Clinton/Potter Counties 9/10-9/13

[RLeep2]

Made a 4 day stream hopping pilgrimage to Clinton/Potter Counties this past week to get my autumn small stream wild trout fix and relive a portion of my squandered youth. I stayed at the Kettle Creek Inn in Westport on PA 120. If you stay there, request #4. It’s the one that looks like somebody attacked the door with a garden rake. Nice folks and not a bad place. I’ll stay there again.

Tuesday, the 10th, I dropped into the EF Sinnemahoning in the lower of the 2 new proposed Class A sections. Flows were kinda stingy and the fish were very spooky. Stayed a couple hours and managed a dozen or so small brooks and browns that topped out around 8" or so. Also one remnant RT from the Spring stockings. Hares ear parachutes, big black ants and elk hairs.

Lit out up over the mountain and made for Cross Fork. Drove down towards the bottom end of the C&R project. Along the way, I ran into Tom Greene and Jason Detar and PFBC crew who were resting by the road having just finished electrofishing. Stopped and had a nice chat with them and asked about the creek. They said it was doing "pretty good". I didn't press for additional details. I just thanked them for the good work they do and kept moving.

Went down to the snowmobile bridge on the lower end of the project and fished a half mile at most upstream. Popped 4 stocked RT on consecutive casts on the big ants in a nice pool and picked up a half dozen runty brookies (all

 

[Dave_W]

What a great report!

Thanks for sharing the details of your trip. Many of us are, at any given time, planning to head to those waters ourselves so timely info on all the usual stuff is appreciated.

 

[DaveKile]

Agree. A wonderful report and detail. Thanks and looking forward to getting up there in a few weeks.

 

[drakeking412]

Nice report and glad to hear you did well on young womans. I really like that stream as well. Also gotta love that easy dry fly action!

 

[Mike]

Per your last paragraph, it’s refreshing to see such objectivity expressed here.

 

[maxima12]

I to, liked the last paragraph. As you all know, I am all in on stocking. I like it when I see regular people with regular equipment, just doing regular fishing, any way they choose. Saw a girl with a death grip on a dead trout she caught. To some, might have laughed and got mad. To me, I was happy for her! I am sure she was happy too! I noticed she was heading toward dad! Funny, I just got done fishing that hole. Guess with my fly rod, vest, boots, boxes of flies, I was not regular enough! She just had a pole and a fish!

Maxima12------As I remember this girl, gives me hope, fishing becomes regular again! Happy to be the regular of the irregular.

 

[rrt]

Bob -- Sounds like you had a nice trip. I haven't fished those streams for years. When they started stocking YWC, I just didn't have the heart to go back. Glad to hear that there are still lots of wild brooks and browns there. The big brown there must have been a "hoot"!

Also, it sounds like you still have a lot of stamina. I'm not much older than you, but I don't have that kind of stamina. If I fish more than 2 or 3 hours in a day, I am pretty whipped.

Anyhow, glad you had a nice time fishing some places that I haven't seen in years, esp YWC, which always seemed like an "exotic" fishing stream to me.

 

[RLeep2]

Well, to be clear Max, I am not "all in on stocking", not even a little bit. I simply believe that the impact of stocking hatchery trout over an existing wild population is more accurately viewed as a matter of degree (intensity and frequency of the stocking) than a principle of dogma where any such stocking is automatically "bad" or harmful.

Aesthetically, I wish that Young Womans and Cross Fork did not receive stocked fish. But based upon the rough sampling I can do with my fly rod, I can't really cite biological or fish abundance support for my aesthetic preferences, at least in Young Womans. I suspect the same would hold true for Cross Fork if the stream ever stopped treating me so poorly...🙂

 

[RLeep2]

Hi Rich... It was a gas! The stamina thing is probably more a matter of sheer desire and mind over matter than any physical conditioning. I was pretty tapped out at the end of each day but didn't really feel it until I was back in the car headed for the motel. I'm stubborn that way...🙂

 

[Acristickid]

nice

 

[dryflyguy]

Nice report!

I fished cross fork a bit last spring, for the first time in years.

Was at the hole under the snowmobile bridge, when a nice hendrickson hatch came off on a rainy afternoon.
It was full of rising fish, and I had a great afternoon there
Mostly stocked rainbows. Although I did catch a few wild brookies.

Looking back afterward, it seemed kinda sad that they dump all those stocked fish into a nice WT stream.
I mean, it was just absolutely loaded with them

 

[krs]

Nice write-up on a few nice days enjoying the PA Wilds!

 

[salvelinus]

Well that's what the "sportsmen" wanted.

 

[maxima12]

True and correct, Exactly what the sportsmen wanted. Rleep2 doing the one thing we all need! Fishing. I am familiar with these streams and makes me happy to hear they are still fine. I guess I am jealous! Wish I was along on that Great, Perfect trip. As a "old timer", I would call this a trip of a lifetime. Well, rleep2, keep the faith and teach us what it is like to go on a journey of a lifetime!

Maxima12

 

[RLeep2]

Well, at my age, I have the "journey of a lifetime" pretty much every time I head into our one person sit down reading room with a magazine.

But, I'll do the best I can, Max...

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

Phoniex is interesting to me.

Ive fished it 3 times.
The first. No fish
2nd no fish
3rd only one trout in the 24" range.

Never forget it though. That brown was hiding behind a rock right in front of me. Scared me as it demolished a bugger about 2 foot away from me.

Thanks for taking me back.
Great report