Dunbar Creek FFO - Fayette County 5/29/2016

[MathFish]

When I fish, I prefer to hit the water as early as possible in the earliest light of the day. Today, I was very fortunate to be able to make it out to Dunbar Creek in the early morning. I arrived at the upper boundary of the FFO section at 5:30 am and started out a couple hundred yards below the blown out jack dam and worked my way up to Glade Run. It was a beautiful morning, air temp was about 60 degrees when I arrived and the sky was a bit overcast. It must have rained overnight in the area, giving the creek a terrific flow and coloring. There was a nice mist in the air above the creek all morning.

A tandem rig with a size 14 Frenchie with a size 16 soft hackle dropper proved to be the ticket this morning. In all, I landed 16 browns and brookies from 6 am to 10 am and missed about a dozen or so more with that combination. I used a New Zealand strike indicator with the dropper rig and had to change out the soft hackle after getting snagged a couple of times. Four of the trout were fingerlings (or natives - I'm not sure how to tell the difference...) I only had one trout rise to the indicator and I only saw about 5 surface takes while I was there even though there were bugs in the air.

Some notable occurrences and observations I had this morning were: catching a crayfish on my Frenchie pattern. I tried to get a photo of this, but I couldn't get the camera to focus on the crayfish, but if you look closely you'll see the orange collar of the Frenchie. I also saw some large mayflies in the air. I caught one and took a photo of it - I'm not sure if it's a green drake or not, but it was neat to see a handful of these little fellows in the air. Also, there was a small blizzard of Swallowtail butterflies nearby my car when I was wrapped up for the day.

With the comfort of the cool morning air, the pleasing soft sunshine overhead and the melodious sound of the flow of the creek, it was the kind of trip that made me forget about all the woes of day-to-day life. This trip was one of my favorite outings of the year. The only way it could have been better was if I was able to be out there just a little bit longer...

I've attached some photos of this particular outing - Thanks for reading.

Dunbar was the first creek I learned to Fly Fish on and I just love the scenery of that place!

 

[troutbert]

The fish is a native brook trout.

The bug is a Green Drake.

Nice!!!

 

[albud1962]

DUnbar has a green drake hatch. The water quality over the years has gradually improved. in the headwaters there is a class b brook troout population, and natives can be caught in the lower fly section from time to time. tribs to dunbar have natives.

 

[MathFish]

Thanks for the information on the Brook Trout and Green Drake Troutbert.

Albud, I had heard that if you go way upstream past Glade Run that it does hold natives, but I have not ventured up too far. I have maybe only been about a half a mile up past Glade run about two years ago. I didn't run across any fish, but I'm betting I wasn't fishing the water stealthily enough... The only trib of Dunbar that I know is Glade Run and it seems like you would need a machete to get through the rhododendrons to make it up stream. Maybe one of these days I'll give it a go - not with a machete though, I'm suspicious it would spook the fish!!!

Thanks for the info.

 

[fayettenamese]

There have been green stoneflies spinning on Dunbar the last few evenings as well. I have seen more of them this year than in the last 4 years that I have lived in Dunbar.

 

[MathFish]

fayettenamese, I had heard that there was a Green Drake hatch there from a friend of mine who told me that he had heard about it probably over ten years ago... I suppose there is some truth to it and I'm glad to hear that it's getting better.

Also, your username is great!

 

[Acristickid]

Did you hear any cicadas??????

 

[MathFish]

I didn't hear any cicadas...

Now that I think about it, I was talking with a friend of mine today who lives in Connellsville and he told me that there are cicadas like crazy around him. He said that he is predicting that there will be a lot of squirrels in his area because he is witnessing them eat the cicadas. He also said that his dogs are eating them - and that it is pretty gross to see them do so...

Being that Connellsville is only a few minutes from Dunbar, I'm surprised that there weren't any at the creeek. Maybe there aren't many at the creek because it always seems a few degrees colder there than the nearby area??? I don't know - but it's interesting.

 

[fayettenamese]

I was at Dunbar Creek today. Cicadas are louder than the roar of the water which is tough to overcome. They are just starting to fly but haven't been falling into the water yet.

 

[troutbert]

From what I've seen in cicada emergences in central PA in the past, I think they favor areas with deep fertile soils. Areas with broadleaf trees, not evergreens.

And you see few to none where there are steep hillslopes with rocky acidic thin soils. If you see lots of evergreen trees and rhododendron and laurel, you'll probably find few to no cicadas.

 

[Dave_W]

troutbert wrote:
From what I've seen in cicada emergences in central PA in the past, I think they favor areas with deep fertile soils. Areas with broadleaf trees, not evergreens.

And you see few to none where there are steep hillslopes with rocky acidic thin soils. If you see lots of evergreen trees and rhododendron and laurel, you'll probably find few to no cicadas.

Agree - this was my experience with the 17 yr broods that emerged in my neck of the woods in 1987 and 2004. Even in areas where they were emerging heavily, they could be spotty in deciduous woodlots with numbers varying from mile to mile. Up on South Mtn where rocky soil and conifers were prevalent, they were very rare.

 

[724flyfishing]

Nice report. I haven't fished Dunbar since March. I was thinking about heading up there this weekend. It is a very underrated drainage IMO. At least in terms of our corner of the state. I'm always suprised to hear people say they went to Meadow Run, Laurel Hill, Loyalhanna, etc. over Dunbar. Or left Dunbar because too many people were at the jack dams lol. I guess it's all what you're into.

 

[greenghost]

724flyfishing wrote:
I'm always suprised to hear people say they went to Meadow Run, Laurel Hill, Loyalhanna, etc. over Dunbar. Or left Dunbar because too many people were at the jack dams lol. I guess it's all what you're into.

This is a reason some stay away.

I stopped there yesterday on my way home from an errand in Uniontown. Fished a couple of hours at various places from the lower parking lot downstream to the "wire." Flow was perfect with slight color, water temp at 4 p.m. was 63. Saw caddis, lime sallies, cahills and even a green drake. Caught 5 all on top. If I wasn't a dry fly snob and used buggers, nymphs and stuff I would've caught many more I'm sure. I used beetles, ants, cahills and caught one on a green drake. A brown, brookies and surprisingly two fingerling rainbows. Both bows came from the same run. They don't stock bows as far as I know. I figured they either swam up from the Yough or perhaps some sports club or individual put them there? Outside chance they are wild I suppose. Weird.

P.S. Cicadas were very noisy driving down from 119 into Dunbar, but very few were heard along the creek.