Big Spring, Cumberland Co., 10/09/2017

[3wt7X]

Time Fished: 10:00 am-02:30pm

Weather:
Mostly cloudy with a few showers. The temperature was in the high 70s and the sun did poke out a few times during the day. It was breezy outside from time to time.

Water:
Gin clear and cold. It was very typical to an early fall day on a Cumberland Valley Limestoner.

Hatches:
Some small grasshoppers in the field. I did not see anything hatching, but the wind may have contributed to that to some degree. The typical cressbugs and scuds were around along with the sculpins.

Tactics:
I started by fishing a heavy streamer along the undercuts, which produced a decent 11 inch brook trout. I switched over to nymphs and took several small brook trout and rainbows on shrimp and tiny pheasant tail nymphs. The weed growth was thick, so I finished with a light weighted olive streamer that has worked well for me in the past two years on the letort and big spring. That fly was the ticket. A slow approach with a long cast to the channels produced a good number of aggressive takes.

Results:
I had the holiday off and with everyone else going to work or school, I took a quick trip up to Big Spring. I did not get the normal results using a sculpin, and nymphing was a bit of a pain with the weeds and wind. I switched to a light weighted olive Matuka fly and using the technique described above, I immediately hooked up with a decent brook trout. Next cast, further down the channel, I witnessed the massive wake of a large wild rainbow. It is amazing how fast they move across stream when they commit. The big bow opened its mouth and for the second day in a row, I promptly pulled the fly right out from in front of him. Lucky for me, I recovered the back stroke and put it right back on him. He turned, inhaled, and tail walked in the opposite direction. It was a great fight that included dipping my rod under a tree and dredging him out of some water cress, but the 3X held and I took a couple shots of the heavy 19 incher. Great warm up for steelhead season!!!

 

[ryansheehan]

Beautiful! Love the colors.

 

[salmo]

Nice pictures and great fish.

 

[Wild_Trouter]

Beautiful pics as always!

 

[redietz]

ryansheehan wrote:
Beautiful! Love the colors.

Agree. Big Spring trout are some of the prettiest around; both brooks and rainbows.

 

[3wt7X]

Thanks for the comments... Anyone that has fished Big Spring would agree that the Brookies and Rainbows are pretty stunning and healthy. It is amazing the amount of food in a handful of vegetation on that stream, as with most limestoners.

Some interesting observations that I have taken from my trips over the past couple years (since the "stream improvements"). First, I will say that I am no expert on Big Spring. I take maybe a dozen trips up there a year. I was not a big fan of the stream improvements, as someone who was introduced to the stream several years prior by Dave Weaver. It seemed like the improvements suited the needs of angler appeal more than the trout, as the trout were not suffering at all prior to the work being done. That being said, in the years since the improvements, I rarely see the large trout gravitating to the riffles created by the work. They still seem to sit in the glass water and under the cuts as they did before. That may be a result of the added pressure, and people gravitating to those spots. I have noticed a large uptick in brook trout further down from where they used to sit, which was primarily around the ditch and the first couple of bends. The big rainbows have spread out to a large degree, as I used to witness groups of 6+ large rainbows on a pretty regular basis spread throughout the Catch and Release water. Now it seems that you spot one or two, here or there, and stealth is key, because if they see you, you're done. The spawning areas have improved greatly, but that stream would be a great candidate for protection during the spawning periods, because it is so clear. Most anglers are considerate to the spawning trout, but it makes it easy for poachers, which I understand has been a contributing factor to the large rainbow decline to some degree.

I just throw those thoughts out there in hopes of hearing from someone that fishes and observes the stream more often, to see if they are witnessing the same thing. I will always love that stream. It has given up some amazing wild trout to me over the years. I witnessed an old friend of mine take the largest wild trout (27 inch 10 lb class rainbow) that I have ever witnessed in person, which was caught out of there about 7 years ago. That fish also aggressively took a light weight stream on a long cast. My biggest out of there was around 24 inches (pictured below), ironically taken on a scud fishing for a much smaller fish. That fish was also taken over 5 years ago. Pretty amazing stuff for little Newville PA.

 

[SteveG]

I have similar feelings about the work, but they may truly be optimum for the stream. The worst thing to happen to the Big Spring is the new bridge at the bottom of the ff area, and the placement of the reg sign.

 

[Dave_W]

Nice job 3wt7X!

It's been too long since we've been out fishing together. We need to fix that.

 

[sarce]

I did not fish Big Spring before the work was done, but I have noticed on other wild trout streams that big trout are lazy and they MUST have overhead cover nearby. So to me it would make sense that an overly "riffle-happy" stream improvement would result in fewer large fish. However you gain better oxygen levels downstream which I believe was one of the limiting factors on that stream in the past.

I've only fished it twice, but my second trip produced a 17" brook trout, which was using one of the telephone poles installed during the work as cover.