Slab Cabin Run, Centre County 08/22/2020

jifigz

jifigz

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Miff-Co, PA
Air temp: high 80's/low 90's
Water Temp: 66°F

I spent about 3 hours on Slab Cabin and caught a lot of trout. I don't think any were bigger than 8 inches. All fish ate a dry fly ant. It was some of my favorite dry fly fishing I've done in years. I fished up through Mill Brook Marsh, mostly. I saw no other anglers. I walked up through Spring Creek Park and it was a zoo. People tubing, swimming, reading books in chairs in the water, people everywhere. I even managed two trout in there with people splashing all around. I had a guy apologize for tubing. I gladly told him that's the joy of public parks and public water, it's here for both of us. Either way, it was a great day and so much fun. Sorry, no great pictures to share. I wish photography was more of my thing but.....

Either way, I'm ready for cooler weather and to start bombing more dry flies around.
 
Sounds like a really good time. Also way to handle the tubers, I'm going to steal that line for the future.
 
nymphingmaniac wrote:
SCR is a great terrestrial stream, but as you experienced, fish are on the smaller side in the late spring-fall.
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Yep, ants always pull through on Slab Cabin for me. I should have thrown some big, gaudy attractors just to see what would have happened....but the and was just too much fun.
 
What kind of trout were you catching.? I have had my eye on Slab Cabin Run for a while. Is there much posted water on the Run?
 
salmo wrote:
What kind of trout were you catching.? I have had my eye on Slab Cabin Run for a while. Is there much posted water on the Run?
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Wild browns..and no, slab is easy to access.
 
SCR used to have bigger fish and I used to fish it a lot. Now...not so much. Depending upon where you fish it, you can run into some wild rainbows now and again, but don't go there expecting to catch one. Agree that it is a great stream for fishing terrestrials.
 
Wild_Trouter wrote:
SCR used to have bigger fish and I used to fish it a lot. Now...not so much. Depending upon where you fish it, you can run into some wild rainbows now and again, but don't go there expecting to catch one. Agree that it is a great stream for fishing terrestrials.
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I spooked one fish that was in water about 3.5 feet deep and it was probably an 18" fish. But yeah I caught all small fish. I've never caught anything large out of Slab Cabin.
 
Fished that place all the time while at PSU. I found that bigger fish were upstream of the Marsh. It is silty down there with less diverse forage base. Some big fish are around down there but they hide well. As you go upstream there's a major increase in the number of crayfish as the substrate turns rocky and my experience was there were more 12-15" or occasionally larger fish in that section. The downside is that portion can almost or completely dry up some years depending on exactly where you are. I caught a handful of 16-17" browns in SCR but none in the Marsh, never topped 15" there. Probably have fished that stream 30 times.

Definitely a few rainbows too. They were always a welcome surprise. In the Marsh they are mostly 8-9" and like hanging out in the fast water near the rock habitat structures.
 
I've fished Slab Cabin maybe a dozen times and I've never caught a rainbow. I believe that they are there as I've caught many small rainbows out of upper Spring.
 
For the most part the rainbows are only in the few areas of fast water, they are drawn to those spots like a magnet. Unfortunately that's also where people like to stand at the water's edge or let their dogs swim. Rainbows are more common in SCR's tributary, although that stream has suffered some serious habitat loss due to bad flash floods over the past few years.
 
Caught my first wild brown on a fly on that stream while I was at PSU. I agree that most fish on that stream are small but it does show some surprises. It is a high density stream in the good parts. It does have a small wild rainbow population, as does its tributary and the larger stream it flows into.

Normally I need a rain storm to get the water a little dirty and the fish less spooky to do well there.
 
I thought most of SCR was on private land? I've fished millbrook and have caught all browns in the 8-12" range but it is muddy in areas and you can sink pretty quick. With all the aquatic plants it can be tough fishing. Down stream of spring creek Park there is some good fishing and i haven't ran into anyone down stream from the park this summer.
 
I believe a lot of SCR is on private land; I don't know how much of it is open to fishing, other than Millbrook. It's actually a longer stream than one might think (maybe 10 miles or so in length) - it's source is near Pine Grove Mills. From there it flows northeast, paralleling route 45, before flowing more northerly, through Centre Co golf course, through the edge of Lemont, and finally through Millbrook Conservancy.

I've always been curious how far upstream trout are in the stream; I'd consider it a limestoner from Pine Grove Mills downstream...
 
There are fish all the way up into the far headwaters going up the mountain but some years the section in between Pine Grove Mills and ~Atherton Str dries up. So that middle section may be mostly private but it's unlikely to be any better than the public sections (including the few accessible sections upstream of the Marsh which generally are tough to fish unless the water is quite high)
 
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