Penns Creek Angler
Article July 2009
June was the month for Slate Drakes, Blue Wing Olives and Cahill’s of all different sizes and colors. My favorite is the Orange Cahill with its bright Orange body and Yellowish wings. The fish can’t seem to hold back from rising when one comes floating down their feeding lane. It’s always the same story; if you float the fly correctly it disappears in a swirl. As it goes with the month of June there are many different flies on the water at the same time. There were many people coming to the shop asking what are fish eating. The old saying goes in the month of June if you can see what the fish are rising to its most likely a Blue Wing Olive #18. They are so hard to see even when you get down close to the water and look really hard. One issue with BWO’s is they are so tiny and their wings are so big the wind will blow them to one side of the creek. So the side of the creek you are on may not have any floating flies. You need to get on the side of the creek the wind is blowing the flies. I usually see these flies very near the edges of the creek and also caught in the vegetation on the stream bank. Some nights the spinner falls of BWO’s and Cahill’s were absolutely amazing. You can match the BWO spinner with a #16 Rusty Spinner and the Cahill can be matched with a Cream-Colored Spinner ranging in size from #12-16. There are many different varieties of what we call Cahill’s so you must be prepared with different sizes. This same holds true for sizes of Bwo’s. So far this year has been extremely kind to Penns Creek with great water levels and water temperature. It looks like we will see BWO’s, Cahill’s and Slate Drakes until the middle of July. This is something we must enjoy! The past two years the fishing was mostly over by the middle of June. What really surprises me this year is the conditions are almost perfect but nobody is fishing. Take some time and enjoy Penns in the month of July! I usually stop fishing for trout when the water hits 76 degrees during the day, its just too hard on the trout and they don’t live after you release them. So I move on to other things like small stream brook trout fishing or bass on lower Penn’s and the Susquehanna. I hope everyone has a wonderful summer and don’t forget to get out there and do some trout fishing before the water becomes to warm.
Bruce Fisher
© 2009