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By Anthony Naples, on September 23rd, 2009
Spring Creek, Centre County, PA: September 18 & 19, 2009
Got a chance to fish my “Home Water” recently. I say Home Water in quotes, because although, I live 3-hrs away I consider Spring Creek to be just that. I know it better than any other stream and I find myself testing my skills on it’s wild browns more than any where else. I guess I should consider myself lucky – I’m sure there are those whose Home Waters are across the country or across the oceans. It is a wonderful feeling to ease into my waders next to a familiar run or riffle and know that I’ll probably have some success. Hey maybe I’ll even skip the nymphing and just look for some risers. I’ve caught enough fish here over the years that I have a familiar comfort with no anxiousness about fish catching – It’s just good to be here on the banks of Spring Creek.
Me and My Shadow
It’s like Bob Dylan says in Maggie’s Farm, “I wake up in the morning fold my hands and pray for rain…” And so I did – but alas it was no to be. The whether was beautiful – and I was cursing this. The fly fisherman can be a contrary sort. While everyone else is singing the praises of a beautiful fall day, the fly fisherman looks to the cloudless clear blue sky, squinting like Clint Eastwood and looking about as ornery. It was great for a country drive or a hike in the mountains, but not exactly what I was hoping for. Gray skies, cool temps and a little rain would have made me much happier. With those conditions – maybe our little friend the Blue Winged Olive would have come out to play. But it was bright skies and looming shadows as we fished Spring Creek below Bellefonte. Bank-feeders scattered in fear as my shadow announced my presence. The shadow of the fly-line and the glint of the sun off of the fly-rod didn’t help to make for stealthy approaches either.
All of these conditions, contributed to the surprise of what we saw – surface feeding trout. It was one of those mystery hatches. Maybe a better angler would have figure it out, but I was at a loss. There were fish rising pretty consistently and no bugs that we could see. If I were a more prepared fly fisher I would have taken my bug-seine, waded to the tail of the pool and found whatever it was that was drifting in the current – but I’m not. So it remains a mystery, which is okay by me. After all, the mystery of fish and bugs, is a big part of what makes the game interesting.
What to Tie On?
I opened my fly boxes and looked over the selection. Sometimes I think that I read about fly fishing too much – and I tie too many flies. This can result in analysis paralysis. The question of which one of these things is the “right” one can cause me to open and close box after box, and then go through them again. I should probably tie on some sort of tiny emerger and fish it in the film – yeah that’s the smart thing to do. But which one?
But then I thought that it would be much more fun to put on a big dry fly and see if there were any takers. Make it simple. Fish are eating at the surface – give them something on the surface to eat. And preferably something that I can actually see at 30-ft.
Who Would Have Thought?
I tied on a tan and green, elk-hair caddis. And surprise, surprise – It worked! I tie this fly a little differently than the traditional style. I like to tie it with a twisted antron body (I like the segmented look that gives you). Also rather than palmering the hackle on the body, I use hackle only in front of the wing and trim the bottom, so that the fly floats a little lower.
The fish took this fly without hesitation. They came up out of the depths and sucked it in without a second look. I was completely surprised. Usually I only fish dries on Spring Creek when there are hatching bugs to match. I have never had much luck on Spring Creek with attractor dry flies. So why did this fly work so well? Maybe there had been recent caddis activity and the fish “remembered” this. I guess I’ll never know for sure. I’m sure the next time I try it – there will be no takers.
The Next Day
There’s not too much to report. We fished the morning in an area upstream of Fisherman’s Paradise (I don’t want to be too specific). There were a lot of big fish. I didn’t catch any of the big fish. I don’t know when the browns start spawning in Spring Creek, but there were a lot of fish gathered together. I didn’t see any activity that I’d call spawning activity and I didn’t notice any redds. The fish that I watched were not feeding at all though – they were very inactive. Of course it was bright and sunny and there was no bug activity at all – at least while we were there in the morning.
By Anthony Naples, on July 11th, 2009
Well, it has taken me a little while to get this trip report posted. Sorry folks – but I have a good reason. My camera took a little swim in the Little Juniata. I guess I should call it my ex-camera. I let it dry out for several days – no luck. I tried the alcohol soak trick – no luck. It is dead. I was able to get the pics off of the card – but I had to get a card reader, which I finally got around to.
It was a warm and sunny day (too sunny for me). We started off the day above the town of Spruce Creek, fishing several different areas. For hours we pounded the deep runs along the shady bank – no fish, no bites, no flashes, nothing. I was beginning to think that I missed the news of a massive fish kill. Surely it wasn’t my lack of skill.
There were very small light gray mayflies (size 20-ish), hatching sporadically all day, never in large numbers, but fairly consistently. I didn’t get a picture, but I did get a good look: Light gray body, light gray wing (no veins or speckles). I could not identify these bugs. If anybody has any guess as to the identification please leave a comment.
 Little Juniata Riffle We fished this nice riffle, deep run combo for a bit. It just looks fishy doesn’t it? This riffle, led into the deep run along the rocky, shady, bank. I couldn’t have designed a nicer looking section of stream.
 Deep Run on the Little Juniata  More of the Deep Run It looked perfect but I couldn’t find the fish. I carefully fished stealthily up through the run and into the riffle, casting on a grid – covering the water systematically. Surely I’d come up with some fish. After a fishless 45-minutes or so, I grew a little impatient and waded across the riffle just to investigate and FISH! I finally found the fish. The fish were up in a shallow side-riffle ranging from about 5-inches to 18-inches deep. They were going crazy! Zipping around, backs out of the water – how did I miss them? I assume they were feeding on emergers of the little gray mayflies (I can’t say for sure).
I managed to hook up with a nice rainbow (18″ or so), but then managed to loose it. It hit a size 18, rusty compara-emerger. I never did manage another fish hook-up out of that riffle. But it left me wondering how many times I’ve passed fish by like this. I could have very easily missed these rising fish all together.
 I finally found the fish After managing to put these fish down for good – we moved on. This time we decided to head into the “gorge” section between Spruce Creek and Barree. We hiked into the gorge about 1.5 miles or so. What a beautiful setting! The river sits at the bottom of a dramatic canyon – with steep ridges rising about 1200 feet above the valley floor. It feels very remote – and if it weren’t for all the fly-fishers it would be very lonely in there. Aside from the train tracks and bridges – you don’t see any sign of civilization.
 The Gorge on the Little J  Another view of the Gorge For a sense of perspective – look at those little black dots in that picture above, those are fisherman. That hill rises up about 1200-ft almost straight up. Maybe not much much by western standards, but it still feels impressive (and looming) when you’re in there. The topo-map from GoogleMaps illustrates the terrain nicely. The picture of the gorge, just above, was taken looking upstream from just below that wide spot in the river (near the 800′ elevation mark).
View Larger Map
Not only is the setting beautiful but I finally caught a few fish. I caught two browns, one about 8″ and one maybe 13″ or so. They were both caught on a size 10, green caddis larva (with an orange “hot-spot”). We couldn’t stay long in the gorge though – we had a long walk out of there and the Diner 22 hot roast-beef sandwich with fries (and pie for desert) was calling. Diner 22 is located on Rt. 22 neat Alexandria PA. The Little J. did not give up her fish easily on this day – but the stream and the setting (especially in the gorge) are just beautiful.
 A nice brownie from the Little J.
By Anthony Naples, on May 14th, 2009
Trip Report: Spring Creek, Centre County, PA – Date Fished May 12, 2009
The Sulphurs are Here!
I’m sure we all have a favorite hatch – for me it’s the Sulphur Hatch on Spring Creek. There are several reasons for this: first nostalgia and second the fact that it is a great hatch on a great stream. The nostalgia comes from my time at Penn State. Spring Creek is where I learned to Fly Fish and the Sulphur hatch was the first good mayfly hatch that I ever fished successfully.
If it was only nostalgia though it wouldn’t be of much interest to others – so be assured it is a great hatch to experience on one of Pennsylvania’s most productive wild trout streams.
On this particular day we arrived at the creek around 10:30 AM. The air temps were in the high 50’s to low 60’s through out the day, and the sun was shining. The stream was in perfect condition, with a nice full spring flow – but not to high.
 E.dorothea (left) and E. invaria (right) I think!? It can be hard to say sometimes. With the hope of finding hatching sulphurs we headed upstream looking for good “Invaria” water. The early season “Sulphurs” on Spring Creek are Ephemerella Invaria – (Ephemerella Rotunda and Ephemerella Invaria have recently been grouped as one species, Ephemerella Invaria). Invaria nymphs prefer fast moving currents and prior to emergence may seek pockets of slower water adjacent to the fast water.
I snapped the picture at the left hoping to get a good record of the coloration of Spring Creek’s sulphur nymphs. The two nymphs that I found are clearly different – the slightly darker nymph on the left was definitely smaller than the other one. So I’m saying that is the dorothea – although I’m not willing to bet on it. However, regardless of a positive identification – you could tie some nymphs to match the picture and be all set.
After a short walk we found what looked liked a perfect stretch of riffles and runs, with plenty of instream rocks and pockets – perfect water to look for the invaria hatch.
Well it wasn’t long before it started. Beautiful little invaria duns began to emerge sporadically – and all around us the fish were taking the duns from the surface. I’d estimate the best hook size to imitate the duns was a size 16 – but a sparsely dressed 16. These particular inavaria duns have quite a bit of orange to them – on other streams they can be much more pale-yellow. It was pretty clear that the fish were taking the fully emerged duns from the surface. They may have been taking emergers too – but I never really had much success with any emerger patterns. That wasn’t a problem though because I was taking fish consistently on top with dries. This surprised me a bit – in the past I’ve caught many more fish on the emerger. Perhaps this was due to timing – maybe since it was early in the emergence period, the fish hadn’t been fished so hard yet, and hadn’t seen every possible Sulphur dry-fly pattern created. I’ll never know why – but I guess that is what makes fly-fishing so challenging. It seems to never happen the same way twice. The hatch was consistent – but not blizzard like – all day. There was a brief increased flurry of sulphurs during the warmest part of the day at approx. 3:00 PM.
 Hair-Wing Thorax Sulphur I managed to catch fish on a variety of different patterns but one style seemd to be particularly effective: The Hair-Wing Thorax Sulphur. I tied some of these up after reading Swisher and Richards’ Selective Trout. They mention that flies tied with a single clump deer-hair wing were more effective than the fan-wing Comparadun style flies. However, the clump wing flies often landed on their side. To combat this tendency I added a sparse thorax-style hackle (clipped on the bottom). Well the fish seemed to like it – at least on this day.
Hair-Wing Thorax Sulphur:
Hook: Standard Dry-fly
Tail: Cream Hackle Barbs tied in divided
Dubbing: Pale-Yellow and Sulphur-Orange Wapsi Superfine mixed. For a thorax-style fly the dubbing is applied all the way to the head of the fly.
Wing: Bleached Deer-Hair tied in a single clump and swept back
Hackle: Cream tied “thorax-style” (wound sparsely and widely-spaced from behind wing through thorax area and trimmed on the bottom).
 Nicely Spotted Brown Caught on the Hair-Wing Sulphur Thorax So was anything else hatching?
Actually – yes. There was also consistent caddis action all day that fish were responding to. Several caddis were part of this – one was about a size 16 with a drab gray/olive body and gray and black speckled wing. I never got a close up look at the other caddis but it was smaller – maybe a size 18 and it appeared to be a tan to light cinnamon wing color.
Caddis larvae were present in abundance – in addition to those pictured, there were also some that were basically the same, but more bright green.
 Free-living Caddis Larvae Light Cahills (Stenacron interpunctatum) also made an appearance. These were large – I’d say a size 12 verging on size-10. I didn’t get a picture, but the underside of the dun was pale-yellow and the wings were a transparent bright-yellow with black veins and speckles. These never hatched in great numbers but popped up through-out the day. Fish could be seen taking the duns.
 Cahill Nymph  Cahill Nymph Underside  Gratuitous Trout Picture
By Anthony Naples, on May 5th, 2009
Fished on Friday May 1st, 2009
Well the weather report looked bad – possible rain in the morning, probably thunderstorms in the afternoon. So we went fishing anyway. Thankfully we didn’t let the weatherman dissuade us from our trip. He had it right about rain in the morning, but the afternoon turned out to be beautiful – it was sunny but cool. And the fish were cooperative. It was one of those days when everything comes together.
As soon as we got out of the truck, at the Yellow Creek Fly Fishing Only Project Area, the sun came out and the rain stopped – but the water was pretty high and discolored. The site of the discolored water did not make me happy – I never seem to have much success when the water is off color. But these misgivings proved unwarranted as we looked upon our favorite fishing hole. The fish were rising. A lot of fish were rising. It was a nice little caddis hatch – not a blizzard type hatch, but a consistent parade of fluttering caddis popped off the water, and fish continued to hungrily rise to them, all afternoon and into the evening.
There were several different caddis coming off - most were generally light colored and maybe a size 14; a smaller number were dark gray or black and more of a 16 or 18. I was never able to catch any of these bugs though, so I can’t give a better description. I’d love to know what color and size they really were – I think we could have had one of those truly stellar days if we’d had a good match. As it was we did okay, catching fish on a variety of different patterns.
 A typical fish for the day - notice the nice blue color on the gill-plate  Caught on a Yellow Sally On the surface I caught fish on size 12 and 14 Elk Hair Caddis with tan and gray bodies, size 18 black caddis, and a size 14 Elk-hair Yellow Sally was good for a few too. Due to the rising fish I didn’t fish underneath much – but a size 12 Peacock and Partridge Soft Hackle, fished on a rising swing, was good for some hookups. Every change of fly would bring a few lookers – and usually a taker.
 E.E. and the Old Ranger fish the rise. The Old Ranger is casting his vintage late 40s Glass I have a hard time just fishing – I’m always trying to learn something. This trip drove home a few good lessons (I seem to continually learn, forget and then re-learn the same things).
Lesson Number 1: Don’t let the weatherman tell you what to do.
If we had heeded the weather man’s warnings we would have missed a memorable day on the stream. Whatever the weatherman says – just fish!
Lesson Number 2: Always have plenty of caddis in the most common sizes and colors
Of course, I know that a caddis hatch is always a good possibilty – so there’s no excuse in not having the right color or size. Do yourself a favor sit down tonight and tie some caddis dries in assorted colors (Tan, gray, olive) and sizes (12 – 18). Most caddis I see are best imitated using a light colored wing – but occasionaly I’ll also see some fairly dark brown or gray caddis, so be prepared for both.
Lesson Number 3: Don’t be afraid to improvise
One of our crew – after losing his best hatch-matching caddis imitation – in a trout’s lip – got out the scissors and improvised. He trimmed down what I think was a size 12 Gray Wulff and made an awesome caddis emerger. This fly worked well. It not only caught rising fish – it brought some fish out of the depths as an attractor fly. The modifications consisted of cutting off the tail, trimming off most of hair-wings, and trimming the hackle. What was left of the deer-hair wings floated flush on the surface and the body of the fly hung suspended beneath the water. The result was a decent caddis emerger not unlike the Vermont Caddis:
Vermont Caddis Recipe:
Hook: Standard Dry Fly Hook 12-20
Body: Hare’s Mask Dubbing to match natural (tan, olive, black, etc.)
Hackle: Brown and Grizzly mixed (one size smaller than normal for hook)
Fish this fly without floatant – so that the hackle lies flush and the body is suspended vertically under the surface.
Lesson Number 4: Don’t forget to enjoy the surroundings! With a blog post in mind – I made sure to look around me and notice things, so that I would have some pictures. Well – I should remember to always do this. Here’s a few bits of nature that we enjoyed.,
 Mallard Ducklings  Purple Trillium  Fungus Amoung Us: What the heck is this thing? Oh and don’t forget to stop at The New Frontier Restaurant after your day of fishing. The Restaurant is located on Rt. 36 about 100 ft from Yellow Creek. It has good homestyle cooking at good prices. I’m a sucker for the Hot Roast Beef Sandwich with fries and Gravy. If you’re there on Friday try the all you can eat fish dinner.
By Anthony Naples, on April 30th, 2009
I’ve been enjoying reading this blog for a little while now: The Slippery Trout: A Fly Fishing Blog.
About the Blog In the writer’s own words
This blog is primarily designed to record my time fly fishing for trout in the northeastern United States; however, I write and post about anything I encounter during my fishing expeditions.
Just as it says, Matt, presents a sort of online fishing journal, complete with pics of more than just fish. In his latest post on Pennsylvania’s Penns , Elk and Fishing Creeks we get fish pics, info on the hatches and some wildflower pics (with identification).
The inclusion of insect hatch info and wildflower pics should be a great help to the fly fisherman interested in Phenology (as we all should be).
From Wikipedia
Phenology is the study of periodic plant and animal life cycle events and how these are influenced by seasonal and interannual variations in climate.
So, check out the wildflower pictures, review the hatch info and take notes. Next year when you see those flowers blooming you’ll know just what flies to tie.
By Anthony Naples, on April 16th, 2009
The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission posted the largest recorded fish caught in Pennsylvania 2008. The interesting thing to me is the brown trout list – 4 out of 5 on the list were caught in Lake Erie Tribs. The largest, a 13-lb, 30-inch Brown was caught Jan. 19, 2008 on Walnut Creek.
See the full list at the PA Fish Commission Site, PA’s Biggest Fish of 2008.
Is this a new trend? Well, I looked at the list of biggest fish back through 2001 – and based on this not so exhaustive literature search – it is a new thing. There are no other years in that time span with such a preponderance of the largest recorded browns coming from Lake Erie Tribs. However in 2005 four of five of the largest browns came from Lake Erie itself.
The brown trout showing up in Erie and its tributaries in Pennsylvania is incidental – a result of stocking of adult trout in some of the tributary streams, and stocking by other states. It is not a result of an effort to develop this fishery. But that is changing.
The PA Fish Commission is on-board with developing a brown trout fishery in the Erie Tribs. No later than 2009, the PA Fish Commission — plans to begin stocking 50,000-100,000 brown trout each year in Lake Erie itself or its tributary streams.
Read a good article about this in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.
By Anthony Naples, on April 15th, 2009
Visited Pennsylvania’s famed Spring Creek on Monday April 12, 2009. It was a good trip. The first place we hit was the former McCoy Dam location just downstream of Bellefonte, PA. Prior to the removal of this 12-ft high dam in September of 2007, there had been a dam in this location for over 200 years. The removal of the dam restored approximately 1/2 mile of stream to its natural condition. The removal will allow for more natural movement of trout up and downstream and importantly, for fly-fishers, it allows us to fish for trout in a “new” section of stream.
 The "Old Ranger" checks out the former McCoy Dam Location on Spring Creek The Pennsylvania Fish Commission has already evaluated the effect of the dam removal by conducting post dam-removal electro-fishing surveys and comparing the results to pre-removal electro-fishing results.
From the PA Fish Commission
Wild Brown Trout Surveys and Monitoring – An important component of the project has been monitoring changes in the wild brown trout populations before and after dam removal in both treatment and control reaches. With the help of partners, PFBC staff conducted electrofishing surveys at the dam removal site in July 2007 before the dam was removed and again in July 2008 one year after removal. Crews also sampled upstream and downstream control reaches in both 2007 and 2008. Similar to other dam removal projects where monitoring has occurred, trout populations are responding positively to the improved habitat, with biomass (weight of trout per surface area) showing about a threefold increase following dam removal
The full report can be found at Fish Commision website site: (click HERE for the report).
 The Water Directly Upstream of the Former McCoy Dam The water directly upstream of the former dam location is tough water to fish at this time of year. The channel is not wide at this point but it is fairly deep and the water is a torrent. The stream is maybe 30-ft wide and averages 2 to 3 feet deep through this section. It is great holding water full of rocks of all sizes that provide great lies for the fish. That said, it is tough to fish because of the swift current. It is great water to employ the ever-popular Czech Nymphing or High-Stick Nymphing techniques.
I nymphed upstream for about 50-yds and picked up 4 fish. Two were on the Walt’s Worm (size 10) and two were on the Pass Lake Wet Fly (size 12). All fish were caught on the dead-drift.
 Pass Lake Wet Fly The Pass Lake is fast becoming a favorite pattern of mine. Spring Creek fish are 100% wild, and to fool two within a few minutes blind with a Pass Lake, puts a stamp of approval on the fly for me. Of course I’ll probably try it again next time and catch nothing on it. Check out my recipe for the Pass Lake HERE. There wasn’t any surface action in the area to speak of – so in hopes of finding some rising fish we moved on to a different spot.
 Nice Brownie on a Walt's Worm We headed to the section of Spring Creek along Spring Creek Road not far upstream from the Rt. 550 Bridge. Blue-Winged-Olives were still hatching – in the late afternoon. Quite a few fish were rising in the pools. We didn’t have much luck though. I managed two on a BWO Barr Emerger – but they must have been the flunkies. The other fish rising were not interested in my offerings. Maybe my casting is a bit rusty from the winter too. So if you plan to get there soon be prepared for size 18 BWO’s.
 BWO Barr Emerger (Click pic for Recipe)
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