OK I know we needed a bit of moisture but gees, I measured 3.2" in my back yard rain gauge this morning and Penns is running 4600 cfs at the recording station in Penns Creek. We all know that our brown and brook trout need a flush to remove leaves and debries that have collected on or near good spawning gravel but not quite this much. The weather is to turn colder and that will bring down the water temps to a more desirable level to get the fish going. Our annual trout red survey on Spring Creek is Nove 12 and in past years this has been a good time to observe them and get a good count on the number of redds but it also gives us an idea if they are still on the redds or if they are over when we are there. Last year we saw a lot of empty redds but a good number of them, we are very careful to not spook them and try to stay out of the water as much as we can. In Penns it is pretty hard to get a good count of the number of redds but if you take a walk below Coburn and really get up on high ground you'll be able to spot a few and get a sense of just how big some of these guys are. Big Fishing Creek is another ideal stream to spot spawning fish BUT these guys are really spooky! I have seen some really big fish here, some that are New Zealand size. As with any of these guys please don't fish for them because we need every one of their offspring to grow up and become and adult for us to enjoy. Years ago we did fish for some of them and found that normally you can catch the males that hang around the edges of the redds but not the main pair, you will be amazed at how big some of the females are.
As a side note it is a great time if you can to remove some debris or stone that might be blocking streams like Cherry Run or Panther Run in order for the fish to ascend them to spawn.
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