Swattie87
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- Joined
- May 3, 2011
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salmonoid and I spent Wednesday evening through Sunday morning morning on the Fall fishing trail this past weekend. What follows is a breakdown of that trip.
WARNING - This thread contains multiple species of Trout caught using multiple techniques, all of which were legal in the respective stream we were fishing. All fish were released...Even the Gemmies. This thread is about two friends, who met thanks to PAFF, fishing, eating, and otherwise enjoying the PA outdoors in the Fall. If that offends you in any way, no problem. Plenty of other threads on this forum to occupy your time with. I know most of you will enjoy this, so that's why we're posting it.
We initially set this trip up to try to run into some river/reservoir run Brown Trout in some smaller tributary streams. Ultimately that didn't really materialize, but we still managed to get into some good fishing. In the end, we suspect we were a touch early. Exactly zero fish were observed spawning. One pair of nice Browns were peculiarly occupying the same small run, and may have been gearing up, but that was the only potential "action" we saw.
Wednesday - After a 4:00 departure from our respective offices near Harrisburg we headed to the State College area. We fished Spring Creek for an hour or two after dark with no action. Oddly very few fish were even spotted when shining our lights into the shallows on the walk back. When night fishing with salmonoid I often just take an approach of mostly observing him, as he is a true pro at this. I figure if I can mostly stay out of the way, not unnecessarily spook anything, and maybe help with the net if he gets into one I've done a pretty good job. When he as well didn't turn anything up, I concluded they were just off for the evening. Fortunately, beer, food, and a couple growlers to go from Happy Valley Brewing served as a nice consolation prize.
Thursday - After a mediocre (but free) hotel breakfast, our worst meal of the trip, we headed up toward the ANF area. Our initial plan was to fish some reservoir tribs for runners that we had some degree of recon on. Unfortunately, the rain conveyor belt that had developed over the northern tier essentially served to blow those streams out. We waited for about an hour, thinking they may be on the fall, but after they continued rising, and a switch to the backup pair of waders for me, we bailed for plan B. Good side lesson...On a big fishing trip, bring an extra pair of waders. I somehow developed a hole in the bootie of my primary pair since I last wore them. It'll be an easy fix, but it was a catastrophic leak and without a backup pair it would've meant a lengthy trip somewhere to buy a pair on the quick. Anyway, we jogged south aways and were able to find some water that although high, was fishable. We turned up a mix of holdover stockers and wild Browns and Brooks. A burger and a hot roast beef sandwich served as our meals for the evening.
Friday - We settled on fishing a medium sized freestoner that is a tributary to a large river. Part of the allure of this watershed was the possibly of encountering wild Brooks, Browns, and Bows at the same time. In the lower reaches we proceeded to have run ins with large Brown Trout...all in the 15-19" range class. While we first thought these may be river runners, we more came to the conclusion that they were just large, marginal water, resident Brown Trout. We each landed a nice one of these. A stocker for me, and a wild fish for salmonoid, and each had several other run ins that didn't result in landed fish. As we pressed upstream we continued to catch wild Browns of impressive size, most in the 13-15" range, and a few wild Bows started to show up as well. A streamside lunch consisted of some pepperoni bread, hot soup, and a Fall themed microbrew. We had a Pittsburgh style salad and Salisbury steak for dinner at a local bar, and watched a bit of the World Series game before calling it a night.
Saturday - After some debate, and encouraged by the successful day Friday, we opted to explore a tributary of the same watershed for our Saturday fishing. This is a gorgeous stream that some will likely recognize. We each managed a wild trifecta relatively easily on this stream, although salmonoid's was a bit more impressive than mine thanks to his 17" Brown in full colors. This is one of the prettiest Browns I've ever seen...I suspect he has some even better pictures of this fish than I do. A very impressive fish for such a stream for sure. The majority of the catch was small wild Bows, but the action was very consistent for most of the day. I believe we ended the day in the 30 fish range, our best numbers day of the trip. Dinner was some roadside BBQ and BYO Microbrews...both were excellent.
Sunday - We hopped around a bit in the morning, just exploring mostly, and landed a few more small Brookies before packing it up and heading back toward home. A stop for burgers at Hoss's rounded out the food for the trip. Fortunately we hiked 20+ miles over the course of the trip, or otherwise we'd both probably be a notch bigger on the belts probably. Ultimately the trip didn't include the kind of fishing it was initially thought up for, but a good time was had nonetheless. Good food, good beer, good fish, and a good 4 days fishing with a friend. Fall's my favorite time of year to be outside, and although I don't think I'll get any other majoring outings in this year, plenty of good memories were made on this one.
Pics to follow.
WARNING - This thread contains multiple species of Trout caught using multiple techniques, all of which were legal in the respective stream we were fishing. All fish were released...Even the Gemmies. This thread is about two friends, who met thanks to PAFF, fishing, eating, and otherwise enjoying the PA outdoors in the Fall. If that offends you in any way, no problem. Plenty of other threads on this forum to occupy your time with. I know most of you will enjoy this, so that's why we're posting it.
We initially set this trip up to try to run into some river/reservoir run Brown Trout in some smaller tributary streams. Ultimately that didn't really materialize, but we still managed to get into some good fishing. In the end, we suspect we were a touch early. Exactly zero fish were observed spawning. One pair of nice Browns were peculiarly occupying the same small run, and may have been gearing up, but that was the only potential "action" we saw.
Wednesday - After a 4:00 departure from our respective offices near Harrisburg we headed to the State College area. We fished Spring Creek for an hour or two after dark with no action. Oddly very few fish were even spotted when shining our lights into the shallows on the walk back. When night fishing with salmonoid I often just take an approach of mostly observing him, as he is a true pro at this. I figure if I can mostly stay out of the way, not unnecessarily spook anything, and maybe help with the net if he gets into one I've done a pretty good job. When he as well didn't turn anything up, I concluded they were just off for the evening. Fortunately, beer, food, and a couple growlers to go from Happy Valley Brewing served as a nice consolation prize.
Thursday - After a mediocre (but free) hotel breakfast, our worst meal of the trip, we headed up toward the ANF area. Our initial plan was to fish some reservoir tribs for runners that we had some degree of recon on. Unfortunately, the rain conveyor belt that had developed over the northern tier essentially served to blow those streams out. We waited for about an hour, thinking they may be on the fall, but after they continued rising, and a switch to the backup pair of waders for me, we bailed for plan B. Good side lesson...On a big fishing trip, bring an extra pair of waders. I somehow developed a hole in the bootie of my primary pair since I last wore them. It'll be an easy fix, but it was a catastrophic leak and without a backup pair it would've meant a lengthy trip somewhere to buy a pair on the quick. Anyway, we jogged south aways and were able to find some water that although high, was fishable. We turned up a mix of holdover stockers and wild Browns and Brooks. A burger and a hot roast beef sandwich served as our meals for the evening.
Friday - We settled on fishing a medium sized freestoner that is a tributary to a large river. Part of the allure of this watershed was the possibly of encountering wild Brooks, Browns, and Bows at the same time. In the lower reaches we proceeded to have run ins with large Brown Trout...all in the 15-19" range class. While we first thought these may be river runners, we more came to the conclusion that they were just large, marginal water, resident Brown Trout. We each landed a nice one of these. A stocker for me, and a wild fish for salmonoid, and each had several other run ins that didn't result in landed fish. As we pressed upstream we continued to catch wild Browns of impressive size, most in the 13-15" range, and a few wild Bows started to show up as well. A streamside lunch consisted of some pepperoni bread, hot soup, and a Fall themed microbrew. We had a Pittsburgh style salad and Salisbury steak for dinner at a local bar, and watched a bit of the World Series game before calling it a night.
Saturday - After some debate, and encouraged by the successful day Friday, we opted to explore a tributary of the same watershed for our Saturday fishing. This is a gorgeous stream that some will likely recognize. We each managed a wild trifecta relatively easily on this stream, although salmonoid's was a bit more impressive than mine thanks to his 17" Brown in full colors. This is one of the prettiest Browns I've ever seen...I suspect he has some even better pictures of this fish than I do. A very impressive fish for such a stream for sure. The majority of the catch was small wild Bows, but the action was very consistent for most of the day. I believe we ended the day in the 30 fish range, our best numbers day of the trip. Dinner was some roadside BBQ and BYO Microbrews...both were excellent.
Sunday - We hopped around a bit in the morning, just exploring mostly, and landed a few more small Brookies before packing it up and heading back toward home. A stop for burgers at Hoss's rounded out the food for the trip. Fortunately we hiked 20+ miles over the course of the trip, or otherwise we'd both probably be a notch bigger on the belts probably. Ultimately the trip didn't include the kind of fishing it was initially thought up for, but a good time was had nonetheless. Good food, good beer, good fish, and a good 4 days fishing with a friend. Fall's my favorite time of year to be outside, and although I don't think I'll get any other majoring outings in this year, plenty of good memories were made on this one.
Pics to follow.
