Afternoon on Neshannock

Since I couldn’t go to Central PA, I began looking for afternoon and day trip opportunies closer to home.  It turned out the heavy rain missed Western PA, but provided enough water to cool the streams and bring water levels up to normal from levels.  On Thursday of two weeks ago, I headed to Neshannock creek in hopes of catching the brown drake hatch.  I got there I didn’t see any bugs on the water, but there were a ton of bugs in the air.  I saw a number of rises and quickly began casting a dry fly to the rise forms.  I started catching shiners and creek chubs.  It turned out the trout were not really rising.  As the afternoon faded into evening, I saw a couple of trout sporadically rise, but couldn’t bring any to the surface.  All I had to show for my trip were a few shiners and creek chubs… it was a real disappointment.  

  

Plan B

Two weeks ago I was supposed to be trout fishing in central PA while my wife was in DC, that didn’t happen.  Since I was stuck at home with no responsibility after work, I went fishing and fished until dark thirty.  I fished four bodies of water in an evening.  First I fished the river near my house and caught a couple of creek chubs and smallies.  Then I headed to a small tributary of the river near where I was fishing and picked off some fish with a distinct black lateral line and a small creek sunfish on dry flies. 

 From there it was off to a local pond for blue gills on dry flies, then another small creek near the pond.  The final destination was a second pond about a quarter mile from the first.  When it got too dark to fish, I headed out for dinner.  The fishing was great.  I caught more fish than could count, bass, blue gill, and small stream fish on dries and streamers.    It was a great evening.

Rained out

I was supposed to go to central PA last week to chase the green drake hatch on Penns, but it started raining on Sunday and rained all week blowing out all of the central PA streams.  I was bummed.  The next time I will be able to go to central PA is at least a week or so into June.  The Drakes will be gone and who knows if there will be any kind of hatch and if the weather will cooperate.  I sure hope I can chase some central PA trout this season, but it’s not looking good.

Bluegills on dry flies

After a long day studying civil procedure I had hit the wall.   As I was reading the material, my mind would wonder, I was reading and understanding each word as I read it but I could not remember what I had read when I finished a sentence.  It was about an hour before my wife would be home for dinner so it seemed like a good idea to take a little break.  It was gorgeous outside, so I decided I’d take a little break before dinner to clear my head so I could get the most out of studying after dinner.  I decided to go to a pond down the street from my house where I could toss some dry flies at bluegill for a little while.  I’ve never fished for bluegills with a fly rod and I wanted to work on dry fly techniques to prepare for trout fishing in PA.  I had great fun!  It was nonstop action; I must have caught fifty fish in like a half hour.  It was like fishing for gills with a bobber and worms as a kid.  I even caught a couple of juvenile largemouth bass on an ant pattern.  When my wife called for me to meet her for dinner, I felt the same kind of “just a few more casts” feeling I had as a kid when my mom would whistle from the house for me to come in for dinner on a summer evening.          

Escape

After my Constitutional Law exam I was mentally exhausted.  My brain felt like scrambled eggs.  There were three days between the Con. Law exam and the Civ. Pro. exam.  That sounds like a lot of time to study until I realized how much material I had to cover in three short days.  I had intended to begin studying for Civ. Pro. when I finished the  Con. Law exam.  I just didn’t have it in me.  It was 92 degrees out and sunny.  When I got home from the exam, the man cave was hot as hell.  I was in there for less than five minutes and I was already sweating.  There was only one thing I could do, I dropped the book bag, grabbed my rod and headed to the river to recharge the batteries.  The water was at spring steelhead flows, a little less than 300 CFS, and had some color to it.  I fished some big streamers to see if I could catch a monster bass.  After fishing through two pools with only one follow and no takes I switched it up.  I worked through a few more runs and pools without any takes.  It was about to leave for dinner, I had time enough to walk up stream and make a few more cast over a tailout that ALWAYS holds fish and fishes well from spring through fall.  By the time I got there and changed files I only had time for two or three casts.  On the third and last cast, I hooked into a respectable small mouth saving the day from the skunk.