December 28, 2023 – I Didn’t Let a LOT of Water Completely Spoil My Plans – Two or Three Central PA Spring Creeks

A real looker who needs to recover from a rough rutting season.

I feel like I have been waiting for the larger creeks in the state to come down for weeks now.  With three large rain events in a row, I guess I am not exaggerating either.  I had off some days this week and had already fished some smaller cricks this month that can be productive in winter, so I was hoping that this latest coastal storm would stay coastal.  I was planning to head west and catch a break since flows had been good but still fishable.  Not a chance.  In fact, this last storm seemed to send bands of showers for close to 40 hours straight.  I was even going to meet Sam today if possible, but warm weather in the winter makes him popular, so I knew yesterday that he could not fun fish if dudes were willing to pay him for his company.  Heck, he may have even guided where I fished to end the afternoon—and that might explain why it was such a challenge.  Not that all three creeks I fished today were not challenging. 

Only my second visit to this beauty spring crick.

I don’t find high water in winter to be the feed-inducing events they are at other times of the year.  My five fish all day is either a testament to that or a testament to my pigheaded decision to stick with the plan and figure it out today against the odds.  Worms are probably dug deep to avoid saturated or frozen soil, terrestrials are hibernating and not getting washed into the water, YOY are eggs right now, and midges are hard to pick out in a cloud of debris.  I did not fish an egg, but I should have.  I just have a thing against eggs, I guess.  A dead drifted bugger will often due, but the stars have to align.  I did swing one of Eric’s streamers in a muddy, medium sized limestoner for 45 minutes, hoping for a grab, but that only netted two average wild browns and a few half-hearted bumps.  A brook trout ate another of Eric’s small marabou concoctions later in the afternoon at my third crick and probably fifth stop of the long day.

Hoping for more and larger, of course

I did manage to land a beautiful small stream fish of about 14 inches or more on actual bugs at my first stop of the morning.  This creek is a true spring creek—my first of two real spring creeks of the day—so it was rather clear even though it was pushing a ton of water.  Unfortunately, there is just not enough real estate to make a day out of it.  A couple honey holes sit right in backyards and, while not posted, I have always felt odd back there when folks are home (like now during the holidays, you know?).  Because it is winter, I may have spent an hour in one deep bridge hole, and no one needs to see that as they eat their pancakes.  I took a drive to try and pick up another hour of fishable water, but after a couple farms, the creek seems to fizzle as far as fishy looking water, even if I was willing to bushwhack through the scrublands.  I did fish a short stretch with deep water again but with no new results.  That prompted me to see if the creek this one feeds was getting any clearer.  It was lower than when I first looked at it first thing in the morning, but it was still mighty dirty.

B/W kind of day.  

Nevertheless, I decided to test whether or not I could have a streamer day this particular late-December day.  I took a walk to some deeper holes, but the ground was so saturated and the banks so steep that staying in the water felt iffy.  Waist-deep muddy water in December is not all that inviting.  I backtracked instead and fished some pocket water that I knew rather well, having fished it at least once or twice before in the recent past.  I knew the depth was pretty uniform and that I could wade downstream and swing a streamer without taking a cold, muddy swim.  I also knew that, at least in spring and early summer, it held some nice fish.  I did catch a couple average browns smacking the streamer down close to the bank and letting it swing.  I was pretty confident after catching those two fish that something larger might grab the big bugger, but by the time I reached the end of the riffles, I had only two more bumps that felt like little nippers.  A dude tossing a spinner was at the end of the line, so I decided to take a half hour drive further west while the short winter day was still young-ish.

Another ride, another county, another spring creek.

If I were going to meet Sam in Centre County, this next creek I had in mind would have been on the short list.  In fact, he had fished it on Tuesday this week, I believe.  Spring Creek itself still looked dirty if not blown out—I picked a great day for a three hour ride, yeah?—or I might have added a fourth creek to my list today.  The ride through the mountains above Happy Valley was something to see with the weird weather and clouds.  Rain was falling at the tops of all the slopes even if it was not hitting the ground, so I enjoyed the views even if nothing else came of this extra effort.  When I arrived at my destination, I was pleased that this smaller spring creek had some visibility.  However, below the large springs where I had intended to start fishing, it was cranking water from weeks of wet weather.  I tried fishing the edges of current and one deeper hole before taking a ride upstream to end my afternoon.  I had not fished this particular section in years, but it looked pretty much the same and intact.  There was probably more color up here from runoff, ironically enough, but the flows looked as fishable as the first creek I had fished this morning, so I was somewhat encouraged by what I saw. 

Yeah, a brook trout...

I did not think scuds or larva would show up too well in the colored-up water, so I went with smaller dark bugs for a while before noticing that it was nearing 3:30 PM.  Potentially having only an hour left of fishing, I tied on a marabou bugger that Eric had handed me the last time we were out.  Maybe black would do it on a cloudy, drizzly day.  Well, the only hit I got while fishing some really nice-looking spots, spots I remembered catching fish—or more likely watching Sam catch fish—was a skinny brook trout of about 10 inches.  This creek is not stocked, but it runs through towns and backyards, so I never say never.  I am not aware that the creek supports brookies.  Besides, if pressed I would have said stocker based on other evidence.  He was shaped like a wild winter fish and was pretty small to be stocked this spring.  Either way, this was the only fish I landed in a Class A wild brown trout stream before deciding to save some daylight to prep for my long ride home.   Had I driven an hour in the winter and caught 5 fish, including a small stream prize of a wild brown, I would have said, “Okay, an average winter day on the water.”  I tried to keep that perspective as I drove home in more rain showers.  I fished all of these creeks in a different season for the first time, so that is a good experience to have when learning a creek.  I still have a ton of big stoneflies just dying to hang up on the bottom of some big winter streams, but it will be another week or more before this latest deluge washes out.  I’d prefer snow next time, yo.

Some bonus shots.