Penns Creek Angler
Article Feb 2009
Winter Fishing
Winter fishing is very demanding; its cold and dangerous if the water is high like it is this year. Don’t get me wrong I think the some best fishing on Penns Creek can occur during the months of Feb, March and April. With all the fantastic hatches these months can be everything an angler can want. First there are no crowds and solitude can be found everywhere except the spots everyone knows there is easy access. You will see black stoneflies, Blue Quills, Quill Gordon’s and the famous Hendrickson hatches. The stream is alive with larva of all the flies listed above. To add to this the Golden Stonefly is a year round producer of larger fish. I fish them 3 at a time under a strike indicator. My experience has taught me the bottom fly (point fly) is taken by the trout in this colder water. At this time of year the flies must be fished slowly and come down the creek as natural as possible. One way to get a better drift is to use a longer rod. I have two rods that I fish during the winter. One is a 10ft 5 weight and the other is a 12.5ft 7 weight. These longer rods can give you perfect drifts up to 40-50 feet. Because my drifts are so long I can fish downstream and not worry about disturbing the fish. As a matter of fact it may even help to fish downstream. When an angler fishes downstream he or she dislodges nymphs that are under the rocks. I don’t shuffle because the noise would scare the fish I’m trying to catch and I try not to disturb the rocks all that much. After all these nymphs will hatch in a few months and I want them to survive for some dry fly action. Look at it this way if you have a 10ft rod with 15 ft of line past the tip and another 8 ft of leader and 3 ft of tippet you can get a 36 ft drift upstream and 36 ft down stream. That’s huge when you think about how much water you can cover in one cast. Your mending and control over the drift is your edge to hook fish that spook very easily. The fish during the winter will be under the ice and floating a nymph along the edge can produce fish. Or they might lie just where the water slows down after a fast water section. Don’t over look the edges of the creek if it’s not too frozen over with shelf ice, old browns love undercut banks. I went out one day in January and got three fish in 20 minutes and called it quits I was frozen. But the fish were there and they were hungry. Always fish with a partner, use a wading staff and fish with respect for the creek and ice. Keep you eye open for shelf ice that has broken away from the bank it can be very dangerous if you are facing downstream. I cant wait for the first nice day over 50 degrees!
“Catch you later”
Bruce Fisher
© 2009