April 5, 2023 – I Picked a Hot One to Do the Seventeen Hour Tour – Mifflin County

On the board before sunrise.

It was a longshot at this time of year, I know, but I pitched a meet-up with Sam for this week, fully expecting that he would be guiding most if not all of the week.  At the time he had Tuesday and Wednesday as possibilities, but then he picked up a guide trip for Tuesday.  Wednesday it became.  However, when I called him on Tuesday evening about a plan for Wednesday, he’d been contacted by an old friend and OG fishing mentor who was in the area staying on Penns—Sam had forgotten this was happening and wasn’t even sure if this buddy was fishing alone or with even more dudes.  Anyway, instead of being a third or fifth wheel (and meeting at 10:30 AM on a hot day) I decided to do my own thing.  I was glad I talked to Sam, however, because the place I had in mind was probably barely wadable at this time of year even with lower average flows throughout the region.  He mentioned a couple other spots that might fish well, creeks that weren’t the same old same old Spring Creek, for example, and one was in a place I had never fished.  It is a watershed with three rather distinct creeks with Class A populations of browns and even some stockers, so on a hot day in April I hit all three before making the return trip home.  Here is my rather swampy and, especially from 2 to 6 PM, very fishy adventure.  Warning: it is hard to boil twelve hours of fishing down to 500 words or less!

Not hot yet, but it was coming.  Sexy crick but a bit dirty still.

I was on the road by 3:30 AM and suited up to fish by 6:30 AM, just before sunrise.  I parked in a community picnic area that sits on Creek 1, which is a limestone tributary of the main branch I planned to target, and just above the confluence with this main branch.  Having never fished any of these creeks, I wanted to see how large this tributary was, especially if I was considering fishing an even smaller tributary later in the day.  Creek 1 had some color but was very wadable.  I noted some holes and pocket water upstream but chose to cross the creek and walk down a road to the confluence.  There were a couple cars and trucks parked near the main creek—let’s call it Creek 2—but they ended up being bait and gear guys.  One dude beat me to the junction pool, so I got the kinks out by fishing a run just above the final pool before it enters the main branch.  Well, a cast or two in, and I already had my first of many wild browns from this medium sized creek.  These first four were decent 10- or 11-inch fish too, but this same creek offered much nicer fish after lunch—this same hole offered three more bows just before lunch too!

Fish were caught at Creek 2, but I want to revisit when conditions are better.

After catching some fish on Creek 1, I finally got a look at Creek 2, and it looked pretty dirty.  I had checked the gage, and flows were low compared to most Aprils, but I guess dirty runoff was still making its way out of the system.  That was a benefit at Creek 1 later in day, and Creek 3, which we’ll get to eventually was a true spring creek, so barely impacted by runoff, anyway—a little color here surely helped my success at the end of the day, however.  A few gear guys were camped out near town, so I took the longer walk into the gorge along an unimproved roadway or rail trail.  Let’s call this main stem through these narrows a sort of blue collar Penns Creek.  It got me excited like the Brodhead gorge too, although the substrate here was different and, because it featured large geometric rocks over the round Brodhead boulders, was slightly more wadable (in late May and June, especially, I bet).  I say blue collar because trash was everywhere, and the constant hum of highway traffic, sometimes on both sides and on overpasses above, hardly offered a peaceful experience.  The creek itself was sexy, however.  With the sun now up, I was disappointed at how dirty the creek appeared, and I was not prepared.  While I had three rods in the car, now a half a mile away, including a streamer rod and my 10’6” 4 weight, I was carrying my 10’ 3 weight.  I decided I was here and should take the walk and see some of the gorge for next time, a scouting mission if nothing else before it got too hot for all that walking.  

A hot holdover from Creek 2.

Well, four hours and many steps and climbs later, I did land a big, hot holdover bow and three small wild browns.  I tangled with one bigger brown for a few moments before he bolted under an upended tree—the creek and banks were full of such flotsam and jetsam.  I saw some other big fish lairs and some places, even today, where I would have loved to have dropped a heavy jigged bugger.  It was already hot, and my water was done, so I lost a layer of clothes and decided to make the walk back.  Even though I was hungry and thirsty, I still had to stop and fish some holes closer to the confluence for another hour, I bet, and I landed five more stockers from Creek 2 and even three more stockers in the first hole on Creek 1 where I fished before sunrise—it’s a sickness I have sometimes.  I eventually sat at an actual picnic table in the shade and had lunch in the warm breezes.  An iced coffee, a refill of my packable water bottle, a check of some maps for potential posted land and another access point or two, and I dove into Creek 1 once again.

It got silly after a lunch break on Creek 1 (again).

And this is when it got silly.  I guess I had paid my dues all morning, even though I had caught a dozen fish, but after lunch I had a bonkers afternoon.  I had seen tan caddis flying and grannoms crawling on the rocks thus far, so I rigged with a caddis larva on the point and a size 16 CDC soft hackle on the dropper.  I proceeded to catch at least ten fish, some of them in no more than ankle deep riffles, some of them pushing 14 inches in length too.  Once I got through a short stretch of this shallow pocket water, the water clarity on Creek 2 was also a challenge to nymph.  Still carrying that 10’ 3 wt. stick, and now fishing a micro mono leader for the small bugs, I resisted rigging up again to toss a bugger or a bobber in some deeper holes upstream and instead decided to check out one last creek in this system.  I could not complain about nearly a dozen beautiful fish in 90 minutes or less of post-lunch fishing, and I was excited to carry this momentum into the next new target.  Knowing nothing about any of these cricks, I was pretty pleased with myself to be quite honest…. 

Some chunks in that long riffle!

I had almost forgotten how quiet and clean it was on Creek 1 compared to the main branch, but after parking for Creek 3, I was reintroduced to the constant hum and flash of passing cars and the trash again.  Like Creek 2, however, the creek itself was sexy despite the proximity to civilization.  I was lucky enough to find good parking and a decent stretch of creek that wasn’t posted, so despite my comment above about feeling cocky, I was actually feeling quite grateful for my good fortune on this daylong DIY excursion.  Creek 3 was the icing on the cake.  It is a true spring creek as you may notice from the pictures.  There is a good drop in elevation, however, so in addition to boggy conditions there was also some pocket water and stretches that played right into my nymphing strengths.  I decided to keep fishing the same bugs on that long micro leader.  There was a truck parked in the siding, but the dude was not fishing, just taking a break.  He shared that he did not even know if there were still fish in this creek—although in rural speak this often means no stockers to eat.  

The prom king and queen on a gorgeous spring creek.

On that note....  Always has to be one somewhere!

I just wanted to catch one, and I did in the second hole I targeted.  This hen was one of the most gorgeous fish I have ever seen; that is until I caught an even prettier buck upstream a quarter mile.  All of the fish here were colored up and beautiful.  Before I ran into private land, I notched another dozen trouts, some of them quite large for a creek barely 10 feet wide.  On the return trip I even ended up with a stocker, which I would have given to dude for dinner!  The bow was in a deep, manmade (or TU improved) hole right by the parking spot where I was shocked that I hadn’t landed a fish the first time.  In the shadows and sun glare of 6 PM, I could not tell right away if this fish was a bow or a brown.  It jumped twice in a row right into the sunlight.  It was a bow, and on that note, I figured this was a good way to end things.  Of course, I had to walk downstream and catch two more little wild browns below the parking spot.  When I eventually pulled myself away from the stream, I was going to drive back into town and prep for home in the community park again, but I braved the car noise one last time and readied where I was for the long ride home.  I ran the air conditioning to de-swamp but not the radio for the first hour, just grateful for the silence and the space to replay a day of many highlights.

Small bugs and bonus shots from Creek 3 of 3.