discomidge
Well-known member
Got a chance to explore Middle Creek in SNyder County for the first time yesterday evening and TL;DR, it was phenomenal. Really pretty stream and so many places to fish.
The water was mid 50's and the air was mid 60's. Partly cloudy around 5 when I started fishing and totally clear by dark around 8. Beautiful night, very little light pollution out there and the stars were popping. I'm never going back to the city if I can help it.
The water was clearly still high from the recent drenching of central PA. I stopped at a few spots on the DHALO section but didn't fish them because visibility was 12", at best. Did see some rises under the bridge near the upper boundary. Spin fisherman were lined up on the straight section below the lower boundary.
So, I headed upstream in search of clearer water, figuring the lakes might be muddying things up, and found it above Faylor Lake. Much clearer water though definitely still off color, visibilty was maybe 2'. Water was greenish brown, rather than milky brown brownish brown I encountered downstream.
Hatches were good but not awe-inspiring like Penns or something. Hendricksons, Grannoms, Midges, and Red Quill looking things came off consistently until about 7. Just before every wave of a hatch I suddenly caught fish.
I fished a nice 40 yard long pool and started off by swing 2 wets (a #14 hendrickson wet and #12 bird's nest) through the transition from riffles to slow water and instantly caught fish. A bit later I started seeing consistent subsuface swirls, which kind of confirmed to me that the fish were into emergers. And boy were they. Consistent action on emergers until dark kept me so busy I only just managed to finish one beer in 3 hours. Caught a bunch of browns and a few rainbows, all of which appeared to be stocked, save for one brown that looked wilder than the rest (pictured below). Who knows. All in all a surprisingly great evening, given that I expected to be skunked in new muddy water.
The water was mid 50's and the air was mid 60's. Partly cloudy around 5 when I started fishing and totally clear by dark around 8. Beautiful night, very little light pollution out there and the stars were popping. I'm never going back to the city if I can help it.
The water was clearly still high from the recent drenching of central PA. I stopped at a few spots on the DHALO section but didn't fish them because visibility was 12", at best. Did see some rises under the bridge near the upper boundary. Spin fisherman were lined up on the straight section below the lower boundary.
So, I headed upstream in search of clearer water, figuring the lakes might be muddying things up, and found it above Faylor Lake. Much clearer water though definitely still off color, visibilty was maybe 2'. Water was greenish brown, rather than milky brown brownish brown I encountered downstream.
Hatches were good but not awe-inspiring like Penns or something. Hendricksons, Grannoms, Midges, and Red Quill looking things came off consistently until about 7. Just before every wave of a hatch I suddenly caught fish.
I fished a nice 40 yard long pool and started off by swing 2 wets (a #14 hendrickson wet and #12 bird's nest) through the transition from riffles to slow water and instantly caught fish. A bit later I started seeing consistent subsuface swirls, which kind of confirmed to me that the fish were into emergers. And boy were they. Consistent action on emergers until dark kept me so busy I only just managed to finish one beer in 3 hours. Caught a bunch of browns and a few rainbows, all of which appeared to be stocked, save for one brown that looked wilder than the rest (pictured below). Who knows. All in all a surprisingly great evening, given that I expected to be skunked in new muddy water.
