Yellow Breeches Cumberland County 6/18/08

[Dances_With_Brookies]

Yesterday, I decided to take a break from the smallmouth and hit up some trout. I fished the Breeches at various points in the stocked area. There was quite a bit of surface activity to coincide with the breeze that was blowing. Most of the fish I caught were stationed under trees rather than out in the main flow. Best flies were #16 Royal Humpy, #16 Black Foam Ant, #14 Joe's Hopper. All of the fish caught were wild browns ranging in size from 5-12". Generally speaking, it was a good time to be out save for one problem. As I was bringing a trout in, a guy with a spin rod comes up and says how he rolled a big fish below where I was on a jointed minnow. He then proceeds to tell me that while I am taking my fish off, that he was just going to cast his lure out in front of me and see if there is anything else out there. In addition, he asked me if rather than releasing the fish if I would give it to him. After three casts, I finally asked the guy where he was going because I wanted to go the opposite way so that he had plenty of "room" seeing how he spooked all of the fish in front of me with his 4 inch lure. He leaves, and I bet it wasn't twenty minutes and I had two other guys wade right up through the middle of the stream in front of me and begin casting where I was. So much for streamside courtesy...It's encounters like these that remind me of the work yet to be done to educate people about manners and the like.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

Dances,

I always enjoy your stream reports. Very good detail and usually a good story. Unfortunately while the body of work in this stream report was good, the story was not very..."good". It is a shame that there are still anglers with out the common sense streamside manners in PA. As crowded as Pennsylvania is, you would think we would have all gotten a lesson on it by now. Maybe Dances, maybe you just gave him his first lesson. :-D