Penns Creek, Centre County, 05/13/2016

Sylvaneous

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Sep 11, 2006
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Abridged Report: Rain didn't effect creek until afternoon, then not by much. Some rising activity in AM disappeared when the sun came out. Moderate to light hatching and rising activity in PM. March browns, sulfurs, grey foxes.

What actually happened:
Rains overnight/morning hadn't effected the creek much when I got there. However, levels rose a bit from about 350 to about 400 by evening. At these levels, I find nymphing harder, for me at least, and less productive for several reasons that I won't go in-depth with here.

Seeing the forecast and knowing I was cutting it close if there WAS a significant run-off event, I brought my trout spinning rod and a supply of spinners and R-7 Rapalas.

The rain ended as I arrived in the Paddy Mtn Tunnel area. I decided, because this is fishing and it is supposed to be fun, to go with the Rapala and am glad I did. Visibility approached 2 feet but with the overcast skies, I figured the browns would swipe at a rapala. By the time I fished the water above the tunnel bridge, I had landed 9 or 10 nice to really nice browns and lost or had swipes by several more.

By about 1:00 the sun was coming out. By mid-afternoon, skies were blue. At the start of my day, there were some march browns and sulfurs coming off. When the sky cleared, the hatching stopped. The only place I saw any worthwhile rising activity was the deep glide below Panther Run, up against that shaded cliff.

After a lunch break, I nymphed the fast water above and below Love's Pool along the far side. The 50 cfs increase in flow was notable as wading was more difficult. Landed one small brown and missed 2.

Clear skies promised a good spinner fall. As usual, a sky filled with march brown spinners left no evidence of their presence on the water. Sulfurs and a few grey foxes trickled off. Fish reluctantly rose a bit by 7:30. I caught about 3 or so on a snow shoe hare sulfur emerger. Bigger fish that I expected. The fish you seeing rising sporadically during a pre-hatch are usually dinks. Broke that fly off and switched to a sz. 14 parachute due to the progression of the hatch and the presence of spinners. (Love the looks of the tie, but hate fishing it because about every other cast, the thing lands on its side. I think I need to tie the winging material more sparse.) Caught 3 or so on this pattern even though it was a sz bigger than most bugs on the surface, which was from what I could tell, a sulfur, sz. 16. Caddis were almost completely absent all day.

I saw the 1st of the yellow Iris beginning to bloom along the creek. Some are still a good bit short. When this flower is fully out, the green drakes are on. I wouldn't be surprised if some are seen by this weekend.
 
I fished below the C and R Friday afternoon and Saturday until 2 pm. Great report!!! It was spot on based on my observations. I took a good number of stockies on sulpher nymphs and wet flies Friday up until 730 pm then had about 45 mins of surface activity on MB spinners. I took 4 on top including a heavy 15 inch stocked Brookie.

Saturday was tougher. I took a few slow stripping buggers in the morning. I nymphed a couple out of the pockets during the early afternoon and finished swinging wets for another couple in the early afternoon. Fish were behaving like they were stuffed and I got the sense that we were between hatches. The cold front could have played a part as well. Regardless, it was Penns, so aside from being exhausted from wading several miles, I was in my happy place!!!
 
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