Clarks Creek, Dauphin County, 07/18/09

[HBGMarine]

After debating all week whether I should hit the Breeches or Clarks I finally made up my mind Saturday morning when I woke up. I was on the stream at 5:30am and decided to fish the section upstream from the White Barn. Much to my delight was greeted by a performance of the Dauphin County Brown Trout Aerobatics Club. Never have I seen so many fish going completely airborne in such a short amount of time. They were launching themselves one after another out of the water while feeding. The sun still had not come up yet so I couldn't determine what they were feeding on so I started throwing my foam beetle with no luck. After a few fly changes I finally managed a 13" brown on a size 16 parachute wulff. I had a fair amount of misses after that and decided I would switch to a green weenie, a fly I have never used before. I tried to tie the fly onto my line 6 separate times but every time I tightened the line the leader would snap off. Right then I should have tied a new leader on but it was all the way up in the car and I was feeling lazy. I finally got the fly on just in time to see a 22"+ brown come to a rest 3 feet in front of me. I cast my line just upstream from him and got a perfect drift just in front of the trout's face. I gave the fly a little twitch off the bottom and the big brown slammed it bending my 4wt in half. It swam left, then right, charged straight at me, then made a quick turn and SNAP! At that moment I felt like I could scream but instead just sat down in the water feeling utterly defeated. I was using a 9ft 6x leader that I just bought the night before. When I checked to see where the failure had been I found out my 9ft leader had turned into a 6ft leader 🙁 . I stormed off to the car to tie a new leader on. The rest of the day was full of follows and misses but no fish.

Sorry for the lengthy post but hooking and losing the biggest trout in the past 3 years still has me rattled....

 

[pafisherman]

HBG
You will probably always remember that fish .... Glad you got into some fish. Just a heads up there are plenty of fish in the YB if you want to get out some morning.
Bill

 

[HBGMarine]

Thanks Bill! I'll definitely have to take you up on that sometime.

The best thing about the whole day was I didn't see another angler on the water. I did run into some sort of heron on the stream. It was all white with a blue head and stood 3-4 feet tall. I've never seen one that looked like that before. I tried to scare it off by yelling but it just turned it's head to the side and gave me a "wtf" look then went back to looking for a meal.

 

[albud1962]

I am glad you had a good day. I ended up at Clark on Sunday afternoon. I was sort of bummed when I arrived at one my favorite holes and saw bait containers and forked sticks in the mud. There definitely were some fish yanked out as I didn't see as many as I did last week. I guess I better stop posting about the fishing on Clark. Water conditions pretty low.

HBGMarine wrote:
Thanks Bill! I'll definitely have to take you up on that sometime.

The best thing about the whole day was I didn't see another angler on the water. I did run into some sort of heron on the stream. It was all white with a blue head and stood 3-4 feet tall. I've never seen one that looked like that before. I tried to scare it off by yelling but it just turned it's head to the side and gave me a "wtf" look then went back to looking for a meal.

 

[pafisherman]

HBG
Contact somertime and we will hook up... The bird you saw may have been a Black-Crowned Night Heron...
You see them fairly often in the area.
Bill

 

[HBGMarine]

Ok.....looking back it probably wasn't 3-4 feet tall 🙂 . It was definitely at least 2 feet tall though........

 

[HBGMarine]

Here's a picture of the culprit. The one I saw must have been on performance enhancers or something......

http://www.birdingintaiwan.com/blackcrownednightheron.htm

 

[tomgamber]

Bird gotta eat. Ever see what happens to a pizza when its left in the break room?

 

[JackM]

Are you sure it wasn't this:

 

[pafisherman]

Yep..the Black Crowned Night Heron is a pretty cool bird. I see the occasionally on Clarks and often on the Yellow Breeches and the Condogoiuent Creek. They are a bit smaller then the Great Blue Heron with shorter leggs. I have many times seen them take trout out of the creek.. I guess the birds gotta eat to...
Bill

 

[Fishidiot]

pafishermen,
I'll bet you're familiar with the BCNH who hangs out on the reg water of Yellow Breeches. He's like an old friend and I saw him again this week. He was there much of the winter and I usually saw him sitting in some of the low hanging sycamore branches in the upper section of the reg water. Cool bird.

 

[pafisherman]

fishidiot...
sure do know him or her...lol.
Last year in fact you may remember..he or she had a mate and they nested hatching and raising a baby. This year I did not see any young. I very much enjoy the wildlife that is visible along the streamside. A couple of weeks ago I was surprised by a family of mink working along the bank in the lower section of Allenberry. I assume a mother and 4 young that were almost as big as she was worked the bank creating quite a racket...very cool to see.
Bill

 

[PaulG]

pafisherman wrote:
fishidiot...
sure do know him or her...lol.
Last year in fact you may remember..he or she had a mate and they nested hatching and raising a baby. This year I did not see any young. I very much enjoy the wildlife that is visible along the streamside. A couple of weeks ago I was surprised by a family of mink working along the bank in the lower section of Allenberry. I assume a mother and 4 young that were almost as big as she was worked the bank creating quite a racket...very cool to see.
Bill

Bill

A few years back there where 4 or 5 mink running around down by the brown house at the lower end, I'd see them all the time, then they were going. I heard that(don't know if it's true) they allow someone to trap them out.

Did anyone every see the albino squarrel that lived in the area above the slow water?

PaulG