Valley Creek, Chester County, 6/28

[PSUFishMenace]

Fished Valley yesterday from 10 a.m- 1:30 p.m. There was a five-minute, very localized downpour the night before, I didn't think it was enough to do anything for the stream conditions but I was wrong. Visibilty was less than a foot when I got there. The creek wasn't really high, just muddy. And COLD despite air temp about 90-92 (felt like 100 though).

The mud turned out to be a good thing, anyone who's fished this creek knows how spooky the trout are in clear water. With the mud I was able to stand and cast normally without spooking anything. Given the conditions I should have gone straight to a black conehead whooly bugger, but I decided to waste an hour messing around with nymphs and unweighted streamers. Finally switched to the conehead and quickly caught a fat 12" brown, my best from Valley so far. Took two more on that fly in about half an hour.

The water started to clear up and I stopped getting hits on the bugger so I switched to an olive bead-body scud. The fish started getting very active as the water cleared a little more. I managed to take 5 more trout before I left, all on the scud. One was a very nice fish almost 12" that was feeding in front of a cinder block in the stream. I caught one smaller one that I hooked on the far side of the creek about 20 feet away, it made three jumps toward me without stopping and the third jump landed in the mud right at my feet! Sometimes the fish come to you.

I feel like I should have caught more considering the conditions, active fish, and the amount of water I covered, but then again it was my first time fishing this stretch of Valley so I guess I didn't do too badly. And it was nice to get into some larger trout for a change!

 

[salmo]

Great report Menace. Equally good fishing technique information. You are going to wreak havoc on the trout in Happy Valley in the next four years. Keep posting from Central PA.

Salmo

 

[11MileCanyon]

I second that report. I fished Valley on 6/28 (8:30am - 12) and 7/1 (9:00am - 1:00pm). I started at the metal bridge and worked upstream. Some areas still had slightly muddy water, while it was clearing up by 7/1. It definitely helped me out, as I am a Valley novice. Before this week, I hadn't caught a fish there. Although, that is mainly because I had only gone there a few times when I was just just beginning to fly fish - not a place for a rookie!

With the water discolored, I was able to get in closer than usual. 6/28 was beautiful. I caught 5 small browns in the 5" - 8" range all on top with black ants. On 7/1, I caught 7 or 8, all little guys again except for one brown that measured about 10" - 11". It looked huge in comparison to the others I caught. Most were caught on a dry-dropper setup with an olive colored nymph that I tied up as the dropper.

The weather was awesome this week. Lower temps and lower humidity. It felt like September. I can't get my pictures to upload. I think they are more than 1000k.