Little J

[jake//]

Aaron, I plan to hit the Little J when the weather gets a little nicer. I have never fished it, so if you can suggest some spots to try, I would appreciate your input. I love to nymph and I am not picky about the water types. Pattern info would also be a help. Thanks in advance. Jake

[Kaz]

Hi Jake, I am sure Aaron will answer. He also has some great trip reports on this board from the J. They should provide some insight. The J is no secret and there is a good bit of info out there. Fly Fisherman magazine had an article last year that provided some good info including a river map and some detailed spots. Allan Bright has a shop on the river, Spruce Creek Outfitters, and is an excellent source of info. Probably most popular spots are an area called the "Gorge" which is just upstream of Baree or a .5 mile stretch above where Spruce Creek dumps in. Consistent fish produces there year round are PT, Walts Worm, and caddis larvae to name a few. In summary, there is a good bit of water, 14 miles or so, to explore. All stretches are produtive, just depends on what water type you enjoy.

[SirJohnny]

Jake:

- Use the town of Spruce Creek as your starting point. As others have said, talk to Alan Bright (Spruce Creek Outfitters) before hitting the stream. His shop is located right on the Little Juniata in the town of Spruce Creek (he's right next to the new concrete bridge that crosses the Little Juniata ... really easy to find).

- Getting back to the stream. Start at Spruce Creek and fish either upstream or downstream. It's your choice. About 1/2 mile downstream (past the farm (Espy's Farm)) is the gorge section. Again, it doesn't seem to matter whether you go up or down the stream.

- To get to the parking lot at the gorge (from Spruce Creek), takes some doing. This is why I recommend either walking down from Spruce Creek or getting directions/map from Alan at the fly shop there in town.

- Be careful driving into Spruce Creek (if comming in early in the morning). Place is a total mecca for deer. Must have seen about 30 to 40 deer between Altoona and Spruce Creek during my visit there Labor Day weekend.

- One other thing. Please post pictures of your trip for those of us stuck here in Cubicle Land.

Tight Lines.

John Coxey
(Syracuse, NY)

[Esox_Hunter]

I fished the Little J this afternoon with some surprisingly good results. Between two of us we managed over 30 fish in a little under 4 hours. In my 10 years of fishing I have never seen the river ice up in any section until today. It wasn't too bad where we fished but, we still spent a solid 20 minutes clearing ice from the pool we desired to fish. Small egg patterns, green weenies, and sulfur nypmhs proved to be our most successful patterns of the day.

In order to help further with patterns you should have with you, if you give a general timeframe of when you plan to fish it you will get a much more accurate response. The river gets very abundant hatches of caddisflies and mayflies starting in early spring and knowing what to expect will improve your success dramatically. To add to the suggestions above for all season all purpose flies I would recommend green weenies, scuds, small egg patterns, and copper johns.

Much like others have stated, there really is no bad stretch from Tyrone all the way down to where it dumps into the Frankstown Branch. Alan at Spruce Creek Outfitters will always give you accurate information and he carries plenty of local favorite patterns.

If you decide to fish downstream of the bridge in Spruce Creek be aware that this is Spring Ridge Club property for roughly a mile. You are allowed to fish it, but you must stay within the mean high water mark of the river at all times to avoid a trespassing fine. They do patrol it and your best bet is to stay in the water at all times to avoid any confrontations. To access the gorge, which is below their property, you will be much farther ahead by driving into the town of barree and walking in from downstream.

One more word of advice, the Little J can be very tricky to fish/wade during the early spring/winter season. Use the usgs site to access realtime streamflow data for the LJ and look for flows under 500cfs. The river is still fishable at that level but wading becomes tricky and crossing without knowledge of the river is near impossible. Flows between 250-300cfs have provided me with the best fishing for both dries and nymphs.

[Esox_Hunter]

One more note, to get to the gorge section from Barree is very simple coming from Spruce Creek. If you are interested I will give you the directions, it is about a 10 minute drive vs. a 30+ min walk through the river where you can not step on dry land.

[AaronJasper]

Chris,

Good to have you back! And thanks for answering the question so well. I have been away for the last two days at the fly fishing show near Boston. Now I am about an hour and a half from State College. I have had a hard time keeping up with the posts. We will be fishing the Little J tomorrow. Your success is getting me pumped for tomorrow morning. I am worn out from this traveling. I guess I could be doing something worse than fly fishing.

[Esox_Hunter]

Aaron,

I hope you catch this before you leave. I am not sure where you planned to fish tomorrow, but from what I could see along the road the Little J was iced over pretty heavily in the slower water starting a few miles above Spruce Creek. The first few miles directly above Spruce looked fine though. We fished below the gorge earlier today and it had some ice, however most of the pools were ice-free and we just needed to break a little shore ice up. Spruce Creek was covered in pretty heavy ice from the junction of 45 bus. down to the mouth from what I saw also. This would be about the last 4 miles or so of the creek(including the Harvey water).

One last thing, be very careful on the roads there!!! They were in awful shape this evening when I was on my way home. It took me close to an hour and a half to get back to State College from Barree.

I will likely be on SC tomorrow so if you change your plans give me a call.

[AaronJasper]

Thanks Chris. We are almost to State College. Route 80 is in horrible condition. It looks like we are going to be fishing from the gorge down. I am sure that you could ice fish some of those long slow deep pools above Spruce Creek.

[jake//]

Thanks guys for all of the info. I will talk to Alan at Spruce Creek Outfitters when I go. I don't have a specific date, I only know that I want to give some patterns a shot. I tied up some olive and grey scuds, walts worms and green weenies. I'll give a report after I get back....it's snowing here in Jersey right now so it looks like I'll have to wait some more...oh well back to the tying bench. Jake

[AaronJasper]

Well it was in the teens today and Kaz, Juicy and I all caught out fair share of fish in a few different sections of the river. so if this January imagine how good it will be when it is good!