Tionesta Creek, Forest Co, 7-4-17

Prospector

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Jul 7, 2015
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Butler Co home, Forest Co camp
The good news about the crazy weather in June is that high water, cloudy skies and lower air temps kept water temps in Tionesta Creek within tolerance for trout. For me it became a bonus opportunity to fish on the 4th of July.

Flow was about 370, and water temp at 545am was 64 degrees. My plan was to arrive at Sunrise, but I drove slower than normal due to the deer feeding along the road. If I had a redo I would have targeted 30 min before sunrise since I had strikes on my first 2 casts so I actually may have been a little late. Air temp was about 55 degrees and we had a high fog sitting about 200 feet above the creek that the sun had trouble poking through. I love those mornings.

Sun hit the water at 710am but all of my strikes occurred between 545am and 630am. Was using a small wooly bugger and after the fish quit I tried a streamer (usually a sure fire way to pick up a few more fish in this stream) but no one was interested. I'm wondering if the bright full moon encouraged fish to feed late last night.

A couple family groups of mergansers (mother and 5 young each) came past me at about 7am and it looked like they wanted to fish where I was but they pushed past once they identified me.

I quit about 830am and I caught 4 rainbow and 2 brown. I checked some other holes and a few other flyfisherman were partaking. Everyone had a hole to themselves. They didn't start as early as I did and said they didn't have any strikes.
 
That's awesome to hear. This has definitely been a trout friendly summer across most of the state. If the rain keeps up, there should be a good many holdovers in the big creeks like Tionesta. Hopefully it cooperates for another 8-10 weeks.
 
Sweet - nice report. I cant wait till I can get up there again.
 
Prospector wrote:

Flow was about 370, and water temp at 545am was 64 degrees.

For that early in the morning, that's a warm temp. No wonder you didn't have any luck when the sun came up.
 
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