Big Spring, Cumberland County, 11/5/2011

wgmiller

wgmiller

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Well, my addiction to the CV limestoners carried over to another day of fishing on Saturday. Not having many free days this month, I decided to make the most of it. I met up with Sal and we headed up to Newville to tackle Big Spring.

We started off at "the ditch" and fished there for an hour or two. Temps were in the upper 20's and iced guides were the norm. We saw some fish, but overall fishing was tough as things hadn't really "turned on" yet. Sal ended up bringing a nice rainbow to hand that took a sculpin fly. We were both surprised that the fish actually took the fly because we could easily see him, so we knew he saw us. Regardless, within short order the dark rainbow was in the net to get its picture taken.

100_3426.jpg

Sal's nice rainbow


After leaving "the ditch", we worked downstream where we both picked up some nice brookies. Sal landed a nice male, while I landed a nice female. In both cases, a sculpin was stripped upstream along a vegetation patch and the fish came out and nailed the fly.

100_3423.jpg

Sal's nice male

100_3424.jpg

Anal fin on Sal's nice male

100_3425.jpg

My nice female

Moving downstream from here, we came, literally in direct contact with one of the huge browns that resides in the stream. He got flushed out of his holding vegetation and meandered upstream into the current. I was standing in the stream and he backed down the current and proceeded to hold right alongside my leg. Pretty cool to have such a huge fish holding right next to your leg. This fish looked old and didn't seem phased by our activities.

We fished several different sections, but ended up the day fishing up through the heritage area where we saw a couple aircraft carriers in the water. As the sun set the "big boys" came out to check things out. In one case, a huge rainbow inspected Sal's fly, only to not make the connection. Numerous other large fish were seen throughout the day as well with no success.

Air temps warmed into the upper 50's from the morning lows and there was some BWO activity with no risers in the lower sections. A few of the small fish in the ditch were rising, but not with enough regularity to mount a topwater assault.

We saw a few anglers in the afternoon, but other than that, pretty much had the stream to ourselves. One of the anglers insisted on parking alongside the road instead of using the parking areas. As you can tell, we had a hard time finding a parking place! :-D

100_3429.jpg
 
You know, looking at the pic of that female......

Since between your marks measure 12 inches, the tail being an inch past the first mark and the length of the head past the other, I'd say that female was a good 15 inches. Really nice wild brookie!

I'm still having nightmares of that bow that opened its big white mouth at my sculpin. I'm also still having nightmares of the blue whale that came out of that undercut and bum rushed my sculpin only to head back once she hit sunlight. I really need to get back there again!

I was going to fish an unstocked limestone spring for big brookies today but got distracted with household stuff. Maybe tomorrow.......
 
Dude the doc told my wife they expect the baby THIS week. If that's the case....I may have some time next week to get out w/ you Sal. We ought to go try for some big brookies.
 
We can do that, I am always game for some nice brookies.
 
Wow!

Beautiful fish guys. Mine looks kinda puny now. I shoulda been there Saturday. ;-)
 
Nice guys,

I really enjoyed the report.
Not to ruin the moment but that hen kinda looks stocked.
It might just be the angle of the picture but the fins look kinda fat and the spots are smaller than most wild ones out of there.

tight lines
 
Wow. mykiss... your comment was a true bummer!
 
There are some stocked brookies below the reg water and some have migrated up into the FFO area.

The kinked fin on Sal's brookie is a very common aspect of these fish. My guess is it's a genetic quirk but I see it on most large brookies in the upper FFO water. It's usually the ventral fin but often the pelvics have it too. I recently did a portrait of a Big Spring brookie and I actually made the fins on the fish just like this.
 
That brookie may very well have been stocked at some point, I don't know. I was basing that off of Sal telling me that the upper FFO stretch isn't stocked. I can tell whether some fish are wild (small bows, most browns, etc.), but at times it can be really difficult to distinguish wild from stocked.

The mark on my rod near the reel is 12" and the upper mark is 20", so that fish is probably closer to 10" or 11"; YMMV...
 
How about that ole sculpin sal? If ever there was a fly to lure a large wild trout out of hiding it's got to be a sculpin. I caught a tank of a brown on Falling Spring Saturday on one and I've lost a few bows on Big Spring lately like the one you have landed. I'm still tyring to figure out the enigma called Big Spring. For the most part, I haven't found the trout to be spooky so much as they are more picky. I've stripped a sculpin past trout that know I'm there and they take it. On the other hand, if I hunker down and toss a scud, they will look really hard at it and dash off. Whereas on Falling Spring trout take my scud freely but it's nearly impossible to cast a sculpin while in plain sight of my target.
 
Will, your observations are very much so correct. However, I've noticed that fish out of the heritage area are less forgiving as far as seeing you. Jeff, I thought you said it was 12 inches between the 2 marks. My bad, I didn't think the fish looked that big at the time. Dave, are those stocked fish coming up from the atw? Shame they stock such a beautiful creek with so many wild fish.
 
Yes, they're coming up from downstream. The section below the FFO has been stocked and the FFO is not - this has, generally, been the policy for over 50 years and is based on electrofishing surveys. The number of stocked brookies that actually do move up in to the FFO, in my opinion, are fairly few. The fish posted above looks like one to me.

The fish with the kinked fins is, I believe, a wild brookie. I discussed this kinked fin phenomena with Gene Macri recently and he's of the opinion that the kinked fin fish are stockies that have held over. The reason I think they're wild is because that fin anomaly is so common in Big Spring fish and I don't see it anywhere else. Who knows?
 
You would figure that if the fish with the odd fins were hold overs you would see it in other streams in the region. It would probably be something from the hatchery brood stock. I'd say the brookies with the oddly shaped fins are almost definitely wild. Where else would all the YOYs in the ditch come from?

tight lines
 
Wills - Sal "seined" some vegetation and his net was loaded with scuds and sow bugs. Those fish are probably so picky because they can be. That stream is loaded with forage, for sure!
 
Anyone that can pm me some good info on this place I'd really enjoy it and be super thankful. I wanna hit this before it gets to cold.
 
The only "too cold" is the cold that you can withstand. The stream itself is never "too cold" as it remains fairly constant, just like most limestoners. If you're good with high stick nymphing due to iced guides, then you could fish it through the winter.
 
Nymph-o, here's the short list of things that may or may not work. San Juan worm, scuds in gray, olive, and orange, cressbugs, sculpin, caddis (both dry and nymph) bwo's, and hare's ears. I say may or may not because the trout know what they're looking for and we're all trying hard to match it. Below the ditch, try a dry and dropper in the riffles. I figured I would post this here so others could add a fly or so that I may have forgotten and I'm not sure one can "spot burn" Big Spring. It's about the same as keeping Harrisburg a secret.
 
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