Little Kettle/Kettle Creek/Cross Fork Creek Potter&Clinton Co. 06/05-06/10

[The_Sasquatch]

Got back from spending a week in God's Country. My dad and I covered miles and miles of the streams listed above. We intentionally avoided the popular beats of these streams, and stuck to the much-less fished stretches upstream of Oleona (for Kettle and Little Kettle) and well above the stocked section of Cross Fork.

Fishing was outstanding. Jerry and I had several double digit days, most days landing between 20-30 trout each of us. I've seen the reports of low water, but the streams seemed just fine where we fished. Checking the USGS shows that the streams were just below normal flows for the dates we were there. I've seen it a lot worse at this time of year in years past. Lots of hatches. Caddis of all variety, yellow stone flies, slate drakes, cream midges, etc., but most of our fish were caught on the stimulator hatches. Mostly brookies (and several over 10"), but several larger browns were brought to hand, as well as a few stocked bows that made their way upstream. The rain on Sunday and the on-off showers during the week kept things in good shape for steady dry fly fishing.

 

[Prospector]

You definitely fished some great stretches of water. It is a nice time to be there and you caught some great fish in some great places.

You mentioned the water levels didn't seem that far off. Just looking at one day on Kettle, June 5th, the mean discharge over 75 years on that day is 180. The chart shows on June 5th this year the discharge ranged from 80 to 108 after the rain. That puts this year's average discharge about half of the mean. To see the mean for every day of the year click on the "More" link above the table. Seems like the long term weather on that day is a rain day since the historical mean for June 6th is much higher. I'm certainly no expert but that's how I interpreted it.

 

[The_Sasquatch]

You may be interpreting correctly. And certainly compared to last year, the streams were lower. But certainly, in the last 20 years plus of fishing that area, I've seen it much much worse in June. I felt as if there was plenty of water for the fish to spread out nicely.

I think it was you who in your report said the pools were dead. I'd agree w/ that. Seems the fish were in the runs. In the evenings, the big pools came alive a bit, but during the day, most of the fish I caught were in runs. However, on our last day, we were walking out of the (former) WBTE of Kettle and I came to a big pool. My fly was already cut off my line, but I couldn't let the pool go. So I put on a big foam hopper. The kind that you use in August in meadows, and I slapped that sucker down right at the head of the pool. THAT brought up a fairly large brookie haha! I should have tried big hoppers all week.

 

[Prospector]

I agree, some years have been worse. This was my 42nd year and I've seen better ones too. Last year was an anomaly the other way. I fished the area in May, June, July and August and the great flow had water temps in the high 50's in early August.

But it's still worth it regardless of conditions. Unfortunately I see Kettle topped 70 degrees yesterday which will be a problem.

Take care, hope to run into you some day.