Green Drakes and Fishing Creek report 5-28-10.......... IT'S ON!

This is the first time that I'm posting so hopefully this works out.




My brother Andy and I decided to head up to Fishing Creek in Clinton County to get some possible Green Drake action for the last time this year. When we arrived it was obvious after a minute or two the the Drakes were in full force, and even a riser or two on the stream convince us that we would be flinging dry flies all day. Andy stuck with pounding the dun all day and was rewarded with slow, but continual success. My day nymphing was much slower.



The catching stopped altogether around 5:00 pm, I think the blue skies and hot temperature finally shut them down. We had to wait until that magic half hour before dark until the catching started up again. It was worth the wait. Between the two of us I think we landed a dozen fat boys on both Sulphurs, Drakes, or Coffin flies. The health and size of the fish we were catching was impressive, reminding me more of Penns Creek brownies. All in all for a holiday weekend the fishing was good to excellent with medium crowding.

I would imagine that there is about four days left maybe five for the Green Drakes at Fishing Creek, so if your feeling looney for drake mania all I can say is------------IT'S ON!!!!!

The Hunt For Drakes:

Fished the river  tonight. Water was clear, 62 degrees and flowing at 1800 cfs. Jared and I fished from 7pm to dark tonight looking for some Coffin Flies. The surface activity was sparse for most of the night, had a few risers toward dark but that was it. We ended up doing more walking then fishing, the water was high and getting to a good spot to cast was tough. There were a decent number of March Browns hatching the whole time, I think I saw a few early season Cahills as well. At about 8:30 I saw a good number of Coffin Flies in the air but Rusty Spinners outnumbered them. Jared hooked into the rainbow above on a Coffin Fly but that was the loan fish of the night. I did not see many Male or Female Duns hatching so I am guessing the hatch is winding down,

New Camera

My brother got a new camera that he tried out on Penns Creek during his vacation, let me know what you think.........

Jonathan Run Trail: Ohiopyle State Park

Today was one of those days. I headed out around 10am this morning hoping to get some miles in at Laurel Mountain. When I got to my parents house I realized I forgot my clip in shoes for my bike! I got to visit family which was great but didn't ride at Laurel. When I got home I decided to give Ohiopyle a try again. I decided to hit up the Jonathan Run Trail. The first 1 mile was a very nice flowing single track trail with the majority of the surface dirt. There was some nice root sections along with some rock sections. I rode the trail down to the bike path hoping to find a loop that would take me back a different way. I found the junction of Kentuck Trail but there are no bikes allowed on it! What a bust. So I climbed back out of the valley to the junction of Sugar Run Trail. The climb out is very doable and will get your heart pumping. Anyways I decided to hit Sugar Run Trail. This single-track ride was more technical and fun then Jonathan Run. There were a few flat sections of the trail but most of the ride is on a gradual rise up the valley. Nothing too bad, but by the top I was breathing hard. I encountered Sugar Run Road at the top of the climb and decided to ride it back to the parking lot. The ride on the road had a mix of steep descents and a few steep climbs. I ended up riding about 8.25 miles and it took me about 1.5 hours to complete. This is not an accurate account of how long the loop is, I ended up riding the Yough bike trail for about .75 miles toward Bruener Run Take-Out looking for another trail. I found another set of rocks to climb below School House Crag on my way down though. This was by far the best ride I have done in Ohiopyle, I would recommend it to anyone new to the area.

High Water

The water is flowing 4300 cfs . This is a shame because the Green Drakes started hatching in Glen Iron and Weikert yesterday which usually means they won't be far behind on the river. Last year I got rained out each time I tried fishing over this hatch and this year looks eerily similar. At 4300 cfs it might take longer then a week for it to come down. I will be keeping my eye out and when levels get fishable I will be out to seek the DRAKE.

Penns Creek Fishing Report 5-18-10

Fished this morning from 10am-3pm. Water was flowing perfect and so was the weather, 50 degrees with light drizzle all day. We fished above the trestle at Poe Paddy for the first 3 hours then headed down to some riffles above the broadwater for the remainder of the afternoon. I caught 3 nice brownies that were 15+ inches right off the bat on a #12 copper john. My brothers each caught a few on that fly as well. March Browns started sticking to the water around 1pm and if you kept walking you could find fish that were eating them. The surface activity seemed to be picking up but I had to come home tonight for work in the am. I think my brothers might have hit it good tonight, I'll find out Friday. Overall the two days were very good to me, the biggest surprise was the number of bugs with no frequent risers. I would love to be fishing Penn's when the tide turns..........

Penns Creek Fishing Report 5-17-10

After fishing Spring Creek Sunday night I headed up to my brothers campsite at Poe Paddy that evening. We got up pretty late Monday, didn't start to fish until 11am. The weather was overcast and the air temperatures didn't hit 60 degrees all day. Bugs were hatching all day but the fish were reluctant to hit surface. So we had to stay underneath for the majority of the day which didn't turn out to be a bad thing. I ended up catching 20 fish on nymphs which is the best day I have had on Penns in a long time. We started out at the Claybanks hole and worked our way up to the Broadwater. #12 copper john's and the stink bomb caught all my fish. We got out of the stream around 6pm to eat dinner then headed back to the Broadwater for the evening. A very heavy sulphur hatch happened from 7:30-dark but few fish were on to them. The spinner fall at night was even heavier with more fish rising(not a ton) right at dark. I ended up catching two on a #14 sulphur bunny and my brother caught 2 as well. I am not sure why the fish didn't take to the surface more.....guess that is why I keep going back to Penns.

Spring Creek Fishing Report 5-16-10

I headed up to meet my brother at Spring Creek Sunday night. I didn't get to the stream until 7:00pm. We fished a stretch below the Paradise that usually produces fish. It was a very sunny evening with air temperatures in the mid 50's. I didn't have time to take the water temperature because a few fish were rising once I got into the stream. #14 Sulphurs started hatching in good numbers around 7:30pm, fish were rising till dark. I caught about 8 on a #14 bunny fly in one riffle. My brother had about the same luck. The stream level was perfect and I am sure the fishing will be just as good for the weeks to come.

Moving

Posts will be thin this week, I will be moving down to Ohiopyle (even closer to the yough!) Friday and won't have Internet service till Tuesday. It has rained here for the last few days and fishing conditions are not good. My brother is currently at Penns Creek for another 13 days and said the water was getting high and muddy last night. That is unfortunate and every time we plan a vacation to Penn's it rains and gets blown out.

The Little "J": Sulphur Time

Mike, Jared and I left Farmington at 5:30am Monday morning and headed up to the Little J. It was a very cold day, morning air temperatures were in the high 30's with the day time temps never hitting 60. It was a blue bird day which usually isn't the recipe for good fishing. We started out the morning fishing pheasant tail nymphs and copper john's. Mike picked up 4 very quickly while Jared and I struggled to hook a fish. We fished nymphs till about 1pm, I ended up catching 5, mike got 8 or so and Jared hooked into a few as well. Once the air temps starting warming up so did the bugs. Sulphur's starting coming off very heavy from 1:30-6pm. We saw the most fish rising from 3pm-6pm. I had a ton of action on a Grey Fox imitation at first, then I switched to a #14 Sulphur Comparadon and got into a bunch of fish. I thought a Grey Fox was hatching for the first 2 hours and not a Sulphur but Mike ensured me that all the bugs were just different shades of Sulphur Mayflies. The fish were picky at times and not so picky at other times. The three of us caught over 40 fish for the day. Did not see many fishermen either which was good. We stayed around till dark but didn't get a spinner fall. The beginning of the Sulphur hatch at the J is on.

Frack This!

Another section of public land sitting on Marcellus Shale. This crap needs to stop before every stream in PA is destroyed and the hardwood forests are contaminated with loud trucks and drilling rigs. I had one of these sites near my house and it was annoying and loud for two weeks. Then they disappeared to destroy something else. The shame of it all is that the majority of the public has no idea what is going on and won't until something goes wrong.

"When the cities are gone, and all the ruckus has died away, when sunflowers push up through the concrete and asphalt of the forgotten interstate freeways, when the Kremlin and the Pentagon are turned into nursing homes for generals, presidents and other such shitheads, when the glass-aluminum skyscraper tombs of Phoenix Arizona barely show above the sand dunes, whey then, why then, why then by God maybe free men and wild women on horses, free women and wild men, can roam the sagebrush canyon lands in freedom-goddammit!"
-George Hayduke from the Monkey Wrench Gang

Sugarloaf Trail: Ohiopyle State Park

Threw the bike on my car after work and went for a quick ride from 6pm-7pm tonight. I decided to try out the Sugarloaf trail in Ohiopyle. I had read about it in one of my mountain biking Pennsylvania books and it was given a decent rating by the author. I parked in the upper lot and road Sugarloaf Road to the junction of the trail. The first mile of double-track is somewhat level and fun to ride. After that climbing is the name of the game. Some sections turn into true single-track and very rocky. I road about 2.6 miles on the trail and had to turn around because I did not want to miss the Penguins game. The ride back was a blast because it was mostly downhill. I believe the ride is 6 miles to the summit on Sugarloaf Mountain so I barely sketched the surface on this ride. This trail has the highest vertical gain (1,680 feet) of any mountain bike trail in the state and I could tell this in the first 2.8 miles. This trail was like most in Ohiopyle, a straight up climb and crazy downhill, not one of my favorites.

Pictures are worth a thousand words............

We got about 2 inches of rain in the last 48 hours so the streams and rivers around here are torn up. The weather looks good for the next few days but I do not think the Yough will be fishable till the weekend. The picture above is from my buddies blog http://www.brooksbrownsandbows.blogspot.com/ Mike Steiner and Jared Plisko are both Orvis Endorsed Guides at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort And Spa. These guys take some of the best amatuer pictures of fly fishing around. Their pictures of float trips on the Clarion and Youghiogheny Rivers say it all. If anyone is looking to book a local trip in Southwest PA I recommend you look them up. I plan on trading some fishing advice on the Yough for a few free floats trips down the river this year, Nemacolin got a permit to do trips on the middle Yough which will be available soon. Take a look at the blog it's great stuff.

The Fog:

Fished from 5:30pm-6:30pm Tonight. I did not take the water temperature but it felt fairly cold. The river was flowing at 1200 cfs. The fog on the water was very dense so it was hard to see if bugs were coming off. There was a ton of midges on the water but that is all I could tell. I did not get any action, fished a few streamers and nymphs, then the rain came and off I went. Hopefully I will get down this week and put a few hours in. Until then.......