Tionesta Creek, Forest Co, 5-3-20

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Butler Co home, Forest Co camp
Time Fished: 145pm - 400pm

Weather Conditions: 73 degrees, Sunny

Water Conditions: 56 degrees, heavier flow that was off color; running at 648 cfs with the average for today being 465 cfs, so it was pushing. I crossed it and it was a struggle.

Insects: When I arrived there were tons of Caddis on the stream side vegetation, by 3pm lots flying upstream. I did not see a rise.

I started out using a sinking tip line and tried swinging one fly but I had very few strikes. I had no strikes on a large green woolly Bugger. I caught a rainbow on a small black woolIy Bugger and caught a brown on a wet fly I tied with feathers from the turkey I shot the previous day.

Since not much was happening with favorable temperature (on the rise), I figured I needed to be on the bottom so I switched spools to a floating line and I needed 4 sinkers to tick bottom. I started with a GR hares eye nymph and I got 3 rainbows. Tried ticking bottom with a small olive woolly Bugger and black Stonefly and didn’t have a strike on either. Sunday nights are generally slow and that was the case. Very few people on the creek.

At 4pm I decided to head over to Salmon creek to see how it looked. Well to my surprise, the road to Salmon is now gated with a “No Motorized Vehicles” sign (see photo). This means that folks on the Kelletville side were accustom to 2 mile ride from the Kelletville bridge to the main fishing location on Salmon. Based on my quick calculation I think it’s going to be 20 miles to get around to that same spot via Marienville. I guess it won’t impact the Salmon Creek campers much. Maybe even make it better with no “thru traffic”.

As I passed over The Branch, where the new Salmon Creek gate is, the stream looked in real nice shape. Only one car there and they were camping and fishing.

I included a stream photo off of the Kellettville Bridge just to give an idea of the size of the stream. The land mass in the bottom left is an island, so the flow to the right is only part of the water volume. Just a few minutes before I snapped this picture, a deer swam the creek from left to right and exited the water on that grassy point. After exiting it gave a good shake and went up into the woods.
 

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Tionesta Creek May 4th

I fishing Tionesta Creek again today due to the 27 degree drop in temperature over the previous 24 hrs. I knew the fishing would be marginal anywhere so I just stayed close to camp.

Time Fished: 245pm - 415pm

Weather Conditions: 46 degrees, Cloudy

Water Conditions: 51 degrees, heavy flow slightly off color; running at 580 cfs with the average for today being 458 cfs, so a little more than normal

Insects: None

I used 4 sinkers again and just switched flies twice. Caught a rainbow on the same GR Hares Ear nymph as yesterday. I saw only a handful of people fishing. A fellow below me caught at least 2. He was having luck right around the time I contemplated leaving. Later when I checked the USGS water data I noticed the water temp ticked up just at that time. Therefore I probably left too soon.
 
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