Fished three days on Penns Creek in some great conditions. Arrived Thursday afternoon to meet with a few friends, both had which arrived in the morning. It had been a while since I had fished Penns and was anxious to try some late April action.
Really not a lot of rain over the previous few weeks and the water was lower than normal running about 260 CFS. Water was a perfect wading level and was clear as Penn can get. It is never gin clear and only get’s worse in the spring when the farm blowing coincides with the rains. Water temps were running about 60 degrees the two afternoons I checked the water.
Day 1 and 2
The weather couldn’t have been more perfect the first two days. Cloudy conditions with an occasional sprinkle of rain that never got in the way. Air temps ranged from 48-71 degrees Thursday and Friday. Friday night a cold front came in and cleared the sky. Saturday was bright, sunny and felt about 10 degrees cooler.
Penn is loaded with hatches rarely is there just one type of insect to consider. To make it even more of a challenge hatches and insect conditions can vary by just a couple hundred yards. Ran into some anglers on Friday afternoon and asked if we saw the cloud of spinners an hour before. We were ½ a mile upstream and saw nothing of the sorts.
I was surprised to see on sporadic caddis coming off during the day. Never saw a lot nor any luck with any patterns. March Browns could be seen on any part of the stream with one popping off about every 15 minutes and more a lot more frequently towards evening. BWO’s ( #16 #18) could be seen in hatches at variety of times during the day and evening. Notice some Hendrickson’s were still around and seemed that Hendrickson spinners were plentiful, but think that party will be over. Evenings offered the classic Penns multi hatch mix with a spinner fall.
I found trout rising pretty steadily in expected faster moving pools during the day and of course busy at evening.
Again, the cloudy conditions made it ideal both days.
Day 3
With the cold front came blue bird skies and so went the hatch conditions we saw the previous two days. We also tried a couple of different locations, but really the change in weather quieted everything down. Nice to be on the stream Saturday, no real surface activity until evening. Saw a lot more of the same with a mix hatch of BWO, March Browns and Grey Fox. Not he same spinner fall as seen in the previous nights. Even thinking we may have seen a Yellow Sulphur during the evening. Yes it’s early, but that’s what I think we saw.
I dry fly fished the vast majority of the time, well the whole time, and kept to matching the hatch with my flies. The best luck turned out to be my Rusty Spinner. Ending up catching a fun mix of some awesome browns, rainbows, brookies and a couple of small mouth to round out the trip.
I was staying near Weikert and was able to get in and meet Bruce Fisher at Penns Creek Angler. Bruce was great to meet and very helpful. Stop in to visit him if you get over that way.
By far the best part was hanging with friends Keith and Duncan during the trip. I’ll share a longer post in the blog about trip.
13/11/10
Really not a lot of rain over the previous few weeks and the water was lower than normal running about 260 CFS. Water was a perfect wading level and was clear as Penn can get. It is never gin clear and only get’s worse in the spring when the farm blowing coincides with the rains. Water temps were running about 60 degrees the two afternoons I checked the water.
Day 1 and 2
The weather couldn’t have been more perfect the first two days. Cloudy conditions with an occasional sprinkle of rain that never got in the way. Air temps ranged from 48-71 degrees Thursday and Friday. Friday night a cold front came in and cleared the sky. Saturday was bright, sunny and felt about 10 degrees cooler.
Penn is loaded with hatches rarely is there just one type of insect to consider. To make it even more of a challenge hatches and insect conditions can vary by just a couple hundred yards. Ran into some anglers on Friday afternoon and asked if we saw the cloud of spinners an hour before. We were ½ a mile upstream and saw nothing of the sorts.
I was surprised to see on sporadic caddis coming off during the day. Never saw a lot nor any luck with any patterns. March Browns could be seen on any part of the stream with one popping off about every 15 minutes and more a lot more frequently towards evening. BWO’s ( #16 #18) could be seen in hatches at variety of times during the day and evening. Notice some Hendrickson’s were still around and seemed that Hendrickson spinners were plentiful, but think that party will be over. Evenings offered the classic Penns multi hatch mix with a spinner fall.
I found trout rising pretty steadily in expected faster moving pools during the day and of course busy at evening.
Again, the cloudy conditions made it ideal both days.
Day 3
With the cold front came blue bird skies and so went the hatch conditions we saw the previous two days. We also tried a couple of different locations, but really the change in weather quieted everything down. Nice to be on the stream Saturday, no real surface activity until evening. Saw a lot more of the same with a mix hatch of BWO, March Browns and Grey Fox. Not he same spinner fall as seen in the previous nights. Even thinking we may have seen a Yellow Sulphur during the evening. Yes it’s early, but that’s what I think we saw.
I dry fly fished the vast majority of the time, well the whole time, and kept to matching the hatch with my flies. The best luck turned out to be my Rusty Spinner. Ending up catching a fun mix of some awesome browns, rainbows, brookies and a couple of small mouth to round out the trip.
I was staying near Weikert and was able to get in and meet Bruce Fisher at Penns Creek Angler. Bruce was great to meet and very helpful. Stop in to visit him if you get over that way.
By far the best part was hanging with friends Keith and Duncan during the trip. I’ll share a longer post in the blog about trip.
13/11/10
