Hooking Up on Pine Creek

 

Hooking Up on Pine Creek

5/18/23

  At 34° I wasn’t that anxious to get out and start fishing the big waters. It wasn’t like I’d be steelhead fishing!

  I hadn’t fished Pine Creek in Tioga County for many moons. When I was there the water was high and it was very windy. I couldn’t wade in very far because of the fast undercurrent. I think I caught only one small rainbow and didn’t stick around very long because of conditions. This morning the creek looks in great shape and the weather is suppose to be warm and calm also. A couple guys at the campground said they were there a few days ago and caught trout on BWO and other small dry flies. I was anxious to get out there but not at 34°.

  I sat in the warm truck for a bit but my patients ran out at 38 °. I got out and started to put my gear together and my waders on. I put together my Icon 5 weight 9’ fast action rod and grabbed a few cigars. By this time the sun had started to appear above the hillside tree line and started to warm things up a bit. I wasn’t sure where to start so I strolled up the dirt road and looked over the water as I walked. It kind of all looked the same. I waded into the cool water about knee high and looked around. There was only one other person I saw upstream stripping a streamer in the faster riffling current about 50 yards or so. I started casting a Woolly Bugger in the open water. Each cast was a little further than the last. About my 5^th cast I got a hard strike that almost took the rod right out of my hands. I know fast undercurrent can play tricks of how big a trout can be but I was sure I had a heavy weight. He had the 9 footer bowed good and put up a good battle with head shakes and weighty runs. I got him close enough and netted a fine lengthy husky brown trout!

 

I heard there were some big trout in these waters and I was thankful for this one.

“What did you catch him on?” the guy upstream yelled down like a coach yelling at a player on the practice field.

 “Woolly Bugger” I yelled back.

“I never fished these waters before” I called back, “What’s good to use?”

“Streamers in the morning” he replied.

‘I guess I’m on the right track’ I thought to myself.

After I caught a couple more smaller trout on the bugger fish started to rise to something small. They looked like caddis so I knotted one on and lit up a fat stogie to enjoy the rest of the day. 

 

  The littler trout were eager to grab the caddis if I got it in their feeding zone. I missed a few but I figured they were small also because of the small splashes they made at my caddis dries. Tired of playing with these smaller ones I knotted on a March Brown. While doing so I heard a louder splash out a ways and looked up and saw a widening swirl moving with the current. I finished my knot and took out line to reach the vicinity of where I thought was the feeder. He didn’t rise again until he saw my March Brown drifting by!! He grabbed it in a quick splashing manner like a hurrying hungry guy at the second pickup window.

 

  He put up a heck of a fight in the swift current turning every which way trying to get undone. I was surprised when I netted him. He had a big round open wound on his side like he got burnt being too close to a camp fire. I was actually able to see his rib bones through what was left of his flesh. Whatever caused it I wasn’t sure but he was healthy no matter.

 

 I continued casting dry flies of sorts but it took a while before I got a few to take.

 

  Just after noon there was a null in the surface action. The sun was shining bright in the sky above and there wasn’t any Mayfly or caddis activity going on on the surface. The guys up and across creek were having some luck, as they called it, with nymph fishing. I knotted on the standard nymph patterns like BH Hares Ear, March Brown nymphs and emergers, PT’s and such but it didn’t evoke any curious trout. About 2:30 I decided to call it quits and decided to Bugger my way down creek toward my truck. I knotted on my bread-and-butter go to Woolly Bugger that always seems to fool fish and slowly waded down creek in thigh high water. Evidently the bigger trout were more interested in meat than snacking on small nymphs. As I went I hooked up occasionally with good battling rainbows.

 

  As I waded I looked into the water around me and very often found trout just hanging around here and there like city park goers resting from a long exercising walk. There were two occasions that if the two rainbows were blind I may have walked on them. They knew I was coming towards them slowly and just wavered in front of me, a rods length at times, as if expecting me to move out of their way. I came to the conclusion there were trout everywhere but they just weren’t hungry or easily fooled. Well, not all of them! Another grabbed my bugger and off he went like a kid at summer camp grabbing a free lunch bag and running off to join his friends. Only catch was there was a string attached to my rod and reel!!

 

  Truthfully, if camp wasn’t so far away I may have stuck around longer. There was so much creek to explore and the trout put up good lasting battles in the big water current.

  I was getting near where I wanted to exit. There’s always that thought before wading out to just hook up one last time. I cast out towards the middle of the creek and let my bugger swing down creek. After it swung down creek from me I started to strip it in slowly. A fish grabbed it and I set the hook. It felt kind of on the light side and didn’t fight with the enthusiasm as the others. I was surprise when I landed it, it was a chubby fall fish. I guess they are entitled to grab whatever food comes their way!

 

Well, at least I didn’t end the day with a sucker!!!

~doubletaper

 

Teasing on the Young Womans

 

Teasing on the Young Womans

5/15/23

 

  After filling up with fuel in Renovo we headed to Young Womans Creek in search of trout. It was late morning when we got to our first destination. There were already midges in the chill of the air. The sun beamed down upon the surface water through the forest hardwoods and pines like light passing through stained glass windows causing patchwork on a bare freshly waxed floor. We walked down the path to the creek and looked for any rises in the shade beneath the hanging pine boughs across creek. There were none to be seen. I know the creek gets stocked with trout but every once in a while I’ll catch a wild one. We walked up along the bank and there we saw a golden trout, and a few rainbows, hanging out facing the incoming faster current. We went back to the truck and got our waders on.

  Randy started fishing for the Golden and rainbows while I skirted the cross creek shady areas with Woolly Buggers and a few dry flies. After a while I left Randy alone and headed up creek and fished my way down. In the half hour or so we spent we never got a strike.

  We took off and made a quick stop up creek. There we saw a nice size stocked rainbow holding in the middle of a narrow section of water. We snuck through the higher weeds to the creek bank. Randy tossed out a Woolly Bugger trying to get the rainbow to bite. I watched for a short while before fishing down creek a bit. Again we didn’t have any takers to what we had to offer. It was if the Young Womans wasn’t going to be friendly this morning. We got back in the vehicles and headed to the next spot.

It was like driving and stopping along the road at yard sales. We’d spend a half hour or so looking for a bargain and something worth netting. If nothing caught our fancy we’d just move on to the next sale.

The third stop was the deepest hole I ever came across on Young Womans Creek.

  I started fishing at the head of the pool where the cool water narrowed, in a shin deep riffle, along a downed limb and entered the deeper pool. Randy started casting in the middle of the deeper pool where a golden trout settled near the bottom. He said he was able to see more trout in the deeper pool.

Wham! A trout tried to surprise me by taking my offering I skirted along the downed limb. I was Jerry on the spot and set the hook quickly on the snatch. She wiggled around in the flow as I got her nearer to me and in the net. A nice looking native was my reward.

 

 Randy called out he missed a trout. He continued to fish the deeper pool while I continued to skirt the long downed limb in the riffling narrow section of water. I had a couple of subtle hints of a strike but couldn’t hook up. I refused to trim the bugger shorter and continued to drift the bugger along the limb. Finally I had a good take and another brookie entered the net.

 

  After a few more casts I wasn’t getting any bites. I just knew there had to be another along the limb. Maybe at the end before the water opened into the main body. Nothing struck at the bugger so I started to try and tease them with different approaches and offerings. It was as if I was trying to score with a bar stool young woman with come on lines.

“Here I am, what’s your other two wishes?”

  I put on my best looking offering and tossed it out there like a refined gem under the golden sun. I watched my free gift drift upon the surface like a lost gem tumbling in the shallow stream of rain water along a curb. She grabbed on to it as if she didn’t want it to reach the sewer! I flicked my wrist and she was hooked. She tussled a bit, bending my rod with her writhing responses, but I played her well. She was a fine looking pick up. Kind of fancier and friskier than the others. I admired her for a moment before tossing her back in, there were more fish in the sea!!

 

  We made one more stop under the hot afternoon sun. The water was pretty shallow and we couldn’t see and trout or hatches. We went back to the vehicles and put street clothes on and headed back to camp.

It was a fine tease on Young Womans Creek!

~doubletaper

An Evening Hatch

 

An Evening Hatch

5/13/23

  After a pork chop and applesauce dinner Randy and I decided to walk down the creek, from the campground, hoping for an evening hatch. 

 

 When we arrived at the campsite on Thursday we fished after we set up and found rising trout to caddis. No biggies but a few rainbows and brown trout that would take our olive and tan caddis.

When we got to our destination there weren’t any risers but we casted dry flies anyhow and made fish rise in the first half hour.

 

 As it got later dimples and small swirls appeared on the water surface like sporadic raindrops on calm pond water. What I could tell there was a combination of small midges and small sulfurs starting to rise off the water. Not many but enough to make me tie on a sulfur imitation. I knotted on a #16 but many of the sulfurs I saw were maybe a #18 or smaller. There were also something I couldn’t see the trout were taking.

  It appeared the quick rises to the surface were smaller fish. Once I caught one I discovered they were small wild brown trout feeding. They were quick to the surface to grab a fly like a sudden surprise of a popped corn kernel. I guess they were entitled to eat too.

 

  The water I was casting to was no deeper than shin deep. It looked as if a few trout came out from the deeper water and under tree cover to feed in the open slow surface flow. Every once in a while I’d hook into a bigger brown feeding with the little guys in the shallower water.

  As evening approached I looked up and saw a few bigger mayflies. I believe they were spinners of some sort. They had 2 long splayed tails and a dark body. I figured there was a spinner fall and that may be what the trout were feeding on that I couldn’t see.

 More small sulfurs were coming off and I had many more refusals on my #16. it got too dark under the canopy of trees we were under for me to tie anything else on. We called it a day and headed back to camp as dimples of rising trout continued to surface. 

 ~doubletaper