March 9, 2016 – A Lot of Driving, Walking, and Casting but not much Catching in NEPA

No fish to hand, so I had plenty of time to use my phone's camera timer.....

I wasn’t sure what to do with my day off today.  I only had to drop the boy off at the bus, and then get him around 5:30 PM after Library Club.  That is a good chunk of fishing time. I could hit another FFO or DHALO within 30 minutes of me, but I have had two 20+ fish days with stocked fish, so I was hoping to do something different.  I could also walk into a wild trout stream and have some fun with little browns and brookies.  I had too many choices on this 80 degree day in March!  I finally made a game day decision to do some exploring. 

I have been hearing about a new section of one of my favorite creeks that has recently been opened to the public.  The surrounding land used to be a resort, long deserted, and the creek there runs cold and fast, like one long riffle this time of year (well, most of the year in fact).  It is now a nature preserve, in theory, though the old resort buildings still stand, a window busted out here and there.  It is currently more of a golf course gone wild with a nice view to a nearly pristine piece of water.  I have heard that the PFBC has a stake in the stretch, but it is not sure what to do with it yet.  There are wild browns throughout the creek, but this stretch doesn’t seem to be good brown trout water, per se.  It is, however, great rainbow water.

I think some rainbow fingerlings would find a nice home here.

I am not sure what the future holds for this section of the creek, but downstream a ways, the fish commission stocks rainbow fingerlings, and that seems like a good plan.  I saw one monstrous fish rise, and I broke off a nice one on a midge, but I don’t think the creek is loaded with a Class A population of wild browns, unless they are all hiding by the banks.  There was plenty of bug life rising all day, from midges to mayflies to stoneflies, but I only saw the one big trout rise to the hatches.  I am glad I saw the creek, and I will return again before I write it off, but today was heavy on driving, walking, and casting, not so much on catching.  At least it was a beautiful day to be on a beautiful piece of water, albeit a piece of water in transition.