Bald eagle creek/Muddy creek,York co., 5-23-09

[bushwacker]

Started off at bald eagle 9am Sat. Air temp. 83-water 59F. Midge abundant. No rising fish. Many fish were in the tail end of slow pools. Clear water...spooked a bunch of wildies. Caught a bunch too! Saw no stocked fish from gamble road upstream 1 mile or so. Does this section even get stocked? All fish took pt nymph.

Muddy creek FFO bridgeton and upstream. By the time I got to muddy, 4:30pm, air temp was 87. Water temp. 71 :-o . Fish at the hemlocks were actively chasing caddis emergers I think? Didn't see too many caddis but the rises were violent and splashy and fish would frequently dart a foot to the side to grab something subsurface. Don't know what else it would have been. Didn't have the chance to find out because I felt nervous about the high water temp and decided to move upstream and wait for the sun and water temp to sink a little. Pulled a couple stocked browns from pools with BHHE nymphs. Got sick of that and switched to streamers. Both stocked and wild browns were receptive to a size 12 white crystal bugger swung down and across . Hoping to catch a sulpher hatch or spiner fall. Only saw some very sparse, pure white, size 16 mayfly duns with barred wings and two short tails. Cahills? Didn't matter because the fish didn't seem to key in on them anyways.

 

[afishinado]

bushwacker wrote:
Only saw some very sparse, pure white, size 16 mayfly duns with barred wings and two short tails. Cahills? Didn't matter because the fish didn't seem to key in on them anyways.

Nice report.

Sounds like something in the Cahill family....like this?

http://www.jerryhadden.com/mayflies/canadense.html

It's always a heartbreaker to me to finally see a hatch and no fish rising to them....love to fish dries when I can. Try nymphs near the bottom or emergers in the column. Old fashioned wets actually work well for Cahills since the emerge under the surface. Try dead drift and/or swing and/or strip slowly and let the fish decide.

 

[JakesLeakyWaders]

Bushwacker did I talk to you on Saturday. I was the guy headed upstream to Tom's creek just after sunset. First time I got skunked at Muddy since I can remember. I missed a few strikes and that was it. I should've headed back down stream before it got dark but I got there late and wanted that extra half an hour. I had some difficulty wading down through the swift section after it got dark. At least I know the stream enough to know where to wade through.

 

[bushwacker]

Yes jake, that was me. I thought that was you and almost asked. Not sure why I didn't. You probably got skunked because I already went through that stretch and caught a lot of fish and most likely spooked some wildies...sorry! I used to carry a small LED headlamp to assist my return after dark. I don't know why but the trout were lovin white buggers that evening. I'm sure we'll run into each other again. I fish that area alot.

 

[bushwacker]

afishinado wrote:

bushwacker wrote:
Only saw some very sparse, pure white, size 16 mayfly duns with barred wings and two short tails. Cahills? Didn't matter because the fish didn't seem to key in on them anyways.

Nice report.

Sounds like something in the Cahill family....like this?

http://www.jerryhadden.com/mayflies/canadense.html

It's always a heartbreaker to me to finally see a hatch and no fish rising to them....love to fish dries when I can. Try nymphs near the bottom or emergers in the column. Old fashioned wets actually work well for Cahills since the emerge under the surface. Try dead drift and/or swing and/or strip slowly and let the fish decide.

Do you think that white buggers were working so well because of the cahills hatching. I was using very small"size 14" white buggers and cahills are white and hatch under water. And I wasn't really striping them either, just swinging them through the pools and riffles