Penns Creek Mifflin/Centre 4/14-4/15

[jifigz]

We stayed at Poe Valley and fished Penns a lot Friday and a fair amount Saturday. I was with HopBack and my brother in law who was just learning (first time fly fishing was on Penns Saturday.)

Penns won, big time, and we lost. There were BWO, Hendricksons, grannoms, and midges in abundance. Nymphing produced nothing. No steady risers could be fooled by dries. The only way I caught fish was swinging soft hackles to the risers. They were clearly eating emergers but I couldn't really crack the code. I only put 3 fish in the net the whole trip and had about an additional 6 takes with failure to hook em and one big fish break off. In don't know HopBack's numbers but he did about the same. It was the worst I've ever done on Penns and very humbling to say the least.

I know other forum members were on Penns at the same time, I'd love to hear how ya did.

 

[HopBack]

We stayed at Poe Valley and fished Penns a lot Friday and a fair amount Saturday. I was with HopBack and my brother in law who was just learning (first time fly fishing was on Penns Saturday.)

Penns won, big time, and we lost. There were BWO, Hendricksons, grannoms, and midges in abundance. Nymphing produced nothing. No steady risers could be fooled by dries. The only way I caught fish was swinging soft hackles to the risers. They were clearly eating emergers but I couldn't really crack the code. I only put 3 fish in the net the whole trip and had about an additional 6 takes with failure to hook em and one big fish break off. In don't know HopBack's numbers but he did about the same. It was the worst I've ever done on Penns and very humbling to say the least.

I know other forum members were on Penns at the same time, I'd love to hear how ya did.

I thought I cracked the code Saturday morning when I caught 3 trout in quick succession. It was only a fleeting moment because I couldn’t land a trout the rest of the day. The only way I caught trout was tight lining unweighted soft hackle caddis flies.

Fish were steadily rising throughout the entire day but appeared to be only taking emergers. We tried many different patterns to no avail. I did have one take on a black caddis and that was it for dries.

 

[Fish Sticks]

Were you guys focusing in the big deep runs and pools that come to a nice V or a tail out or hitting plenty of skinny riffles too?

 

[jifigz]

Were you guys focusing in the big deep runs and pools that come to a nice V or a tail out or hitting plenty of skinny riffles too?

I pretty much fished every type of water I had access to at some point.

 

[McSneek]

I fished it Friday, 4/14 and had a great day in the middle of the catch and release area. Various red quill patterns including emergers took numerous fish feeding on the surface. I only got a couple on grannoms. When things finally slowed down around 1:00pm there was decent action on nymphs. #16 hares ear worked well. Still found the occasional rising fish through the afternoon. Really good day for me.

 

[jifigz]

I fished it Friday, 4/14 and had a great day in the middle of the catch and release area. Various red quill patterns including emergers took numerous fish feeding on the surface. I only got a couple on grannoms. When things finally slowed down around 1:00pm there was decent action on nymphs. #16 hares ear worked well. Still found the occasional rising fish through the afternoon. Really good day for me.

Man...... I'm glad you hear that you did well, but dang, that stings. We gave it all we had.

 

[TimMurphy]

Man...... I'm glad you hear that you did well, but dang, that stings. We gave it all we had.

Dear jifigz,

Penns is like that for me too. I've had days where I was the golfing Pastor in "Caddyshack" and could do no wrong on Penns no matter what I did. And other days where I felt like when the Pastor shook his putter at God on the 18th hole, and God smote me with lightning.

Regards,

Tim Murphy 🙂

 

[DaveKile]

We stayed at Poe Valley and fished Penns a lot Friday and a fair amount Saturday. I was with HopBack and my brother in law who was just learning (first time fly fishing was on Penns Saturday.)

Penns won, big time, and we lost. There were BWO, Hendricksons, grannoms, and midges in abundance. Nymphing produced nothing. No steady risers could be fooled by dries. The only way I caught fish was swinging soft hackles to the risers. They were clearly eating emergers but I couldn't really crack the code. I only put 3 fish in the net the whole trip and had about an additional 6 takes with failure to hook em and one big fish break off. In don't know HopBack's numbers but he did about the same. It was the worst I've ever done on Penns and very humbling to say the least.

I know other forum members were on Penns at the same time, I'd love to hear how ya did.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I wasn't there, but have been there.

 

[dudemanspecial]

Me and a friend were at Poe Paddy. We started fishing Friday around 2 pm and the fish were rising and caught a few real quick. They shut off within 30 minutes and that was the extent of the action until we finished fishing Saturday when the sun went down. I picked up 2 Saturday and my friend caught 2 or 3. So yes, we had similar results.

 

[Swattie87]

I was thinking about this today (after having a good day last Saturday). I don’t fish Penns a ton. I’m a small stream guy primarily, and admittedly I don’t feel quite at home on big water like Penns. I need to do it more.

I’d say I’ve fished Penns probably 20 times in my life. For the most part April-May, but a couple times for Green Drakes, and once or twice in the Fall. I don’t have exact stats, but of those 20 outings, my catch rate per outing probably looks something like this…Only counting Trout, not the seemingly infinite number of Fallfish and juvenile Smallmouth you can get on Green Drakes:

10+: 0
5-9: 4
2-4: 4
1: 2
0: 10

So, using this math, I’d say I’ve never had a “slayed em”, to use the modern term, day on Penns.

I have a “good” (for me, on Penns) outing something like 20% of the time. This is the kind of day where I figure out what the fish are doing, give em’ what they want, even if just for a little while, and feel like I accomplish something.

A “meh” outing 30% of the time. This is where I caught a couple fish, or at least a fish, but don’t really know why. Maybe they ran into the hook with their mouth?

And a skunk 50% of the time. Self-explanatory. I hate Penns. And the 30 minutes on junk roads it takes to get the heck out of there after it kicks your butt. And all of the bugs you hit with your car on the way out, usually March Browns, which is what you were fishing, but the fish “apparently” were eating Sulphurs that no one saw. Oh wait, I forgot to try an emerger. I have to remember that for next time, but I never do. How long to that Hardee’s on 322 in Dauphin? (Tell me this HASN’T happened to you all too. Just maybe not with my frequency.)

Like I said, I’m not an expert on big water, but I’d say both statistically, and subjectively, Penns is the toughest stream I regularly fish. (The reasons I fish it anyway I’m sure are obvious.)

 

[ROVERT]

I fished Saturday from around 4:00 to dark and today from noon to dark. I netted somewhere around 30 fish, all on dries. On Saturday it was red quills and Hendricksons. Almost all fish yesterday were caught from the time it started raining (5:30/6?) to dark.

Today it was much more spread out and almost exclusively on Grannoms. A cast a couple feet in front of a riser and a twitch or two to skate the caddis a bit was the ticket. I had to fish the shaded water and I had to put some motion on the fly. A couple of the fish I caught took when I was actually starting to pick the fly up to recast. They really wanted to see it move. I caught fish pretty consistently from 1:00 to 6:00 doing this. Then I switched to mayflies. The spinner fall was the toughest part of the day for me. There were far too many naturals on the water.

I saw pretty good numbers of March Browns today. I suspect swinging MB wets would have been effective. I wonder if a number of the fish I saw "rise" today weren't actually chasing MB emergers to the surface.

 

[Schaefer406]

We stayed at Poe Valley and fished Penns a lot Friday and a fair amount Saturday. I was with HopBack and my brother in law who was just learning (first time fly fishing was on Penns Saturday.)

Penns won, big time, and we lost. There were BWO, Hendricksons, grannoms, and midges in abundance. Nymphing produced nothing. No steady risers could be fooled by dries. The only way I caught fish was swinging soft hackles to the risers. They were clearly eating emergers but I couldn't really crack the code. I only put 3 fish in the net the whole trip and had about an additional 6 takes with failure to hook em and one big fish break off. In don't know HopBack's numbers but he did about the same. It was the worst I've ever done on Penns and very humbling to say the least.

I know other forum members were on Penns at the same time, I'd love to hear how ya did.

I messaged you before we went in hopes that I could meet up with you, unfortunately I didn’t have as much time this weekend as I hoped for. I started my Friday off from work at 6:30 AM just above Weikert and worked up. I started my day with a green PT as my point fly, split shot above this, with a partridge and orange wet fly as my tag. I fished from 6:30-1PM in runs and soft riffles with a swing and ended my day with ~25 fish to net. Not quite sure what I did but I guess I had the correct presentation for the day. I also switched to a dry dropper with an elk hair caddis and perdigon as the dropper and got 2 fish on the dry and some more on the dropper. TONS of bugs out, Hendricksons, caddis, etc.

 

[jifigz]

I messaged you before we went in hopes that I could meet up with you, unfortunately I didn’t have as much time this weekend as I hoped for. I started my Friday off from work at 6:30 AM just above Weikert and worked up. I started my day with a green PT as my point fly, split shot above this, with a partridge and orange wet fly as my tag. I fished from 6:30-1PM in runs and soft riffles with a swing and ended my day with ~25 fish to net. Not quite sure what I did but I guess I had the correct presentation for the day. I also switched to a dry dropper with an elk hair caddis and perdigon as the dropper and got 2 fish on the dry and some more on the dropper. TONS of bugs out, Hendricksons, caddis, etc.

Glad to hear you did well. We will meet up sometime and fish, no worries.

 

[discomidge]

Hey jifigz, sorry to hear you had a rough trip, I've certainly been there. I was out on Penns, camping in the C&R Thurday and Friday night. I fished for 90 minutes at dusk Thursday and caught 15 fish. On Friday I caught 26, and on Saturday I caught 17, though I didn't stay until dark that day. So 58 fish in essentially 2 days, which was really good for me. I normally don't count but Thursday night started so hot I thought I might set some personal bests. It's always amazing how different the fish act on the same days but in different sections of the stream.

As for tactics and bugs, all my fish came on top. I nymphed in the afternoons when nothing was rising and just could not buy a hit. The morning hatches on Friday and Saturday were really good for me with consistent action from about 8am until 11:30 or so both days. Fish were into the hendo emergers, hendo parachutes, and missing links I was throwing, but they switched up a lot and I had to change flies accordingly. Lots of trial and error. On Sat march browns came off in good numbers and a big catskills-style quill-bodied thing was like a cheat code. Even fish eating emergers in flat water would come take it on top, as long as it was floating really high. I protected that fly with my life (it was the only one I brought, kind of on a lark).

Every fish I caught except for one was between 13" and 18". That one that wasn't in that slot was about 10". I was kind of shocked to see it and wished it good luck, swimming around with those mean looking 18s. And I caught a massive Original Native (fallfish). It was actually kind of pretty and colorful.

 

[jifigz]

Hey jifigz, sorry to hear you had a rough trip, I've certainly been there. I was out on Penns, camping in the C&R Thurday and Friday night. I fished for 90 minutes at dusk Thursday and caught 15 fish. On Friday I caught 26, and on Saturday I caught 17, though I didn't stay until dark that day. So 58 fish in essentially 2 days, which was really good for me. I normally don't count but Thursday night started so hot I thought I might set some personal bests. It's always amazing how different the fish act on the same days but in different sections of the stream.

As for tactics and bugs, all my fish came on top. I nymphed in the afternoons when nothing was rising and just could not buy a hit. The morning hatches on Friday and Saturday were really good for me with consistent action from about 8am until 11:30 or so both days. Fish were into the hendo emergers, hendo parachutes, and missing links I was throwing, but they switched up a lot and I had to change flies accordingly. Lots of trial and error. On Sat march browns came off in good numbers and a big catskills-style quill-bodied thing was like a cheat code. Even fish eating emergers in flat water would come take it on top, as long as it was floating really high. I protected that fly with my life (it was the only one I brought, kind of on a lark).

Every fish I caught except for one was between 13" and 18". That one that wasn't in that slot was about 10". I was kind of shocked to see it and wished it good luck, swimming around with those mean looking 18s. And I caught a massive Original Native (fallfish). It was actually kind of pretty and colorful.

Man, with all of this talk of everyone doing so well and us taking such a beating, I may just have to head back this weekend and try it out. There were some March Browns around that I saw but not many.

I guess I should have just stuck with tossing the Hendrickson parachutes more than I did. I was just having such a rough time maintaining confidence in a pattern or approach. Swinging the wets were the only thing getting looks at all for me and while it wasn't setting the world ablaze I had to keep with it.

Sometimes fishing is mental and I think it got the best of me on this trip. Penns is just a short drive from my home so I will be back soon.

 

[discomidge]

I messaged you before we went in hopes that I could meet up with you, unfortunately I didn’t have as much time this weekend as I hoped for. I started my Friday off from work at 6:30 AM just above Weikert and worked up. I started my day with a green PT as my point fly, split shot above this, with a partridge and orange wet fly as my tag. I fished from 6:30-1PM in runs and soft riffles with a swing and ended my day with ~25 fish to net. Not quite sure what I did but I guess I had the correct presentation for the day. I also switched to a dry dropper with an elk hair caddis and perdigon as the dropper and got 2 fish on the dry and some more on the dropper. TONS of bugs out, Hendricksons, caddis, etc.

Hey dude I think I ran into you (or at least someone fishing that exact rig). I was the guy camping. Nice to meet you glad you got em.

 

[lycoflyfisher]

Anyone camping this weekend? I will be staying at Poe Paddy Saturday night. Hopefully starting kinda early Saturday and getting tent set up b4 any serious rain sets in. Sounds like I need to load my box up with March browns.

 

[tjsingle]

Thanks for the report. I am heading up this upcoming weekend. Hoping to get into some good action.

 

[Schaefer406]

Hey dude I think I ran into you (or at least someone fishing that exact rig). I was the guy camping. Nice to meet you glad you got em.

No way. I hope you had a great weekend camping. I am jealous of that camping spot you had. You were killing it with dries in the section you were camping at (I think you had me beat on the numbers!). If you are heading up there again soon and want to fish shoot me a PM. I'm in Lancaster and usually head up once per week. I could definitely take some critiques on my dry fly game. Here are two pictures from the day, one being best fish I was able to catch on the wet swung through using a tightline presentation

 

[Fish Sticks]

I am worried temps will be too high when i get a shot at penns in early
May jeeze. Hoepfully not