I couldn't take it anymore

[FiveWeight]

Opening day here in Lebanon/Lancaster was pretty crowded by the looks of things. Lots of cars at the usual "honey holes" along the streams. I never fish opening day anymore as the "less than well mannered" crowd gets to me. I was planning on walking along the banks of one particular steam last evening just to pick up all the trash, but surprisingly, either the crowd cleaned up after themselves, or someone else beat me to it.


Fully agree on the amount of people out on the "Opener". The wife and I drove around a bit here in the northern end of Lancaster county Saturday morning. Between Lititz Run, four spots on Hammer Creek and Donegal I came close to counting 1000 cars & trucks. Sounds a bit high you say? Over half of them were on Lititz Run just outside Lititz at Clay Rd. Carpenter Rd/Hammer Cr at the stump hole had close to 100. You darned near couldn't drive to road. Like most have said here on the thread, give it a week or so and it'll drop off. Fishing here is SE PA is alive and over well. Thank god that most of um are one weekers at best. Happy Easter to all, sure was a great weekend.

 

[Heritage-Angler]

wetnet - Don't get me wrong. I was just bustin' on ya.

That whole "A family that plays together, stays together" thing applies. If there were more Mothers like you, the world would be a better place. You are the ultimate Mom.

 

[pcray1231]

Well, I left the SE region and went to State College. Spring Creek was my goal on Friday. It was not to be, it was ridiculously crowded and I barely wet a line before leaving. Hit up a local brookie stream, non ATW. Did alright, 10-15 fish in 3 hours of fishin. Too tight for nymphs, so all were on top.

Yesterday I didn't plan on fishing, but we decided to go out to another one of my favorite brookie streams (again, non ATW), and I could fish while my wife hiked around. I did much better here. A few on top, but most of my fish came on a dropper. This stream isn't as tight as the last one, but its still usually too tight for nymphs. But the high water helped me out by allowing me to get closer, and that brought nymphs into the equation. I probably came close to 20 total, 2 of which were browns and I had not ever caught browns in this stream and didn't know they were there. This was all maybe in an hour and a half or so. Yeah, it was pretty much a hit or a miss every cast, and I even managed a double (one on the dry and one on the dropper). Most in the 6-7" range but one of the browns was 10ish. A nice day to be out, and after I left Spring Creek, I didn't see another fisherman.

Sorry, no pictures, I forgot my camera in Reading. I will carry my camera for the next brookie excursion, perhaps next weekend.

 

[JackM]

We visited my daughter at PSU this wekend. Saturday, we went to Spring Creek. Connie wanted me to try to teach her to fly fish. We didn't see a single other angler, but plenty of picnic-ers, dog walkers, softball players, etc. at Spring Creek Park.

I have some video of the adventure, but I am going to take my time putting the clips together into a short movie.

Spring was in terrific shape, volume and color were ideal. There were some BWO, but not a lot. The sun was out most of the afternoon.

I have no stills as I was mentoring and didn't bother and only one fish was caught by me later when Connie and Gino had given up. I didn't feel like messing with the camera as I had an audience and wanted to make a quick and gentle release.

I woke up early Easter morning and went down to the Houserville/Rock Road area and took some pics.

Here are a couple that show water conditions pretty well:

 

[jayL]

Wow. That looks absolutely optimal.

 

[afishinado]

jayL wrote:
"
When I saw afish, I had a spinning rod, and he had a creel full of fish. Talk about awkward... :lol:

Jay, you forgot to add, "not that there's anything wrong with that." :-D


They tasted pretty good, BTW... :lol:

 

[David]

LJ was empty...saw one other fisherman all day.

 

[sdwaters]

Hay Creek sure was mobbed, and the water was up so much that the whole length was pretty much one long riffle. The crowning glory was when a pack of bicyclers (about 10) road up and fanned out.
Time to go home and get busy with the garden!

 

[jayL]

sdwaters wrote:
Hay Creek sure was mobbed, and the water was up so much that the whole length was pretty much one long riffle. The crowning glory was when a pack of bicyclers (about 10) road up and fanned out.
Time to go home and get busy with the garden!

I was at hay creek and based my observation on that.

It was way less crowded than in past years. Having fished the opener there for 15 years or so in a row, it definitely was lighter than I expected. There were certain stretches that were crowded, but overall, it took less walking than normal to find a spot. It was also mitigated by the fact that the high water spread the fish out. There really wasn't much reason not to spread out a bit, and I think many people realized that.

 

[TheDude]

Now I know why the creeks were crowded...look at all the jerks who were out fishing! ;-)

 

[ryguyfi]

jayL wrote:
When I saw afish, I had a spinning rod, and he had a creel full of fish. Talk about awkward... :lol:

Now that made me laugh!

When I went fishing with Millertime (still not open fishing here in our part) we went to a small lot that may hold 5-6 cars. We were welcomed by 1 guy training his lab and he left soon, so it was just our two cars there. When we got back there was around 20 cars parked in the lot and all down the road. All those darn Yackers!!! Good thing we didn't see them on our stream lol!!!

 

[PennKev]

All those darn Yackers!!!

If you noticed, they just built a new staircase/ramp for them right there at the bridge...

So get used to it!

Sucks cause that stretch of SRC will probably get a lot more kayak traffic now.

Kev