Neshannock Creek, Lawrence Co, 10/24/09

[ryguyfi]

Had a few hours to burn while my wife was busy so headed up to the Neshannock. Fished from around 12-3. My leaky waders were only slightly leaking after this trial run. I felt 2 drips and my socks were only mildy damp... which is a great improvement from the few cups that were in there last time.

The fishing was OK. Water flow and color were pretty good. A little clear but the rain the day before seemed to help. I saw very few rises. A few caddis were coming off and didn't see any BWO's. Seemed to be a perfect BWO day, but none visable. I fished a tandem nymph set up with a combo of either a nymph and egg or nymph and bugger. My only fish were on a white chrystal meth SS. I also fished a stream downstream from the shop in the shallower water and stripped it from the bank around some under cuts, riffles, and holes. No dice. My second fish I landed was only about 13" but had probably the biggest kype I've seen on one of my fish. It was all beat up like he was fighting.

It was a nice day with a crisp breeze that was a good warm up for the steelhead next weekend. Can't wait!


Ryan

 

[dryflyguy]

Thanks for the report, Ryan.
My wife and I are both off tomorrow, and she wants to go to Volant. This will be one time I hope that she shops a good long time, while I poke around the stream.
But this will really work out pretty well. All of the other streams that I usually fish in this area - yough, oil creek - are blown out right now. For some reason, the heavy rain seemed to miss right there. Slippery Rock Creek, and I guess -from your report - Neshannock, are fine

 

[ryguyfi]

Yeah the flow was just about perfect. Decent visability and plenty of fish. It seemed the water temp must have dropped because the fish weren't that active. But hopefully that changed in the past few days.

 

[dryflyguy]

They still weren't very active today - monday - in spite of the warm, beautiful weather.
The water temp just barely touched 50, and there were a few midges - and just a few very sporadic caddis - hatching.
I saw one fish rise a few times below the bridge in Volant. And caught it on a tan caddis - a freshly stocked rainbow.
I also observed a beautiful pair of 12" brookies spawning in that area.
Around 5, I drove down to the covered bridge - nice looking stretch of water under it. And I saw a few fish rise there sporadically. And I caught them, but they weren't trout. Or even fallfish or chubs.
They were some kind of long, silvery minnow like fish - about 4 inches long.
And that was it for my fishing today.
But at least my wife had some fun shopping

 

[Millertime]

The covered bridge last weekend had probably 10 or so trout and a really nice big rainbow under it. My buddy managed to catch a real nice 16 or so inch rainbow on one of my PT ties and a small brown on something else can't remember. I got skunked some how. I was trying a bunch of random patterns. more so working on presentation and checkin out some new eggs I tied.

 

[ryguyfi]

dryflyguy wrote:

I also observed a beautiful pair of 12" brookies spawning in that area.

Are you sure about that??? I know they don't stock brookies in that stream (unless a private stocking) and I know there isn't any natural reproduction. That would be very interesting if that was true.

 

[dryflyguy]

Yes, they were definitely brightly colored holdover - or wild brookies. I was pretty surprised by them also

 

[ryguyfi]

Did you talk to Bob in the shop about them?

 

[dryflyguy]

No

 

[jaybo41]

DFG that's really interesting. I've been fishing that stream for almost 10 years and haven't ever seen brookies in there. I have heard rumor of some of the tributaries to NC holding brookies, but never anything specific as to the location. Although I don't believe it would be anywhere in the Special Regs area. If they weren't stocked, my guess is that they moved into the larger water. That's awesome that you were able to observe them!

PennKev seems to know a good bit about NC and other streams in that general area, I'd be interested in hearing his thoughts. I hope he chimes in.

 

[dryflyguy]

Watching those fish do their thing on the redd was the highlight of the day for me - the fishing sure wasn't good.
I've got very little experience on neshannock creek. I've stopped there a few times before, hung around an hour or 2. Then moved on to somewhere else after not finding any risers.
And I would have done that monday if my wife hadn't been with me, and shopping in Volant.
As for brookies, I think I've caught a few in cool spring creek, a tributary of neshannock

 

[greenghost]

That is interesting, dfg. In the 20 plus years I've fished it I've never seen a brookie. Perhaps a local club stocked some? Or maybe PFBC accidently put some in? Or maybe there is an unknown trib that does have brookies. (Highly unlikely.)

I have caught a few 4/5 inch bows with parr markings in past years. I assume they may have been offspring of stockies that have successfully spawned during cooler years.

 

[dryflyguy]

Ghost:

A tributary of cool spring creek is listed as supporting wild trout.
But it feeds in around Mercer, which is a good ways up from - and above the small dam in - Volant.
Most likely, the fish that I saw were holdovers from somewhere

 

[PennKev]

Brookies were stocked by the fly shop this fall. Bob commented that they were all healthy, well colored fish. If I recall correctly, they were put in with fly shop's extra stocking not the state stocking. It was funny as he commented that everyone is going to start thinking there are wild brookies in the stream.

However, there are small populations of wild browns in several trib/headwater streams in the Neshannock watershed and I've caught what seem to be very small wild browns the the main branch also. Not really fishable populations if you target wild fish but If you know where to fish you can get a few pretty reliably. I have yet to catch a wild or seemingly wild brookie in the Neshannock drainage and I am getting close to exploring it all.

Kev

 

[Millertime]

Awesome. Good info Penn.

 

[jaybo41]

Thanks for chiming in Kev, I was hoping that you would. Great info thanks for passing that along.

 

[troutslammer]

is the flow and color good right now ?

 

[flipnfly]

the neshannock was clear today decent flow at the fly shop didnt seem too low but i didnt really examine it too well

 

[PennKev]

Thought you guys might find the following interesting, all of the below pictured fish were caught in the Neshannock drainage. I've gotten more wild fish than what I have shown here but these are the only ones that I have photographed and was reasonably certain were wild. If you want to see nicely colored holdovers, I could fill up an entire web site...

At any rate, these particular fish were caught in 3 different feeder streams, and not neccesarily streams that are stocked themselves. The largest of the below pictured fish *could* have been a long term holdover, but was caught in an unstocked stream in an area with several major obstacles preventing migration from the main stem. I am giving him the benefit of the doubt as I have caught other wild trout in this stream.

Unfortunately, I've yet to catch a fish that I was convinced was wild from the main stem WHILE I had a camera. I came close this past summer as I watched a very tiny brown pick off midges, only to come up empty handed when he took my fly.

I am going to withold exact stream names, but if you know the area you can find the fish.

*You would not believe me if I told you where I caught the fish shown above.*

 

[jaybo41]

Kev, thanks for the post and sharing those pictures! That's very encouraging. I haven't really given those feeder streams any effort, I've always stuck with Neshannock Creek itself, although I've come close to trying Little Neshannock a few times as a backup plan.