Saw them

Finally saw a few little black stoneflies! I think we might have seen them a bit earlier but due to the ice cover on some of our better stonefly streams they have been absent. If there is or was some open water on White Deer or Big Fishing Creek you might have seem them sooner but the strong ice cover and the very low temps has the hatch off a bit. I am not sure what shape Penn  is in as far a ice covering but the stone flies there have never been a good dry fly occurrence but a small black nymph can do the trick. Any way the Spring melt is going well, not torrents of water just a nice melt and freeze at night slow but sure. Be careful if the stream your going to have a load of very cold water it can put the trout off for a few days due to the influx of very cold water. Let's see what Saturday holds with the rain event.
  Mystery solved! A long time ago I remember an event that happened at the "Hepner Hole" the next hole below Station 22 on Penns, Warrant Wolfe caught a very large pickerel while fishing a streamer, he thought it was a giant trout but it turned out not to be a trout but a member of the pike family, I just do not remember what we did with it, just to many years ago. Well for the last 10 years when I have taken my dogs for walks we have found fish and a lot of them in the small run off braid between the Hepner Hole and the Station 22 road, my Trico would just get in there and chase them but we could never really understand what they were, I have talked to several other guys and they all had the same story. This winter hat a Spring Creek Chapter of TU meeting I was talking to a PA Fish Comm. biologist about the health of Penns and told him about the trapped fish turn out they are juvenile pickerel and that they need to be given flying lessons, mystery solved. If you get a hell of a strike and think you have a monster maybe you just hooked another pickerel!