Penns Creek, Union Co., 8/31/17

[dc410]

I hit a section of Penns Creek with a buddy of mine last week. We dropped in at one of our favorite spots and fished downstream. We fished from about 5:30-8:30 PM. The water was low and pretty clear with that typical green Penns Creek tint. Some storms had moved through the area earlier in the afternoon and the water felt fairly warm as the sun peeked in and out of the cloud cover for the rest of the evening.

I took the far side of the creek and my friend covered the near side and we worked our way down through a real nice set of riffles with some really good structure in it. We worked side by side fishing bunny tailed buggers downstream and hitting all of the pockets, seams, eddies and deeper runs. The smallies weren't easy this night but they were cooperative enough for us to have a whole lot of fun. As we approached the end of the riffle where it emptied into the head of the next large pool I started to notice a fairly decent topwater bite starting. We switched over to poppers for about the last hour of fishing and had a blast. I was tossing a chartreuse popper and my friend was throwing a white one.

A fairly decent Hex spinnerfall developed as well as quite a few white flies. Caddis were happening all evening. I'm always impressed with the bug production on Penns Creek. I managed my own personal warmwater grand slam: Smallmouth, Fallfish, Rock Bass and Redbreast Sunny all on top on the popper in the last hour of fishing. My buddy caught the fish of the night just after dark on the white popper. Just a beautiful evening spent on Penns with a real good friend.

 

[Dave_W]

Well played indeed.

With the cool temps and precip lately, many folks are focused again on trout fishing but there's some mighty fine WW game coming up in the next couple months.

 

[Mwheaps32]

When I tell people I went to Penn's to fish they always assume I'm going after trout, but that's rarely the case. I've caught some huge bass there in the early pre spawn period. Glad you had a great time.

 

[ryansheehan]

Penns for smallmouth.......thats like going to a bar for a glass of water 😛int:

 

[purplewoolly]

Isn't PA great. You can match the hatch with brown trout sipping mayflies, then a few miles downstream you can have a smallmouth explode on a popper. Whatever your taste, it's all in the same "bar".
And there are many such establishments. Thanks for the report John.

 

[Hook_Jaw]

Bass and trout inhabit much of the same water on lower penns creek

 

[dc410]

Hook_Jaw wrote:

Bass and trout inhabit much of the same water on lower penns creek

Yep, I've caught a few trout occasionally in this section of stream but when I fish it in late summer/early fall I'm targeting Smallmouth. The structure is absolutely top shelf. Penns is such a great fishery on so many fronts.

 

[Hook_Jaw]

In the late fall winter it changes to mostly trout in some lower areas.