Spring Creek Centre County March 26, 2017

[albud1962]

Upper Spring Creek continues to fish well. Fished yesterday and today. The cloud cover provided optimum conditions as the fish rose the entire day. black midges worked early ;then later transitioning to bwo's.with the cold temperatures today the olives were easy pickings for the trout. Only fished one pool the entire day. The action was non stop. Either I brought my A game or the fishing is just good. I tend to think the latter.

 

[Maurice]

Sounds like a fun day Al. Thanks for sharing.

 

[albud1962]

some pics

 

[PennKev]

albud1962 wrote:
Upper Spring Creek continues to fish well. Fished yesterday and today. The cloud cover provided optimum conditions as the fish rose the entire day.

The lower creek was pretty mediocre on Sunday. No rising fish that I witnessed. Fish took nymphs, but it was more work than is normal for Spring. Fished several spots between Fisherman's Paradise and the confluence with Bald Eagle. Between three of us, most of the fish were caught very low on the creek. The area between the 550 access and FP had a fair amount of anglers and fishing was particularly slow.

 

[albud1962]

I did fish below Bellefonte on Saturday in the afternoon and I agree fishing was slow downstream. It's been my experience the dry fly fishing is best above fisherman's paradise so I typically fly fish the upper section.

 

[Wild_Trouter]

Fished Upper Spring yesterday. Water was definitely up and stained. No rising activity to speak of. I did all of my damage on streamers (picked up four cookie cutter browns). Slid over to lower Slab Cabin and had the same results. Golden Retriever #8 on 4x.

 

[NewSal]

Wild_Trouter wrote:
Fished Upper Spring yesterday. Water was definitely up and stained. No rising activity to speak of. I did all of my damage on streamers (picked up four cookie cutter browns). Slid over to lower Slab Cabin and had the same results. Golden Retriever #8 on 4x.

I guess the moral of this story is that you should have fished lower spring mid morning, I ran into some nice risers feeding on grannoms from 945-1045 on spring yesterday below Bellefonte. Landed 4, and hooked up on about 8 or 9 swinging soft hackles, but not getting good hook ups is the name of the game for swinging wets right? LOL

It is odd that there can be such a dramatic difference between upper and lower spring, there where grannoms absolutely everywhere, along with pretty steady risers for about an hour straight

 

[Wild_Trouter]

It's all good...I still caught fish, but would've rather got them on top if I had a choice. Spring Creek can be like that. I've experienced the same on Fishing Creek as well. One section can be popping, and in another, you would swear there are no fish there. What pattern of soft hackle were you swinging? I do like fishing wets, but that wasn't an option where I was.

 

[NewSal]

Wild_Trouter wrote:
It's all good...I still caught fish, but would've rather got them on top if I had a choice. Spring Creek can be like that. I've experienced the same on Fishing Creek as well. One section can be popping, and in another, you would swear there are no fish there. What pattern of soft hackle were you swinging? I do like fishing wets, but that wasn't an option where I was.

Just peacock and brown hen hackle, I guess I got lucky on location, the hatch was pretty heavy to say the least. Probobly could have done better on dries, but theres just something about swinging some soft hackles through rising fish to caddis that gets me going

 

[albud1962]

I was near Spring Creek Park around 1:30 pm. Fished it about an hour with no results then headed to Benner Spring. Found a few risers sipping midges and eating an occasional stonefly. Around 4:30 pm saw caddis in about a size 16. Not sure if those were grannoms. Most of the caddis were flying upstream so they must have hatched further down the creek. Casting a caddis dry yielded no results.

 

[PennKev]

albud1962 wrote:
Most of the caddis were flying upstream so they must have hatched further down the creek. Casting a caddis dry yielded no results.

When caddis first appear in the spring in can take days for fish to start feeding on adults. In my experience the adults need to start coming back to lay eggs before the fish really start to take notice, prior to that they are usually chasing emergers pretty hard.

It's hard to resist fishing dries when you see so many bugs, and often you'll even see fish slashing at the emerging pupae right at the surface. But fishing subsurface, swinging and lifting pupae imitations is usually where the action is.

 

[troutbert]

albud1962 wrote:
I was near Spring Creek Park around 1:30 pm. Fished it about an hour with no results then headed to Benner Spring. Found a few risers sipping midges and eating an occasional stonefly. Around 4:30 pm saw caddis in about a size 16. Not sure if those were grannoms. Most of the caddis were flying upstream so they must have hatched further down the creek. Casting a caddis dry yielded no results.

There are many grannoms in Spring Cr below Bellefonte, and in Bald Eagle Creek.

They are very, very rare in Spring Cr above Bellefonte. There are other dark caddis that hatch in the spring.

The sure way to tell whether there are grannoms in a stream is to turn over rocks and look for their cases, which are distinctive in appearance. No other caddis have cases that look like that.

Below Bellefonte if you turn over rocks in the riffles, you'll often see 6 or 8 grannom cases on one rock. In Fishing Creek in the narrows you might see 20!

I've turned over plenty of rocks in Spring Cr above Bellefonte and have never seen a grannom case. An entomologist told me there are some, but that they are rare.

Both adult mayflies and adult caddis fly upstream before they lay their eggs. This counteracts the drifting of the nymphs, larvae, and pupae downstream with the current.

 

[allthingsfishing]

What makes the grannom cases different?

 

[troutbert]

allthingsfishing wrote:
What makes the grannom cases different?

If you Google "grannom case" then click "Images" you will find photos.

Or see:

http://www.troutnut.com/specimen/673

 

[Sylvaneous]

if you check out the pictures, you'll see why some people call them "chimney stackers" I never MET anyone who called them this, but I heard that some people do.

Spring gets a big charge of spring water in Bellefonte (hence the name in French, I believe). It is also the most ripping fast section of the creek. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a lot of cover. TU is doing a lot to change that, but the potential is there, largely unrealized. Everything besides lots of good hidey-spots for the trout. Cold, fast, clean, alkaline and fertile water. Add big rocks.

Syl