side.

 

[Bearski]

Thanks, I learned my lesson when I booked a camping trip to Poe Valley a few years ago. I was in a jolly mood on my way to the park until I came across a PCNR employee that the road access to the park from 322 was blocked off because they were working on the road. I had zero idea that all the roads leading to the park were gravel. Now, the road I eventually took to get to Poe was in great shape as far as gravel roads go, but from now on I'm doing my best to ask questions before I drive somewhere.

 

[pcray1231]

yeah, it was like that at jam time last year. Making matters worse was that the detour around had bridges out too, lol. Made what is normally a 20 minute drive from 7 mountains to Poe Paddy into an hour long adventure.

Still feel bad for gfen and crew. He didn't have a clue where he was going. So I gave him directions, before realizing the road issues. I think they had an adventure as well.

But yeah, the ANF roads are equivalent in quality to most of the roads around Poe. Exception being Poe Paddy Drive, which is significantly worse (don't take you're Altima up there!, it's the steep little rock path from that switchbacks up directly from the campground). Nice overlooks up there though, just approach it by taking Pine Swamp Rd from the Siglerville-Millheim Pike and don't challenge the hill itself.

ANF is the same deal where you have to sometimes travel a long ways on decent dirt roads as well. Not just short jaunts. It's how you travel distance.

 

[Camp]

The road along east Hickory had a rough winter. It is paved and had some loose patches, should be fine if you take it easy. There was still winter ice on some of the hillsides last week too.