Penns Creek and the Bale Eagle

Fished Penns Creek last week and was treated to a companion who was just watching me, a mature Bald Eagle sat in a stream side tree and observed me all the while bitching at me, only when I moved upstream did it leave. I fished below Coburn, just above Stan's bridge using #12 Chez nymphs and a #18 Pheasant Tail nymph as a trailer, took fish on both and neither seemed to out fish the other. Moved upstream to the next soft riffle and it became apparent that this was sucker heaven. None of the fish were in bad post spawn shape and seemed to be on a moderate feed, more typical of mid December.
  I did forget to mention last week that Spring Creek is filled with wood debris from Sandy which will help the survival of our juvenile trout for the winter. The amount of wood that is held in the stream as been shown to greatly effect small trout over the winter season, this gives them somewhere to hide and feed in peace, not worry about what flies or swims and has them on the menu. Looking at Penns I see the same debris and hope that we do not have a blow out to move this material out, the next time your out take a look at this and observe the amount of small fish using the cover. I need to take a look at Cherry Run but feel this also has received a good amount of storm debris.
  I did notice that most of the Penns browns were in the softer seams and not in the mid riffle lies that we normally find them, this is a normal winter pattern and will become more of a factor as the water cools. For now lets leave them alone and have a good holiday season with our families.

Dec 2012 Post Spawn not quite yet

State College 68 degrees on Dec 4th, Spring Creek @ 51.8 degrees and the fish are still spawning. Looks as if the 2012 spawn has been a very good one by the number of redds you can see and the pairs still going strong.Did not see any really big pairs but enough of the 12 thru 15" class fish that makes it worth going. At 10:00 AM the midges and olives were going strong and the fish also. Not the typical winter olive hatch but they were eating them, midges seemed to be less important. If you floated it to them they would eat not any really nice fish but still for Dec 4 not bad at all. I used one dry fly a #24 loop wing olive emerger, did not have any refusals! I do not think that the trout have taken their typical winter lies at this time but it also does not appear that they are on the post spawn feed. I did take a few skinny males that really needed some extra calories! Did not bother to fish scuds, too dam many people in the good nymph water- just too nice! I'm looking for a nice drizzle or soft snow fall to bring the olives in mass before the Jan/Feb turn off occurs.
  Heard a few reports that Cherry Run was full of really nice 12-16" sized browns from the new Cherry Run bridge to the new bridge at Ole Mingle, we had a good flow of water that allowed them to ascend and spawn. I hope none of the locals took any of them, they are our future!