Penns Creek, Centre County, 10-18-13

[McSneek]

Fished from about 9:30am to 4:00pm. Most of the time in the middle of the C&R section. Day started dark and cloudy but there were intervals of sunshine in the afternoon. A decent breeze kicked up too.

Water is very low although maybe close to normal for this time of year. A lot of the usual spring time spots are too low to bother with. Not much visible insect activity. Occasional BWOs but not enough to get the fish up consistently. I fished mostly with a two nymph combo of a #10 Montana stonefly nymph with a brown abdomen and pale yellow thorax and a #16 Sugar Daddy with an Adams grey body. Caught a lot of fish on the stonefly although the bigger ones came on the small nymph. Also had some success later in the day with a #16 BHPT dropped off an elk hair caddis. Nothing on the EHC though.

Leaves were not a problem yet but that may change by next weekend as the woods up there are full of fall color. They'll be falling soon.

The only negative to an otherwise beautiful day was that I took a tumble in a riffle and broke my Z-Axis. Glad I had a spare rod with me to finish out the day. I'll be testing the Sage lifetime warranty.

 

[dc410]

I was also on Penns Friday afternoon. I was working in Penns Valley on Friday and made a last minute decision to hit Penns for an hour or so before heading home in the afternoon. Penns is certainly not the kind of stream that I like to just drop in for a short time, but sometimes I take what I can get. I fished downstream from the old RR bridge at the end of Tunnel Road below Coburn. It was flowing at about 150 cfs - very low but a bit up from previous days due to the rain event Thursday afternoon. The water temperature was 56 degrees. I saw very few risers and very little bug activity. A few BWO's, craneflies and very sporatic October caddis were observed. This was my first time that I ever fished Penns in October and I was curious to see an October Penns wild brownie. It was also the first time that I ever saw an October Caddis - they are much larger than I realized. I was fishing on top with a caddis pattern and quickly realized with not much time to fish that I was going to have to change tactics if I wanted to see one of those brown trout. I switched to a size 14 flashback Pheasant Tail soft hackle wet fly with a small split shot about 10" above to get it down better in the column. I focused on the faster pocket water. I caught quite a few fish in the last 1/2 hour of fishing as they were smashing it almost as soon as it hit the water. Caught fish in at least three different age classes (5", 10" and 13"). The color of these autumn Penns brownies definitely did not dissapoint me. Beautiful stream, beautiful foliage and beautiful fish. What a great way to end the work week.