Monday
I left home at 10:00am after packing the car and gassing up. I made what was supposed to be a quick stop for lunch that wound up taking over a half hour because of slow service. I arrived in State College at 2:00pm. I checked into my hotel, stopped at TCO fly shop to get some flies and headed to the creek. By the time I got geared up and into the water, I only had an hour or two of daylight left to fish. I caught a small trout right out of gates. I continued to work up stream and had another fish on and off before the darkness settled in. I headed back to the hotel, dropped my gear and went into town to get dinner. Not a bad first day.
First fish to play
I fished at Benner Springs the first day
Tuesday
Early morning air temps were in the teens and twenties so I woke at a normal hour and had breakfast before heading to the fly shop and back to the creek. I was in the water by 10:00 when the air began to warm. I fished hard and it was tough going. I worked through a good stretch of water and had not even spooked a fish. I fished until dark and only managed two fish and a couple of others on and off. I figured this is how it is in the winter, you have to work for the few fish you do catch. Monday I thought it was going to be easy; by Tuesday night I knew it was going to be tough to put some fish in the net.
Beautiful Spring Creek
Score, I was on the board!
Scrappy little guy, thought it was twice the size.
Wednesday
After a quick breakfast, I headed out a little earlier because it was a bit warmer. I checked out of the hotel and headed to the fly shop. I grabbed some flies and got directions to another access point way down stream of where I’d been fishing. As I was driving to the creek from the fly shop my dashboard lit up like Las Vegas Boulevard, the check engine light was flashing and the car shook when I tried to accelerate. This was bad, very bad. I pulled into the mall and shut the car off for a moment and restarted it to see if somehow, magically, that would fix the problem. It was wishful thinking. My car had a serious problem, I had a serious problem. I couldn’t make it to the creek. My last day of fishing was ruined! That bothered me the most, but I had bigger problems. I was supposed to drive home that evening. I thought to myself, how am I going to get the car fixed? Is there a VW dealer in State College? Can they fix my car today? Will they take me to the creek to fish while they fix my car? As thoughts swirled through my mind a plan began to take shape.
I called the hotel and had them look up the closest WV dealership, as luck would have it there was a VW dealer on the far side of town. Armed with the phone number to the VW dealer, I called and spoke to a woman named Kacie at the service desk. Kacie tells me how to get to the dealership and says she’ll try to get my car on the diagnostic machine, but she is booked solid and may not be able to get to me. I drive my crippled car to the dealer, taking a couple of wrong turns on the way. When I got there I turned the car over to Kacie and she tells me she’s moved a few things around to fit me in. She was awesome! I left the car there and grabbed a rent a car to head to the creek while VW worked on my car. I was in the water by noon. I love it when a plan comes together. I was thinking to myself this worked out pretty well. My car is getting fixed while I fish the afternoon away. I thought I handled the whole mess pretty well… At about 3:00 or 3:30 I get a call from Kacie with bad news. My car needs new coils and they don’t have them in stock. They can get them in the morning, fix my car and get me out by 5:00. This was less than ideal, but it was manageable. I called home to let everybody know what had happened and that I would be delayed a day while my car was fixed.
In the three plus hours I was on the water, I hadn’t caught any trout. Shortly after the bad news was revealed karma seemed to shine on me. In a short stretch of water I caught countless fish. I counted six and then they started coming to the net too quickly to keep track of and I lost count. After thinking about it and looking at the pictures, I think I caught 12 or more fish and lost several others. Most fish were a very good size, over 14”. All of the fish I had caught on this creek in the past were between 8” – 14”, so these were some good sized fish. I was on fire; this was the best fishing of the trip. I guess it was the silver lining in the dark cloud that was the mechanical problem with my car.
The money spot!
Bam!
Bam!
Bam! (Take notice of the the split pectoral fin on this fish)
...another nice brownie
Spring Creek brownies think cress bugs are yummy
Last fish of the day
As the sun set the temperature dropped below freezing, my net froze in this position and stood upright
After the best day of fishing I had seen in a long time, I checked back into the hotel. They actually gave me the same room I had been in the previous two nights. I thought that was kind of funny. I went out for a nice steak dinner and settled in for the night. The plan for Thursday was to fish until the car was done and then drive home before the snow began to fall.
Thursday
I was checked out hotel by 8:30, made a quick stop at the fly shop, and was on the road to the creek by 9:00am. Kacie was going to call me when the parts arrived, which she did. She told me the parts delivery came in and they only had one of the six coils my car needed. She continued to say they called every dealership within a six hour drive to see if they could get the needed coils with no luck. The parts were on back order until the following Tuesday. I was stuck without a car until they could get the parts.
I decided to take these lemons and make lemonade. I went back to fishing for the day and decided I would deal with the situation when I was done for the day, then drive the rental car home that afternoon. I was there for an extra day. I decided I was going to make good use of the day despite the crummy circumstances.
I’m glad I decided to stay and fish because I had another stellar day of fishing with 12 fish landed and several others hooked and lost. Again on this day, most of the fish brought to the net were big stream bred trout. I caught a several fish that I’m sure were 16” plus, and one that was so big I decided it actually needed to be measured. This fish taped out at 18” and was a beautiful trophy wild brown trout.
Chalk up the first fish for the bonus day on the creek
Another pretty fish
...and another
Trophy fish in the bag
18 beautiful inches of angry brown trout
As I was removing the fly from the trophy fish, it thrashed about in the net and lodged the dropper fly deep in my left index finger. Here I was tethered to this trophy fish by 5x tippet; I did what any self-respecting angler would do I cut the tippet from the fly in my finger, then proceeded to remove the fly from the fish, get a few pictures of this beauty, and get a measurement before releasing the fish. When the fish was safely returned to the creek I had a fly to remove from my finger. This fish was well worth getting stung. I was too preoccupied taking the hook out of my finger to think of taking a picture... wish I had.
I’ve been fishing since I was in kindergarten, and I have never had a hook embedded in me up to the hook bend so that the barb was fully buried in my flesh as this one was. Sure I’ve pricked myself on the hook point plenty of times in the past, but nothing like this. I always have a first aid kit in the car, but I never carry it on me unless I am going to be too far from the car to return should I need first aid. Fortunately, I had placed a band aid in my jacket pocket just in case a cuticle cracked and began to bleed from the cold and wet conditions; this happened to me on Tuesday and was a mess. Armed with nothing more than a hemostat and a band aid I pulled the hook free and bandaged the wound so that I could get back to business and catch more trout!
On the next cast, I hooked into another nice fish. After releasing that fish, I quickly hooked into another hungry trout. When I landed it, I noticed a unique marking on its pectoral fin. I had seen this marking before. I had caught this fish on Wednesday. This was confirmed by the pictures. I caught a couple of other fish and lost a few more, but none were very special and the time for me to head to the car dealer and the rent a car place had arrived. I caught and released one last 14 incher and decided to pack it in. I arranged to have the rent a car for a week so I could drive home, and would have a car when I start school on Monday, then I will have to drive back to State College to get my car on Friday of next week.
Small flies were getting it done
...and they just kept on coming
Wait a minute, I've seen you before.
I'm that good or the fish is that dumb... I think fish is that dumb. Notice the split pectoral fin and look at the picture from Wednesday above. Same unique marking, same dumb fish.
Last good fish I got a picture of on the bonus day before I headed for home.
Fish the bubble lines
I was on the road back to Cleveland by 6:00pm after extending my car rental for the week. I drove about 30 miles when traffic was backing up so I got off at an exit that was right before the last car sitting in the back up. I ate dinner, got some gas, and changed into some sweats. While at dinner, I spoke to a cop who said there was an accident about 20 miles West of where we were. He suggested that it should be all cleaned up in the next half hour based on what he had heard over the radio. I waited around for a little while and got back on the road. Traffic was flowing fine, but the snow had picked up. The snow got worse and worse as I approached the peak elevation in the Alleghenies. At its worst, I could hardly see the car in front of me and traffic was creeping along at 20 miles per hour. As I went down the mountain, the snow persisted, but was less intense. It snowed the rest of the way home, but I was able to go between 60-75 mph so I still made decent time. I arrived home at 11:00pm. A drive that should have taken 3 and a half or 4 hours took 5 hours because of that accident and the snow.
Moving 20 mph in a snow storm at the highest point on I-80. If you look real carefully, you'll be able to make out the tail lights of the vehicles in front of me. Funny thing, it snowed in this same location on the return from my last trip to State College in May.
This trip was a quite the adventure. The fishing was amazing, and there was some adversity to overcome. In the end, I did what I went there to do. I caught many beautiful and wild brown trout. I never let the car problems, the cold, or the snow get me down or ruin the fishing. Things didn’t work out exactly as I had first planned, but it worked out well in the end. I’ll be sure to get some bonus fishing in when I drive back to get my car next Friday!
