Big Pine Creek (Blackwell to Slate), Tioga Co, 5/12-14/11.

[NCPAtrtbum]

Arrived at camp Thursday (12th) and came home today, just got in about half hour ago.

Thursday: Went to Slate run, started by drifting Mb soft hackles (3) with split shot on a tandem set up off the last fly.. man that works wonders on snags, saved my flies more than I care to remember haha. Anyhow that was the ticket, I ran into a slew of brookies and bows. 9 total fish in about 2hrs, I was happy with that. Had a violent take right at the mouth of slate that completely tore through 4x.. probably one of those nice browns Tom from the store dumps in every year.

Friday/Saturday: I just hung around Blackwell at the bridge down stream a ways and up as well. Both days were a lot cooler than Thursday was and I only caught two, stockie rainbow and a fairly nice brown, very colorful. Met an interesting character and we began talking for awhile.. turns out his last name was Blackwell and he was telling me about how his grandparents used to own the old railroad station back when he was a kid.. he had some very interesting stories, but then again that's not surprising when you fish the same area for 50+ years, eh? I also noticed there isn't too much bug activity up that way, never could figure that out, maybe from all those years when the babbs was a acid run off is my guess.

Anyhow, anyone who is traveling up that way I would suggest staying around cedar/slate run area since the caddis(Brown/tan mostly) are in the swing of things.. makes for fun dry fishing and the M.browns are JUST starting to emerge. Get up there!

 

[cdogedoger]

thanks for the report. heading up to Slate Run on thursday for a long weekend.

Thanks
John

 

[dryflyguy]

Babb creek has been cleaned up very nicely for the last few years now. The rocks aren't orange anymore
The last time I was up there, I even saw a couple guys fishing it. Was told that it is being stocked again

 

[beeber2]

Thanks for the report. I will be up that way later this week.

 

[PaulG]

Bill

Thats good news about Babbs creek, it has been in such bad shape for so many years.

Thanks for the update!

PaulG

 

[paparise]

Fished Pine Creek at slate run Friday-Sunday. I was surprised at the lack of surface activity with all of the caddis flies around. March Browns seemed to be the ticket. Caught one 18in brown on top w/ a March Brown and one 18in brown fishing a March Brown soft hackle w/ split shot. Not too much quantity for me but the quality was there so I was happy. Most people I talked to were also catching there's on March Browns.

 

[NCPAtrtbum]

Dryflyguy: I knew that the Babbs has been cleaned up and I'm fairly sure there is a wild population of trout in the creek.. somewhere they have a series of lime ponds near the headwaters that filter the water through before it enters the stream (I was watching something about that on PBS a couple months ago actually) and I too saw a couple people fishing it but, I was just curious when it was an acid runoff if it had any lasting negative effects on the pine where it flows in.