Oil Creek, Venango County, 4-19-2020

[RLeep2]

I would expect Oil Creek to have a high level of insect variety. It's a large fertile borderline warmwater stream. A lot of warmwater streams with decent but not exceptional water quality have a variety and intensity of hatches that would knock our socks off if we bothered to pay attention to them, which by and large we don't. But beyond having sufficient water quality to host the bugs at all in the first place, I always figured with was more about the fertility and fecundity common to larger streams than anything to do with superior WQ.

Somebody ought to count the tails on one of the Oil Creek "Quill Gordons" and report back. It would be interesting to find out...🙂

 

[Bruno]

RLeep2 wrote:
A lot of warmwater streams with decent but not exceptional water quality have a variety and intensity of hatches that would knock our socks off if we bothered to pay attention to them

Agreed !

 

[SmoothOperator]

dryflyguy wrote:
Smooth ;

You shoulda stuck around.
The wind died down around 6. And the grannoms - after hatching heavily all day - finally thinned to a point that getting strikes was easier without competition from the heavy hatch.

Those mayflies looked very gray on the water too. Prolly were Quill Gordons.

Couldn't ..... Had to get geared up to run to North Carolina and Georgia 5:00 Am Tuesday morning......There now waiting to pickup a load going to Missouri ...... Hopefully deliver Friday and find, Something heading home.....After this run ,I'm getting my new trailer and heading up to Oil Creek and then Penns till end of May...... After that I'm off to my camp in Montana till the snow flies.... Getting awfully hard to work because of the freight being " skinny " and the work at home dispatchers leave a lot to be desired......I'll go back to work when everybody is back in their " structured environments".......

 

[NMR]

Thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge, gents.

 

[Sharknado5]

Oil Creek update. Fished there late Thursday 4/23, 4 PM till 6:30. Very pleasant day temp 59 at Petroleum Center, minimal wind until late. Water temp 47. Flow about 680. Checked out the upper sections of the park on my way there. Clouds of grannoms flying upstream at the Drake Well section, decent number of fishermen. Didn't see much surface activity. Also stopped at the Miller farm bridge, 13 cars there mostly spin fishermen in sight. Some caddis in the air, but nothing working the surface in about 5 minutes of observation.

Petroleum Center weirdly deserted, only 3 cars in the playground section. 2 guys just below the outfitters hole and 2 guys in the long pool below. Grannoms in the air but not a ton. I saw a fish surface on the far bank so decided to drive around and fish there.

Both guys in the long pool landed fish while I was walking by, looked like good fish. Both were fishing downstream. Few risers when I finally got rigged up but gradually more and more. Couldn't believe the hatching grannoms floating by me against the far bank,10 or 20 floating at me every time I looked. But only one trout I could see near the bank. It was working right behind me after I waded out, and i caught him with a short back cast on a wet fly version of a grannom, he took it as soon as it hit the surface. Caught a bruiser brown about 16-17 inches on that wet drifting down and across, and two more bows with a grannom dry. Had about 20 targets I could reach but mostly got ignored. Many risers head to tail and some just boils, guess they were working in the film. After I caught a couple fish the guys across left and I was alone in the hole. But started to sprinkle and I left, had some trouble getting up the railroad bank until I found a less steep spot.

I've heard that the trout get tired of eating grannoms or get more selective as the hatch progresses. I went a long time in past years getting skunked during that hatch until I apparently caught it early last year. But so what, think I'll go out again today, before it gets cold again!

 

[Sharknado5]

Oil Creek today wasn't so good. No bugs floating, no fish 🙂

 

[dryflyguy]

Shark -

The grannoms could well be over for this year.
They're only on the water for a week.

Guess you didn't see any of those #14 mayflies?

 

[Sharknado5]

No I didn't see anything on the water yesterday. The day before I did see one or two mayflies taking off but not near me. They were about the right size tho. I was wondering if maybe that was why I got so many refusals.

If the grannoms are over they sure had a great going away party on Thursday!

 

[dano]

I do know that Ted Fauceglia sought out and photographed Quill Gordons on Oil Creek in preparation for his book "Mayflies"

Friday, 4/24 saw steady action of grannoms from 10AM till 1PM. Low riding patterns produces. 2PM , quite a few early brownstones kept some fish looking up. Afternoon water temp=50F

Sat 4/25, Sparse AM 1/2 hour hatch with sporadic risers, Swung soft hackles.

 

[Prospector]

dano wrote:
I do know that Ted Fauceglia sought out and photographed Quill Gordons on Oil Creek in preparation for his book "Mayflies"

Friday, 4/24 saw steady action of grannoms from 10AM till 1PM. Low riding patterns produces. 2PM , quite a few early brownstones kept some fish looking up. Afternoon water temp=50F

Sat 4/25, Sparse AM 1/2 hour hatch with sporadic risers, Swung soft hackles.

In my Sugar Creek thread from Saturday I reported that I saw stoneflies too. They were active from 230pm-330pm so that ties with your Friday observations on Oil Creek. Probably happening at other area streams too.

 

[NMR]

dano wrote:
I do know that Ted Fauceglia sought out and photographed Quill Gordons on Oil Creek in preparation for his book "Mayflies".

How neat, this is the exact book I've been dusting off to brush up on my hatches and what prompted me to ask the question!

 

[dano]

The most QG's I've seen in one day was 3 and that was maybe 20+ years ago. I've never seen a fishable hatch.
Hendrickson population on the other hand seems to be be expanding farther downstream.

 

[PennKev]

dryflyguy wrote:
Shark -

The grannoms could well be over for this year.
They're only on the water for a week.

Guess you didn't see any of those #14 mayflies?

FyI, there were loads of caddis coming off on oil in the still somewhat high flows today. Saw decent amounts of bugs on other Venango county streams also. Lots of guys out fishing anywhere there was clearing water.

 

[dryflyguy]

Were they grannoms, or tan caddis?
I saw the some tan caddis hatching amongst the grannoms 2 weeks ago

 

[greenghost]

PennKev wrote:

dryflyguy wrote:
Shark -

The grannoms could well be over for this year.
They're only on the water for a week.

Guess you didn't see any of those #14 mayflies?

FyI, there were loads of caddis coming off on oil in the still somewhat high flows today. Saw decent amounts of bugs on other Venango county streams also. Lots of guys out fishing anywhere there was clearing water.

FYI... I was at Little Sandy yesterday and saw very few bugs. There were some small tan caddis and a couple March Browns. That was it.

Also, for anybody thinking of going there, Pumphouse Road is closed during COVID19 restrictions, so the PFBC did not stock the project waters from that point. You must access the project water from below.

I fished outside of the project at Rainbow Bridge and Whippoorwill Road and picked a couple on a wooly bugger--one stocked one wild brownie.

 

[PennKev]

dryflyguy wrote:
Were they grannoms, or tan caddis?
I saw the some tan caddis hatching amongst the grannoms 2 weeks ago

Most of he ones that are plastered all over my car have green bodies and tan wings, some are all tan though.

 

[PennKev]

greenghost wrote:

FYI... I was at Little Sandy yesterday and saw very few bugs. There were some small tan caddis and a couple March Browns. That was it.....

....I fished outside of the project at Rainbow Bridge and Whippoorwill Road and picked a couple on a wooly bugger--one stocked one wild brownie.

The last place I stopped on Sunday was Little Sandy and fished upstream from Whipporwill. I did fair with several decent wild fish and a several more smaller fish. Not a banner day for LSC, but not bad at all either. And likewise, I did not see many bugs there.

Sugar, Pithole, and Oil all had loads of Caddis on Sunday. Not surprisingly, there were very few caddis out on Monday as the air temps barely reached 50 and only late in the day. I did have some luck with dries on Monday fishing Sugar but many more fish came on a soft hackle bead head fishing as a dropper.

 

[dano]

5/4/20 Monday sucked with the cold wind and falling water temps.

5/5/20 Tuesday fished much better. Morning water temp=44F Ambient=36F.
Cobwebs full of grannoms. Fished an unweighted dark caddis soft hackle inches below the film and did well throughout the day. Added floatant to that pattern and caught some of the few fish that were rising.
Best fishing was from 1:30 to 4:30 with a mix of 16 grannom caddis, 18 Bright green Cheumatopsyche and 16 yellow craneflies. At 4PM, early brownstones hit the water and brought fish up.
Water temp at 4PM=54F, Ambient=57F. Blue skies. CFS=475cfs

I didn't stick around for the evening fishing but I believe it should have fished well with adult grannoms and bright green caddis egg laying activity.