What I have always found most fun is the planning of a trip. It does not matter if it’s for hiking, fishing, or camping. I get more satisfaction doing all the research and putting the plan into action.I found my self flip flopping between the Yough “Youghiogheny” River that runs through Ohiopyle State Park or fishing the Clarion River in Pennsylvania.
I kept watching the flow gauges and with information from a friend I had chosen the Yough.
Most of the tributaries that dump into the Great Lakes are very low and that’s not my vibe at all. The bluebird skies they were calling for on Saturday did not sit well with me. At least I had fog for a bit down in the gorge.
The Yough is extremely rugged and unforgiving in the two out of the three sections of river that I saw. To the point that if one does get injured you will most likely have to self-rescue. The Gorge walls are 600 feet high GPS, and a cell phone will not work well if at all!
In the middle section of the river is littered with huge rocks and most of the pools I fished I could not even begin to guess how deep they were.
I am extremely comfortable with fishing in big water. This would be my first time here and would challenge me right off the bat. I walked up the boulder strewn bank that changed to sand and river rock beaches.
I didn’t see other human footprints but did see other animal prints. I walked up to my first perch after passing other sexy stretches of water.
I knew bringing a bug rod down to the gorge would prove to be challenging. By this I mean the volume of water that this river had 1200 cfs and the shear depth of the holes, chutes, and not to mention the wicked river currents.
The switch rod I would use today would have an Airflo sinking leader at a rate of 2”/sec. I should have swapped that out for 5”/sec and even that I don’t think would have mad a difference when looking back. I used my 2 ½” bucktail streamer on a size #6 hook.
I began with the switch rod and after cast after cast and made every attempt to cover the water the best way I knew how nothing came to hand.
After a brief battle I brough her to the net. She was maybe 15” long and so clean.
I loaded up with the micro tackle shop and headed out of this section of the gorge.
The rocks and boulders in the boulder field are as smooth as glass and if they are wet well you will have to take extreme care in walking on them.
I got back to Bess “my Subaru Outback” and found the parking lot full to the brim!
Pay close attention to where you park because you could get blocked in by others. I nearly had a stroke when I realized that someone could have blocked me in. They park front to back “one in front of the other” when floating down the river.
They park in front of the other person when they know them since they float in pairs.
My next stop was to visit the Cucumber Falls area. This is where I would get my first taste of how busy it could be. I am also sure this was not as bad as it gets during other peak seasonal times.
The Cucumber Falls parking lot is small, I mean small!
This area does have a trail you can follow but the cleaning up from all the fallen trees does make this trail hard to follow. I bailed on the trail as soon as I got close to the water. I was carrying too much equipment to bushwack on purpose for who knows how long.
I arrived at the water’s edge and before I could I needed to walk on 100’s of lienal feet of wood debris. When I finally reached the near tail out of the pool, I realized this pool was exceptionally deep! I had decided to call this the “Canyon Hole”.
I was thinking about the rod reel I had brought with me. I was wondering if I could have done this differently. Up top this point I had zero room for a back cast. This would extremely limit others from fishing this river from the bank.
The whitewater craft I would see here, and down river would also tell me why I had not seen any fishing guide boats.
I strapped on the fasting sinking leader. The Airflo leader I had chosen was 5”/second. I really needed a full sinking line here. I could not use with without being on a river craft.
I used the same streamer on the bug rod.
I was used to seeing boat traffic since I also fished the Cheat River in West Virginia.
This was in colder weather and remarked to myself “I could not imagine how busy it would be in the warmer months!”.
When fishing these big rivers and depending on your gear, you’re at the mercy of the currents of the river. I knew a flyrod with any time of floating line would be worthless at the water depths. Sure, I had a sinking leader on that was 10 feet long and with 3 feet of tippet. This would get me down 13 feet, but I guess that the depths I was fishing for would be 30 feet!
I headed to the upper Yough. Here I would find it more conducive to wading well where I waded. At 1200 cf/s and at a gauge height of 2.20 it was moving, but at least for me very wadable. The water temperature was 55.5 degrees!
I began to work the waters downstream of a fellow bug rodder. He was I am guessing Czech nymphing.
The stream held inky green color in any water deeper than 30” and did not have as many leaves up here.
Those leaves when they drop in the middle and lower section will be of biblical proportions.
This section of the river had a much different river bottom composition. The river here was made of pea gravel, small cobbles, river stone, and had a few weeds here and there.
I do regret now not having my smaller trout streamer box. I will never know if it would have made a difference or not.
The one hungry brown that I hooked up with was enough to get me over the regret.
Last edited:
