Spring Creek, Centre County, 5/18/2010

[ezpickins]

Fished Spring Creek above the Paradise in the wading area.

Date: 2010-05-18
Time: 12:30am - 5:00pm
Weather: Overcast with occasional rain drops
Air Temp: guessing mid to low 50's
Flow: peak flow about 110 CFS from Axeman gauge - very fishable level - just about perfect actually
Clarity: a bit off-color but not too bad
Hatches: I saw Sulphur (Invaria), some craneflies

A great day on Spring, in spite of the dreary weather. In the section I fished above the Paradise, fish started rising in earnest at about 1:30.

I didn't witness any huge flurry of emergence, but sulphurs trickled off the whole time, and fish enthusiastically ate them. We fished over rising fish from about 1:30 till we left at 5:00.

The fish took dries very well - I didn't fish emergers or nymphs, because the action on top was good - and I stubbornly like to fish dries when I can do so.

I had the best luck with size 16 orange comparaduns, after I lost the only two that I had, I tired a variety of other dries with mixed results, getting a few takers on each fly change.

Maybe - it's all in my head, but the fish seem more cautious this week than last. I imagine they've seen a lot of pressure between then and now.

Final word - sulphur hatch still going good on Spring.

 

[Alpabuck]

Your more then likely right about the fish being more cautions this week. Last week every fish I put a goood drift over got caught. I run out of cdc sulphur comparaduns and switched to cdc female hendrickson comparduns and just kept on catching them. I dont think that would work this week or for the rest of the hatch but who knows. It all really comes down to getting a good drift.

 

[jayL]

I have found that the sulphur hatch gets tougher and tougher as it progresses on spring creek. Those fish get hammered.

The secret is that they switch to BWOs when they're on the water.

 

[sight_nymph_17109]

BINGO Jay. Seen that before and nobody could figure it out. Most look at the big bug and figure that's what they're eating when a closer look reveals just as many BWO or BWO spinners on the water.

 

[ezpickins]

Are you implying that I missed a masked hatch? How dare you! :-D

Just kidding, I'm sure what you say is true. But no BWOs were to be seen where I was fishing (of course my eyesight is getting pretty bad as I get older, I can hardly tie on a tiny BWO anymore!). It was pretty clear that sulphur duns were disappearing from the surface with regularity.

Good advice though - I'll have to watch out for this.

 

[troutslammer]

i always capture em both in my hand , pinch em and send em down stream to watch what they are eating ,...lol jay !!!!! quit making this easy on us guys !!...LOL keep it up jay i like ur style even more since we met in person , i'll reel em in with ya anytime buddy !!!

 

[Alpabuck]

Yeah Jay I remember back in the good ole days when I was kid and we had to learn everything on our own, now guys like you just tell everyone all the tricks on the interweb. 🙂

 

[gfen]

Alpabuck wrote:
Yeah Jay I remember back in the good ole days when I was kid

Last week?

😉

 

[Alpabuck]

Well.......So what?