First Fork Sinnemahoning DHALO, Potter Co, 6-08-2025

Prospector

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Butler Co home, Forest Co camp
Time Fished: 910am - 100pm

Weather Conditions: 67 degrees, Overcast most of the time, then light rain for the final half hour.

Water condition: 372 cfs, the flow was definitively on the high side. I fished it a few weeks ago at 287 cfs and that is a pretty good level for safe wading. With 372 cfs you have to fish from the bank in some places.

Insects: not many

When I arrived, I started across the riffle and it sure felt stronger than it was 2 weeks ago. But I made it across without incident.

I was the first car on the guardrail stretch. No one showed up for 2 hours. I immediately saw a fish rising when I was halfway across the riffle. So that was encouraging. He surfaced 5 times.

With the heavy flow I started down the riffle until I felt my dries wouldn’t be consumed by the flow. As I started out, it took about 5 minutes to get my first take. Despite the take, I changed flies to get something more buoyant. I worked my way down just hitting the lanes. Some took the fly and other fish splashed at it and they didn’t return. I was using the same flies that were working on Kettle and they matched up.

I saw very few insects but there was a rise here and there and as the day progressed more insects showed up. The day got darker and that seemed to improve the insect count. I used duns, spinners and midges at my first stop. I caught 14 from the guardrail stretch.

I usually fish another area when I’m there. As I relocated to that spot, a very light mist started to fall. I got to the pool and immediately my blind casting was pulling up fish. The problem was I had to make some long casts today and hookup rates tend to drop off. I had tried the 2 best flies from the guardrail stretch and only landed one. At this point my casts were not bringing up fish. The rain was picking up and I decided to try a large fly then leave. So I tried an upright large spinner just blind casting around. It brought up 3 nice trout that hadn’t showed themselves yet.

I fine tuned the offering, as the rain continued, and 2 of those larger trout (both browns) came back for the flies I picked. I usually catch more rainbows in this FFO section. However today the browns outnumbered the rainbows 10 to 7.
 
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Sounds like a great day! I usually hit the First Fork a couple times by now but the one time I went up there this year it was too high so we fished the reservoir.
 
Thanks Prospector, great report and week. FF is my main stream.

Always seem to be a few fish rising in that guardrail hole.
 
Thanks Prospector, great report and week. FF is my main stream.

Always seem to be a few fish rising in that guardrail hole.
Is this the largest pool in the flyfishing only section? I think I counted 14 people fishing that pool one time. And there were at least that many more just sitting on the bank watching and chatting.
 
Is this the largest pool in the flyfishing only section? I think I counted 14 people fishing that pool one time. And there were at least that many more just sitting on the bank watching and chatting.
Certainly one of them. And the fish tend to rise sporadically, its easy to access and ample parking, which helps draw and keep fishermen there. There are a couple big pools in that section but I always avoid them and look for faster water.


Thanks for the post Prospector. I'm headed up there next week and was curious what the bug situation is.
 
I fished the first fork Wednesday through Saturday, Friday evening after the heavy rain it got nuts with insect activity and the fish were feeding everywhere, unfortunately it ultimately jumped the creek level and was significantly colder ...Saturday was a dud with very little hatching
 
Thanks for posting. 17 fish in a day is about 16 more than I usually consider a good day. I will be headed that way next week for the first time. Hard to get through a work week with the excitement!
 
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