Early Spring Steep Stream Outing

[Swattie87]

Got out with salmonoid to explore a couple more streams today. Great weather...60ish and sunny...felt good to actually be sweating hiking up and out of these streams.

It amazes me that streams like this exist outside of the more mountainous areas in PA...the second stream could probably be more accurately described as mountaineering/rock climbing as opposed to fishing. They definitely reminded me of a few Poconos streams I've fished before, minus the tannic water.

Despite the warming weather and water temps, we didn't catch a ton...just one a piece to break the skunk, but they were both nice Browns. Huge eyespots on both fish were kind of neat. Salmonoid had a day of the misses, and missed or lost about a half dozen. I struggled a bit more and had only one or two other hits that I was sure of, other than the fish I caught. Both fish were caught on Buggers. Didn't matter how many we caught though...this was my favorite day of fishing so far in 2013, by a wide margin.

One more sign Spring is near...I threw a tick out the already rolled down car window on the way home from the stream...

Pics:
(6) - Stream 1
(8) - Stream 1
(11) - Salmonoid's Skunk Killer
(12) - My Skunk Killer
(13) - Stream 2
(14) - Mayfly - Saw a good number of these flying around Stream 2 in the afternoon. About a size 14 or so...some were probably 16's. Positive ID anyone? There were enough of them for me to try a dry for the last half hour, didn't get any takes however.

 

[redrockgrizzly]

Nice

 

[lv2nymph]

Nice pics, congrats on avoiding the skunk. Being with the right people can make an uneventfull outing better still.

 

[salmonoid]

Here are a couple more of Swattie and his fish. Weather was definitely nice and I think I saw more people today than I did combined from fishing all the other weekends of this year. Sort of a weird day - missed at least seven different fish and landed only one and some of the usual haunts for my wild browns didn't yield a sniff at the bugger. Funny how when the air temperature is 31 degrees, a water temperature of 40 degrees feels warm and when the air temperature is close to double that, the same water temperature feels downright chilly. Thought about the ticks too, on a day like today. That's why I go the mountain goat route and climb up over the rock face, while you scale the forested mountainside and go around

Regarding the dries, Swattie and I were talking about how if where we were fishing was a brookie stream, the fish would have been all over the flies today and the fly of choice may have been a dry. And we pretty much agreed that dries would not work as well on those browns. And just to prove that the wild world is a contrarian one, on my way back down through, I watched the brown that I have either hooked or caught on all my past outings to this stream make a splash and take a fly off the surface. All I had was some size 14 elk hair caddis on me, and I had to walk almost in front of the rock the fish was holding in to get downstream, so a few casts with that setup netted no fish. But it was great to see bugs coming off.

 

[sarce]

Nice pics, glad to see that someone caught fish today! I didn't even hook a trout where I fished today, though I saw a couple. The weather was awesome but I guess the water is still a little too cold on the freestoners. I only got one chub as well which is about 1/20th of normal for where I was.

 

[geebee]

Lovely fish and scenery, thank you for sharing your trip.

Was the drake a March brown ? - such graceful looking things.

 

[GreenWeenie]

Looks like a female blue wing olive. Not sure exactly which species within the bwo, though.

Despite the name march browns are not an early season hatch. They dont generally start until mid May.

 

[RCFetter]

Great pics; thanks for sharing.

 

[k-bob]

Great images, really like the first picture in the thread. I like steep streamstoo...hiked to a big waterfall that was new to me today. Then off to a small stream not on the natural reproduction list that yielded some nice brookies yes including dry flies. Between the two streams it was a long day of hiking but well worth it.

 

[dc410]

Sounds like you guys had a great day. Nice pictures with some beautiful scenery. That's what it's all about. Hey Swattie, I guess you were sweating hiking up outta there with that knit hat on. ;-)

 

[Swattie87]

Yeah, I was warm by the time we got back to the cars after the first stream. I lost the jacket for the second stream. It was still pretty cool in the morning when we got started and out of habit from Winter fishing I grabbed the knit hat instead of a ball cap style hat.

 

[Chooch]

GreenWeenie wrote:
Looks like a female blue wing olive. Not sure exactly which species within the bwo, though.

Despite the name march browns are not an early season hatch. They dont generally start until mid May.

Pretty sure that is a Quill Gordon

 

[troutbert]

Chooch wrote:

GreenWeenie wrote:
Looks like a female blue wing olive. Not sure exactly which species within the bwo, though.

Despite the name march browns are not an early season hatch. They dont generally start until mid May.

Pretty sure that is a Quill Gordon

My guess is also Quill Gordon.

 

[GreenWeenie]

Could be a qg need to see it up close. In pic wings and body appear darker and size is smaller. But to some size 12 may be 14 or 10 so who knows.

 

[Chaz]

Quill Gordon, pretty nice fish for a small stream.

 

[Mike]

Your photos have me a bit stumped. I would guess Tucquan Ck for one of the streams, but the second one escapes me. I suspect, however, that you were in the Susquehanna hills of Lancaster Co. Here's a shot at one of the creeks being Kelly's Run, but I have never actually been on that stream to see what it actually looks like.

Peters Creek is on our radar for a survey this year.

Mike

 

[SNPbound]

really mike? why name streams?

 

[GreenWeenie]

If someone intentionally doesnt post in stream reports where it is mandatory to name streams and instead posts here so they dont have to name where they fished, anyone who posts a follow up naming streams should be reprimanded just like those of us who admonish people for naming streams. It is being antogonistic.

Respect their wishes for not naming the streams just like anti spot burners have to respect the spot burners wishes for naming streams.

 

[Swattie87]

I largely agree that if the OP doesn't name the stream a gentleman's agreement should exist about follow up posters not naming the stream as well...if they can correctly identify it from description, pictures, etc. In cases like that, the appropriate course of action if you suspect you know what stream it was and you want to see if you're right is a PM IMO. I've had this happen to me numerous times, and have guessed myself via PM at posts from other members. If it's done that way, I'll usually tell the PMer straight up what stream it was...as long as it wasn't a stream that someone else showed me and took me to...as these were.

In this case, FWIW, Mike's guesses were not entirely accurate, so it's of little importance here. No harm, no foul, so take it easy on Mike gang.

 

[IdratherbePhishing]

I agree with GW. Just my opinion. It should go both ways.