Donegal Creek Lancaster County 3/14/09

[salvelinusfontinalis]

Well it usually isnt my cup of tea to fish for fresh stocked trout, but i was hoping to meet up with wgmiller on the creek today. All spur of the moment mind you.

I got to they fly area at about 8:30. On my way i already saw 1 car parked off of 772. I turned and headed towards donegal creek road. To my surprise (sarcasm) there was already 2 cars at the red horse barn parking area.

Getting to the stream there was 2 guys already in the stretch that gets pounded so I headed upstream. It didnt take me long to start hooking into the first few fish of the day

The browns are pale. Really pale. And really stupid also. This is to be expected, there new residents to the stream. I was heading upstream farther from the stretch that gets pounded. I wanted to get away from the guys.
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As i worked my way to a nice hole, I thought for sure some stockers would be in it. To my suprise I hooked a fish and it leaped out of the water. I knew right away by the way he fought this was a wild trout. Wild Brown This was the first wild brown I caught in Donegal for quite sometime now. I thought they were all gone, I was wrong. And im glad I was :-D This fish are superior in every way. This fish was far more colorful, gave the fight of a 17 inch stocker and made me really full filled. I wish there was more of these guys in the stream.

I fished from here, through about 80 percent of the old no fishing zone without seeing or hooking a fish. I got up to the northern end of the fly area and it was loaded with fish. I had a really good conversation with a guy upthere whom I later found out was bushwacker from this site 🙂 We fished and talk for a very long time. The fish were rising behind us as we chatted and decided to give them a try. I did land a lot of fish...probably more than i can count and i was getting somewhat bored fishing for them. This is not real fishing. You cant land that many fish out of one hole in a wild trout stream, fishing over top of them and keep catching fish. While i was pounding them bushwacker caught the biggest fish I saw all day. Probably and 18 to 20 inch rainbow. Had that snub nose on him and was starting to get a jaw. Good fish Bush!

After leaving that area I headed back to the car. When I got to the stretch that gets pounded I saw about 50 fish in one hole. I had a big trout break me off and I decided to call it a day. I started talking to a fly angler and a WCO came along in plain clothes and checked us out ;-) I said, "thank god your here!" Im glad he was patrolling. Maybe they will a bit more now after me and the other fly angler talked with him about how much poaching goes on in Donegal. I gave that guy some white buggers that i was catching all my fish on and headed to the car.

Wgmiller left a note on my car about how he had his girls down there and they hammered them for a bit. Sorry I missed ya bud but i promise we are going to get out sometime soon. It felt good to almost meet and also meet some people from here. Makes you feel like your apart of the community of our great sport.
Good to see fish in Donegal again. Hopefully they will be there long enough to get smart and some color to them.

Good to see a wild fish in Donegal though, perhaps that was the best part of it all ;-)

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p.s. fish rising to midges all over the place...just couldnt get them to take a midge. Next time ;-)

 

[wgmiller]

Good report Sal. Looks like you had a great day hammering the "stockies" and even got yourself a surprise wild brown. I agree, it's great to see that fish!

Boy, does the creek ever need rain though! Those fish are stacked up in a few holes and they could really use a rise in the creek to get them moving. I'm new at this game, so I've never seen as many fish sitting in a group as they were.

I was on "daddy duty" today, but where this in addiction, there is a way! If you would have strolled past, you would have seen a jogging stroller streamside and my five year-old with rubber net in hand. I give my girls credit, they hung out for two hours while I repeatedly harassed that pool of fish. I would have loved to have made it upstream, but sometimes something is better than nothing ;-)

We landed a snub nose brown (12") who aggressively chased down a chartreuse glo-bug. It was fun to toy with the stockies and see how they reacted to the different flies. Not long after arriving, I tied on my brand spanking new hot pink wooly bugger. Well, a big ol' rainbow snapped it off and now there's a nice rainbow in that pool with a pink bugger hanging out of his mouth! It's barbless, so he should shake it soon. It sure was fun tossing white buggers, streamers, scuds and a host of other flies. I had a blast getting the whole school worked up!

I had a few on the hook, but they leapt, fought and tossed the hook. A few other ones almost made it to the net only to get away before being netted. Is it common to lose as many as you land when using barbless hooks?

I agree that in some ways fishing stockies isn't real fishing. I almost feel a step above a bait fisherman on opening day. These guys just want to eat, don't know any better and there I am hammering them. It's good experience, but I think fishing wild or holdovers is much more challenging and rewarding.

Glad to see you had a good day and Bushie's fish looks nice. I know exactly where that pic was taken and may have to stalk him out if the rain doesn't move him.

BTW, pegging your car wasn't hard with all those trout stickers on it! :-D

 

[salmonoid]

Not been a good year for me getting out fishing (two times only so far this year), so I'll have to live through the reports for a bit.

That stream looks painfully low for this time of year. Maybe I fished it after a rainstorm last year, as it was a bit murky, but it was up and flowing nicely. It looks almost sick 🙁

Kevin

 

[wgmiller]

Yes, you're right, it's painfully low. All the fish are pooled up and holding. We could use a nice soaking rain to bring up the level and move them around a bit. With the lack of snow and rain this year, it is low and hopefully not a sign of the summer...

 

[bushwacker]

I knew it was only a matter of time before i ran into Sal. I mean we fish all the same streams. Have to admit Sal, your real good with a bugger man! He must have caught 20 stockies out of one pool within the hour we fished. Was really nice to meet another like minded angler in my area. Looking forward to fishing some of the local wild fish water with you soon.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

anytime man 🙂