salvelinusfontinalis
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- Joined
- Sep 9, 2006
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- 7,267
Started at the first parking area on Quarry Road at sunrise and fished the entire Quarry Meadow stretch. At first I was throwing olive buggers into the first few holes and immediately missed 3 fish. It is obvious that very first thing in the morning the fish have their guard down more so than mid-day. Being that the bugger was a size 10, I had the feeling the fish I was missing were small and I should go to a smaller fly. I started throwing a blood worm (red midge larva) tandem with a scud as the leading fly.
Caught plenty of fish like this all day on those flies. Through the Quarry Meadow. I was working on a personal best day for this stream.
Something that really peaked my interest was the guy in the front end loader moving these rocks from the far bank in the picture to the streams edge. I didnt want to take pictures of it happening incase it was the land owner trying to beautify his property. These people have been gracious enough to give us access all these years, I didnt want to make him feel uncomfortable. Then I started thinking that maybe it is a stream restoration project of some kind. Seems they started laying these in the help cut out some more holding water. The section in the first picture could use it. Some section of the Quarry Meadow could use it also but overall, though silty, it has good holding water. I didnt see any of the gigantic fish that I saw there in Jan. of this last year, but I caught maybe 10 or 12 rainbows. All of them around 10 inches and all of them on the scud/midge larva.
All in all....
It was a beautiful morning. 🙂
Ate lunch and returned to the upper end of the heritage area....and Iam glad I did!
I parked in what is now the Uppermost parking area and fished upstream. I have been losing touch with my approach to these streams and today I was going to revive it. After fishing as long as I have and having plenty of success, you can begin to become over confident on these streams. It has cost me larger fish in the past few years. My last trip to Big Spring I practiced being much more stealthy and it paid off with that amazing Brown I caught. Falling Spring can be very difficult, especially in this section of the heritage area because it is such skinny water. While my approach (crawling and fishing on one knee ducked from a downstream position and making long casts with 6x Flouro) was much much better, it still managed to spook a tanker ship size brown downstream to me. He swam under a log almost right beside me. I approached that log to get a look at him and he came flying out and almost broke my leg. It is amazing the amount of force these wild fish swim with! I worked me way upstream......
I made my way to the drive way right before the pond (end of the heritage area, or beginning at least to my knowledge), and the landowner was outside taking down christmas decor from the bridge. He started talking to me and was a down right friendly guy. I just happened to take notice.......
What happened to the pond!
Now there is a nice manicured stream running through that area. This was not here the last time I was here. He told me that his family and him moved into the house a little over a year ago and shortly after that.......they came in with big boulders and loaders and re-made the stream. I was shocked and asked him if it was open. He said it sure is and Iam more than welcome to fish it. He told me to use the gate door and I can fish way upstream. BUT! you see those 2 swans in that last pic....I was warned they can be mean.
As I worked my way upstream the swans would not budge and by the look of the one, I was not welcome with access by them. I got in the water and went around them.
There is still a pond there that outflows into the stream. I wnt up to the pond to have a look in it and one of the swans got right in and swam towards me very angry. I decided I dont need to look and Ill give them their space.
The stream up here, while smaller looks great and they did a bang up job on it. Not only this but it opened up, im guessing 1 mile more, of classic limestone spring creek to fishing. Me question is .....is this going to extend the heritage area?
Either way, there are plenty of smaller fish using this new section of stream. They put in undercuts and boulders all through out this section and the fish are there. I caught another 10 or 12 in this section. All fish were this size or smaller. All taken on a bugger.
My personal best day on Falling Springs is now around 20. Its never about numbers here but when you have a high count day, you wont forget it anytime soon. I caught nothing big but I didnt have too either. I surprised BWO's never showed up on this cloudy warm day but they did not.
THANK YOU TO WHOM EVER RESTORED THE HEADWATERS OF THIS STREAM. We do not have enough classic spring creeks like this in PA and anymore mileage is awesome! THe fish are using your structures and it looks great. Here are some pics of it:
Out flow of pond
Upper pond (headwaters)
Upper project water
Upper project water2
Upper Project water 3
Liked this pic
Looks nice!
Needless to say......on my way back downstream I had to get back across the stream. Those swans would not let me pass.
This stream is rewarding and the fishing is tough................the swans are tougher ;-)
