Mariner
Member
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2008
- Messages
- 268
Took the rod for a bike ride up into Stony Valley. Air: 52F am-65F pm. H2o temp--nice and cool. The weekend before I was there strictly for a bike trip and saw a total of five fish after five forays down to the river--someholes had none, some had a couple, nothing big. I figured the river was pretty solid.
Well, this Saturday there wasn't much of a hatch until mid-afternoon. I went up as far as Rattling Run and fished that 1/4 mi. up from the rail grade to the confluence w/ Stony. Nothing.
Dropped down a mile (about 5 mi above the gate) to fish a fishy looking section. Saw no fish.
Dropped down to the Water Tank trail hole. There were some holdovers there--10-13" rainbows rising regularly. A family had just gotten set up there so we moved down to a small island about 2 mi. above the gate. My partner found one to take a giant caddis attractor pattern we'd call a spruce moth out West. It's basically a size 8-10 elk hair caddis dry. He hooked another swinging a wet in current at the end of an island.
Stony's topography is a bit more diverse than Clarks Cr. Islands, semi-beaver ponds and slow-gradient sections had my hopes up for naught. The water quality seems to be in bad shape. It seems one needs litmus paper as well as a thermometer to fish this stream. The whole stream bed has a red sheen to it. Turned rocks revealed lots of midges and a good few small mayflies (#18-16) crawling around.
The awesome weather was wasted on a trip to a mediocre stream. I seem to have this idea that I need to hit every major valley in an expanding radius north and west of home. At this rate I'll get to Centre County by late summer. I guess I should just cut to the chase.
pic from below Rattling confluence. Note: don't climb trees or ride bikes in your good waders.
Well, this Saturday there wasn't much of a hatch until mid-afternoon. I went up as far as Rattling Run and fished that 1/4 mi. up from the rail grade to the confluence w/ Stony. Nothing.
Dropped down a mile (about 5 mi above the gate) to fish a fishy looking section. Saw no fish.
Dropped down to the Water Tank trail hole. There were some holdovers there--10-13" rainbows rising regularly. A family had just gotten set up there so we moved down to a small island about 2 mi. above the gate. My partner found one to take a giant caddis attractor pattern we'd call a spruce moth out West. It's basically a size 8-10 elk hair caddis dry. He hooked another swinging a wet in current at the end of an island.
Stony's topography is a bit more diverse than Clarks Cr. Islands, semi-beaver ponds and slow-gradient sections had my hopes up for naught. The water quality seems to be in bad shape. It seems one needs litmus paper as well as a thermometer to fish this stream. The whole stream bed has a red sheen to it. Turned rocks revealed lots of midges and a good few small mayflies (#18-16) crawling around.
The awesome weather was wasted on a trip to a mediocre stream. I seem to have this idea that I need to hit every major valley in an expanding radius north and west of home. At this rate I'll get to Centre County by late summer. I guess I should just cut to the chase.
pic from below Rattling confluence. Note: don't climb trees or ride bikes in your good waders.
