Please read @Prospector stream report for all the good details, this is just a supplement to the evening of May 15. A tough May in a lot of places and after some more rain I was running out of water to fish. I had driven up from my daughter's place in Montco to the place I was staying on Penns then loaded up and headed north to Kettle. A nice ride along the West Branch before heading over the mountain into the Kettle Valley. I headed to one of my favorite areas on the creek and ran into rick Nyles, Dave Albaugh and George Fallon right away. I started to fish about 4:30.
It was a nice sunny day with sunny skies and air temp at about 71. The water was very clear and running at 220 CFS. I thought this was ideal conditions. I did see a small storm rolling around north of me and was expecting to get a buck of rain, but it just clouded up and rained a little. Most of the rain stayed north.
I waded across the stream to my far bank (Rt 144 side) and found some structured water with a riffle and softer area behind it that looked good. A couple of small risers were happening in that area. There were sporadic caddis, sulfurs and march brown (maybe grey fox) happening. Nothing that you would call a hatch and I wanted for a spinner fall and that didn't happen.
Fishing was all done on dry flies. I would target a riser, but they would never return to my fly. I used caddis, sulfur, grey fox, Adams and spinner patterns. The trout took the spinner, grey fox and sulphur patterns. The trout were doing some weird strikes and I had to adjust my set to get them. I some cases I felt like I was setting to fast and backed it off a half second after a strike. That ended up working and got about 21 to the net and missed well over eight. All were recently stocked rainbows.
I'm glad I went as the trip and fishing at Kettle scratched an itch for me on catching some trout on dry flies.
It was a nice sunny day with sunny skies and air temp at about 71. The water was very clear and running at 220 CFS. I thought this was ideal conditions. I did see a small storm rolling around north of me and was expecting to get a buck of rain, but it just clouded up and rained a little. Most of the rain stayed north.
I waded across the stream to my far bank (Rt 144 side) and found some structured water with a riffle and softer area behind it that looked good. A couple of small risers were happening in that area. There were sporadic caddis, sulfurs and march brown (maybe grey fox) happening. Nothing that you would call a hatch and I wanted for a spinner fall and that didn't happen.
Fishing was all done on dry flies. I would target a riser, but they would never return to my fly. I used caddis, sulfur, grey fox, Adams and spinner patterns. The trout took the spinner, grey fox and sulphur patterns. The trout were doing some weird strikes and I had to adjust my set to get them. I some cases I felt like I was setting to fast and backed it off a half second after a strike. That ended up working and got about 21 to the net and missed well over eight. All were recently stocked rainbows.
I'm glad I went as the trip and fishing at Kettle scratched an itch for me on catching some trout on dry flies.
