Penns Creek, 5/15 & 5/16

[sholgate]

I had a great introduction to Penns Creek. I jumped into a muddy and high stream just about 2 mile below Coburn. To my surprise my first sizable fish was a 14in rainbow out of Stans pool. I am told that they stock the "open water" upstream with rainbows and sometimes they hold over in the Trophy Water. Following that I landed my first wild browns. In the weekend I totaled 10 fish, 3 bows and 7 browns. I thought they were all difficult to catch, although, many were skunked during the same time periods.

The "Dry Fly" culture is a strange one dozens of people hanging out around their cars and trucks, waiting for the hatch. Never really trying to fish without a hatch. Although I was only averaging 1-2 fish an hour, I would much rather nymph than wait.

Saturday night I did get to experience the March Brown hatch. I have to admit it was a lot of quick and fun action but I usually can't plan my fishing around the hour of the hatch. It did give me my largest fish of the weeknd, a 16in brown on a March Brown dun. Pretty cool 2 days.

And I almost forgot, Jonas at the Feathered Hook was a great help. I didn't carry my camera a lot because of the rain and general uncertainty of wading the stream, but here are some pictures...

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[alanb_ct]

That's a terrific report and a great looking stonefly! Thanks.

[sholgate]

I bought the stone fly at the Feathered Hook. Actually I bought a few, but as usual I loose a lot of flies, so I took a picture of this one before I lost that one too. The nymphs at the shop were all a great size to Euro Nymph with.

[np36]

Thanks for sharing ... hit Penns Creek last year and stayed at the Feathered Hook and had a great time. Nice stuff!

JI

[paddy]

Shogate:

Great report and pics. It looks like you had a great time despite high colored water at Penn's below Coburn.

Yes I was part of the dry fly fishing there at Penn's for years. Early morning and evenings for the most part were the most active times. During the days, it was slow, usually fish sub surface.

[Davyfly]

I got to get to fish this water one day, l have always heard good things about it, need to show Aaron how to nail em on wets there, with techniques he do not know as yet.

DW

[sholgate]

There was a guy doing well on a partridge and yellow in the murky water. I would like to learn the "way of the wet" too.

[beadhead]

Great report, and congrats on the fish. Thanks for sharing, good job bud.

[Kaz]

Great report. Jonas has 15 local tyers that support the shop.

Saw that stonefly there and put in in the memory bank as thought it would be excellent for the anchor. I would have to cut a few steps though as that version would take too long for my taste.

[Brookie]

Nice report Steve. I think you did extremely well given the conditions. Jonas is a character. Nice little fly shop there. It was refreshing to go into a fly shop and be greeted despite there being 10 guys in there.

I got mostly browns, but I did get 1 brookie. Spectacular looking fish in that river. Met an old timer who used to guide there and he showed us an excellent access area, as well as some photos of 24+ inch fish he'd taken from Penns. He went out of his way to help us with advice. Almost all the fishermen i met in PA over the weekend were very cool.