Penns Creek, Union County, 05/26/2015-05/28/2015

[3wt7X]

Dates Fished:
05/26/15-05/28/15 various times, mostly concentrated towards the evening and morning hours.

Water Conditions:
Penns Creek was low for this early in the season. When we arrived on Tuesday evening, it was pushing around 215 CFS, and by the time we left on Thursday it was below 200 CFS. The water temps were in a good range, but still high for this time of year. Depending on time of the day and location, it was in the upper 50 to mid 60 degree range. The water had a great tint to it on Tuesday and Wednesday, but was clearing fast on Thursday afternoon.

Weather:
Hot on Tuesday with temps in the mid 80s and sunshine. Wednesday was nice, there was cloud cover, a nice shower in the early afternoon and I don’t think it cleared 80 degrees.
Thursday started off with off and on clouds and breezy, then cleared around noon and warmed up as we got off the water.

Hatches:
Penns was Penns so all of the above. I had never fished a Green Drake Hatch on Penns and a friend and I were bound and determined to hit it this year. What an event it is!!! Traveling up, I felt like a kid going to opening day again, and it truly was refreshing to get that excited about something. We also saw Sulphers (16 and 18), Cahills (14), ISOs (14), huge stoneflies on the rocks (8), and many more mayflies that were beyond the scope of my identification abilities. The one evening, I counted 14 different mayflies in a spider web on my friend’s cottage.

Results:
I won’t discuss specific locations, but were fishing the lower open water below Weikert both nights. Having never done it before, I’d say we picked pretty good spots, as we were blitzed with thousands of coffin flies both evenings. The experience of that hatch goes beyond any fish you catch, and there were plenty of people enjoying the event. Regardless, the first evening I was able to take a couple before dark, both fat and healthy in the 14 inch range. I struggled after dark, with large flies that refused to ride properly, or float, too long of leader, and me being dumb and trying to cast 40 foot away, when I should have just approached the slurps. The second night, after a meeting with Bruce at Penns Creek angler, the numbers went up, the patterns rode better and a few more fish were caught, and missed, including a mystery trout or smallmouth that ate at about 1130 pm, 5 feet in front of me, turned and broke off 3X in the center of the leader. Possible defect in the leader (I guess) but I am going with a 25 inch brown. Here are some pics with my unlikely Penns Creek leviathan story to follow…

 

[3wt7X]

With the fishing report out of the way, I have to share an experience aside from the evening hatch that will stick with me for a long while. Thursday morning, my friend and I knew that we had to leave around 1 PM and there were still some chores to do around the cottage, so we decided to explore the water downstream from his property in hopes of finding some bass. We had seen some nice smallmouth cruising the shallows Wednesday afternoon, and neither of us was having much luck during the day with trout. The water we were fishing was several miles below Weikert, and it was right in that area where Penns gets more of a marginal trout fishery/Warm water feel. Make no mistake, we knew there would be some trout down there, but we figured it would be more stockers. Regardless, we walk our way down aways, and we come upon a hole that does not look like much. It has a nice long shallow riffle that tails out into what looks to be about a 4-5 foot slow hole. It had a couple trees shading the run, and we spotted some trout rises, so we hit it. My buddy had several stockers hit a Hendrickson dun size 14, and he landed a nice rainbow. I decided to nymph after frustratingly attempting to get a good drift with no avail, against a funny current. I switched an indicator rig, so, I could get my line over the current seam and mend out a good drift. Within the first couple casts, boom, big heavy fish on a prince nymph. Long fight followed by the realization that your big trout was a 20 sucker fish, followed by another 20 inch sucker fish, and another. I was into the mother-load of big suckers, but they were pulling the line, which was better than nothing. As 11 am approached and the realization that a trip back to civilization was on the horizon, I had one more bright idea for my sucker fish honey hole. I tyed on a green drake nymph, and figured I’d catch one more, or maybe a bass. Two drifts in, indicator goes under in the same sucker fish spot, and another sucker fish type fight ensures. Ho Hum, big suckerfish on a 4wt, run me out to the middle of the hole, shake his head, run downstream a little, let me drag him into the eddy. I fight him like I would fight any other sucker fish, half paying attention, and horsing as much as possible. I get him into the eddie and see the flash of a red tail…oh, must be a carp or a pretty colored suckerfish. I get the head up and see the spots. Oh crap, my suckerfish just turned into a 22 inch brown from Penns Creek. The type of fish that I’ve been chasing on Penns for about 12 years. My hands start shaking a little, and I take the rest of the fight a little more seriously. As I slid the net under her big body, I thought, never in the world would I have figured that I would catch my first Penns 20+ incher in that fashion. Kinda anticlimactic, but looking at that fish, I don’t have a complaint in the world.

 

[wildtrout2]

Congrats on that beautiful Penns brown. Also, that was one of the most complete stream reports I've read.

 

[Fishidiot]

Wow - great report and a great (and unusual) big trout story. Neat!

 

[Biggie]

nice fish! Congrats on the fish and the report. Thanks

 

[dc410]

Great story and congrats on that beautiful brownie. Penns Creek is an incredible fishery from end to end. It's a flat out bug factory and with all of the baitfish, hellgrammites and crayfish providing a very abundant food supply, the fish in Penns eat very well all year round. I'm convinced you never know what kind or size of fish you may dredge up out of some of the deeper pools or ledgerock crevices in Penns. All around neat fishery! Thanks for sharing your experience.

 

[Makee]

Great report and even better story! Congrats!

 

[chromefinder]

congrats on a great fish! ... thanks for sharing your Penns experience

 

[laszlo]

Great story, after catching so many big suckers did the fight of the brown feel any different?

 

[3wt7X]

The fight of the brown did not feel any different to me until after I realized it was a brown trout. At which point, I think I really paid more attention to landing it, and the excitement of seeing that fish caused me to play it differently. The suckers were all doing the same thing the brown did on the take. Going down stream about 25 yards and trying to hunker down in the heaviest part of the run, with a couple intermittent bursts until they were fully in the eddy. The interesting part to me was that all the suckers were taken on 16 to 18 prince nymphs and haresears, and it was litterly the first good drift with the drake nymph that the brown took. Maybe luck, but it suggested to me that the brown does not normall eat nymphs, with the exception of getting keyed in on the bigger food source in the drake. Who knows???

 

[JackM]

Suckers are more aggressive than any trout or char to offerings underneath and nearest the bottom-- because their mouths turn down. Hence some split shot 5-6 inches away is sometimes the key to avoiding suckers and carp, and sometimes the croaker-chub.

 

[3wt7X]

Good reply JackM... The smaller nymphs that I was fishing were weighted and I always put my shot about 8-12 inches ahead of the point. The drake nymph had wire ribbing, but I noticed that it was not crashing to the bottom, that may have been the difference.

 

[Fishidiot]

JackM wrote:
Suckers are more aggressive than any trout or char to offerings underneath and nearest the bottom-- because their mouths turn down. .

Suckers - it takes one to catch one. 😎

 

[pete41]

Fishidiot wrote:

JackM wrote:
Suckers are more aggressive than any trout or char to offerings underneath and nearest the bottom-- because their mouths turn down. .

Suckers - it takes one to catch one. 😎

the worms he tips his hooks with also help.