Prospector
Well-known member
Fished from 7am to 4pm. Clear skies slowly changed to cloudy skies and distant thunder pushed me to the truck at the end of the day. Otherwise, no rain. Air temps ranged from 54 to 70. Water temp was 57 when I started and it climbed to 62 later in the day. The creek had a very slight tinge but it was a really good fishing color.
Fished subsurface until about 9am when enough fish were rising to warrant tapering down. The initial wave of rises were the result of an early morning batch of very large spinners. The spinners danced and laid eggs for about an hour. A few different size spinners were present but the majority were size 10 with 3 tails.
As the spinners dwindled, duns began to appear and soon were present in huge numbers (at times I'd see 15 duns in an area the size of a truck hood).. Once again 3 tails, size 10, and riding the current not hatching on rocks on shore. They looked like the separate insect referred to as dark green drakes (not the typical green drake), but 3 tails eliminated that possibility. They could have been brown drakes since 3 tails matched but the brown drakes I see usually don't have such a yellow underbody plus brown drakes tend to hatch on the shore and not in the water. I think they were gray drakes (aka Brown Quill) due to size, number of tails, coloration and hatching method. I don't know if Tionesta creek has a known population of gray drakes, but that fits best. I'm assuming the duns and spinners were the same insect but I can't confirm that. Gray drakes are known to lay eggs in morning if temps at dusk dip below 65 degrees, so that matches what I saw.
Although there were a good number of rising fish, many duns were ignored. The fish didn't eat every insect in their feeding lane. Much like green drakes getting ignored when they hatch. Hatching ceased about noon and resumed about 2pm. At that time the small BWO were present as well as small numbers of large light colored mayflies presumably green drakes and size 14 light body dun wing mayflies. Not many. Unfortunately I couldn't catch any.
I caught 9 Browns and 7 rainbows with 6 coming on top. Ended up catching fish on dries, wets, nymphs and streamers. Best match I had for the mysterious dun was a thorax March Brown.
Fished subsurface until about 9am when enough fish were rising to warrant tapering down. The initial wave of rises were the result of an early morning batch of very large spinners. The spinners danced and laid eggs for about an hour. A few different size spinners were present but the majority were size 10 with 3 tails.
As the spinners dwindled, duns began to appear and soon were present in huge numbers (at times I'd see 15 duns in an area the size of a truck hood).. Once again 3 tails, size 10, and riding the current not hatching on rocks on shore. They looked like the separate insect referred to as dark green drakes (not the typical green drake), but 3 tails eliminated that possibility. They could have been brown drakes since 3 tails matched but the brown drakes I see usually don't have such a yellow underbody plus brown drakes tend to hatch on the shore and not in the water. I think they were gray drakes (aka Brown Quill) due to size, number of tails, coloration and hatching method. I don't know if Tionesta creek has a known population of gray drakes, but that fits best. I'm assuming the duns and spinners were the same insect but I can't confirm that. Gray drakes are known to lay eggs in morning if temps at dusk dip below 65 degrees, so that matches what I saw.
Although there were a good number of rising fish, many duns were ignored. The fish didn't eat every insect in their feeding lane. Much like green drakes getting ignored when they hatch. Hatching ceased about noon and resumed about 2pm. At that time the small BWO were present as well as small numbers of large light colored mayflies presumably green drakes and size 14 light body dun wing mayflies. Not many. Unfortunately I couldn't catch any.
I caught 9 Browns and 7 rainbows with 6 coming on top. Ended up catching fish on dries, wets, nymphs and streamers. Best match I had for the mysterious dun was a thorax March Brown.
