I Just Had to Fish

I could not stand it any longer the sweet song of Penns just was getting louder and louder "fish me"!! So last Friday I decided to give it a try all 45 cfs of it, got there about 10:30 AM and walked to the stream with thermos in hand, just looking for any sign of life and low and behold there they were one after another slow easy rising fish from the soft water below the riffles to the mid point on the hole (the bottom of the hole was getting battered by the wind), up and in a good rhythm. Ok had my coffee and pissed a few times then back up to the car, got dressed and only took two boxes of flies with me, my Wheatly midge/Trico and my Olive emerger box, decided to try a #22 Olive emerger pattern, well that was the only fly that I used, it took every trout it floated over IF THE FLOAT WAS GOOD! In an hour I had 10 browns not big maybe 7" to 12" most were in good shape but the larger ones were skinny, did move some larger fish as I tried to either get into a better position or if I floated it over one of them and began to lift it off to cast again they took off like shots. All this time the sun was not on the water, I might have had the same result if I had used a Griffits Gnat but who knows the Olive worked well, slow determined rising fish usually tells me it is a hatching dun. I did not see any evidence of spawing fish nor were any of the landed fish colored up at that time. The water level is a sad site to see, we need rain badly. I think that I could have taken some of the larger guys if I had taken my 7 weight and run a large black streamer thru the pool but I was happy with the results.
  This Sunday the 20th is the annual Spring Creek TU redd count on Spring Creek, the fish are in active spawn now and it will be interesting to see just how the low water conditions will affect the numbers that we will see, it is to be windy and cold, just perfect for walking the stream and counting, followed up with hot coffee and hot dogs in the park!