Starting the New Year Correctly; Destination Spring Creek

      Most years you and I might cringe at fishing on New Years Day. Whether it be the nasty hangovers from the amateur night the day before, or the bone chilling weather that is expected for that time of year. It did not matter, I am at the point of my addiction that I will fish anytime and anywhere. I decided to ask my buddy Dave from Pittsburgh, who is on the exact opposite side of the state as me, to meet me halfway to fish. Two hours for him, two and a half for me. We also got our buddy Cory to join us. Lucky him lives thirty minutes away from Spring. Never did we think we would be fishing in fifty degree weather on New Years Day.

       I woke up with three hours sleep and made the drive out to State College. All the time dreaming about wild brown trout sipping on Bwo's. Even though the weather seemed perfect for that event, it never materialized.

BSing

       I arrived at The Canyons on Spring Creek around 7:45am. I drove down the stone road and was in awe of the beauty in the London fog coming off of the water. I tried to take some pictures, but I still do not have the hang of the new camera. It seems to want to focus on the fog and take out of focus pictures. Actually, I would like to apologize for the photo's in this blog entry. They did not turn out to well. Think it was because the fishing was so good and I did not take my time.

Cory Nymphing It

       Cory and Dave pulled in right after me and we proceeded to BS for a good hour. The fishing seemed to take a back seat to the laughs and great time we knew we would be having. We finally geared up and walked to the end of the new open area and proceeded to work out way back to the car. Within five minutes of spreading out and dipping our toes in the water. I landed a 6 inch brown and Dave had lost two and Cory one. The three of us slowly walked up stream and fished together. By the time we made it up a hundred yards or so, we had all landed fish and the threat of a skunking was gone. We arrived at the first deep hole of the stream. A large tree is in the water forming a nice riffle, deep hole, and slack water. If there was going to be a monster on the creek it was under that tree. We talked about fishing at night with a mouse fly and watching a kyped brown pounding a swung vermin. The three of us pounded that hole taking turns after snapping our flies off on overhung tree branches. Each of us pulling a fish from the spot.

Dave Rocking It

       I enjoy fishing WITH friends. I am not one to meet at a parking lot say hello's and then run away from whomever I decided to meet. Agreeing to meet at a certain time to grab some lunch and then splitting up from each other and fishing separately. I like to fish close to friends and be able to bust balls or take pictures of each other fish. Enjoying the day together and not just trying to catch as many fish as possible.
       This is how we fished for the day, working over each others water meticulously. Trying to catch the fish the other guy did not bring to hand. We all caught fish and we had a blast of a day. Not to taut numbers, but the three of us brought close to twenty to hand. I caught six out of my seven on dubbing on a hook and my other on Loren Williams Sexy Walts Worm. I believe Dave caught his fish on egg patterns and his cress bug pattern. Cory caught his on San Juans, cress bugs and scuds. However, Cory missed the hook set on a large brown from under a bridge with a wooly bugger, and then had a huge brown break him off. It was easily 24+ and made the splash of a bowling ball dropped from a skyscraper.
       The day ended with a trip to Champs in State college where we enjoyed more laughs, some beer and great food. I am not a beer connoisseur, but Ithacas Apricot Wheat went down like water for me. It was delicious out of the tap, and I am kicking myself for not bringing a growler of it home. Cory jokes that it is his wifes favorite beer.......

My First Fish of 2012

Dave's first of 2012

Adios 2011

       

Surprise Of A Day

What the F you looking at?

         I had the pleasure today to do some fishing with one of my good fly fishing buddies, Lenny. He lives a little over an hour away from me, so we do not get out much. However, today he made the trek up from the Philadelphia area to explore a stream with me, that I have never fished. I consider this stream a home water for me, but I always thought of it as a put and take stocked fishery. Until a little mouse told me a secret.....wild fish, and nice ones. He never told me though that one of the wild species were rainbows. Imagine my surprise when I saw a 3-4 inch bow with beautiful  par marks laying in my net later on in the day.
         This did not come until about 2 hours into our exploration, and I had only landed one bow in the 10 inch range. Lenny, looked at the ten inch fish and made the comment " man that is a nice holdover, I mean it almost looks wild...".
        No freaking way wild bows are around here though. Those things only exist on the Upper D and Cumberland Valley streams, right?

Frenchy in the snout

      We were five minutes from leaving the creek in disappointment. We found some nice holding water and Lenny tried his luck with the George Daniel's technique (Euro) and had no luck. I decide to test it out with my set up. I am using a strike indicator. First cast and I have a small fish come up and try to eat my indicator. I laugh and cast again. Same dang thing happens. I get Lanny to come over and watch, because obviously it will happen again. he comes over and instead of a rise, I get a hook-up, but lose the fish. same thing happens the next three casts. Keep missing them, then SNAG. Crap, I have to go into the hole to get lose. Lenny stops me though and ask for a try. So, I maneuver my snag out of the way for him to try to hook up. Waddya know. The little guy up above comes to hand. We look at each other in astonishment. Holy Sh*t, is that what I think it is? A couple more come to hand and we are just pumped! We decide to walk another 1/2 mile upstream and it does not disappoint. I miss one or two nice size fish and we are literally talking about turning around because of the time. I ask for 5 minutes to fish a very small section of holding water and BOOM hook up! 13-15 inch wild brown starts rocketing up and down the creek and doing an aerial display. I can still here Len saying "Don't lose him, dumbass". I finish the deed and get a couple pictures and our day is complete. A pleasant surprise for a chilly December afternoon.You better bet, I will be back for those big boys that came off though.

Fins as sharp as razor blades.

Do not put your fingers to close, I will bite.