Two Nights on Penns

The first night on Penns was a wonderful evening calm with pleasant temp's and bugs all over. Scanned the entire pool and determined that the big boys were up mid pool, water is low and easy to get around to comfortable casting distance for all the rising fish. Got into position and waited till the boys were up because the smallmouth are also up and a pain when your looking for something larger. Took the first one on a sulphur emerger and he was a very big boy, good fish and very good weight. Got into position for the second one and now had a BWO emerger on, well this boy was harder than the first one but got him and well let me tell you he did not coperate at all giving me all I could handle on a 3wt rod but finaly he came to hand, wow what a really nice brown, gave him a kiss as I bit the fly off because he was hooked really well and I did not want to fuss getting the fly out. Had to take a few min's to calm down and look for the next guy to cast to, well it did not take long for another guy to begin to rise, put another Drunella (Cornuta) emerger on and after the 3rd drift over him he took BUT I pulled the dam fly out before he turned to go down! It's like getting buck fever when it happens. No more guys up that were showing signs of being good fish, still a really lot of small dimples showing. Went back to shore and looked up stream and saw that the riffles and just below them was alive with risng fish so tied on a #16 Drunella spinner and picked out a good fish, well it took about 10 drifts over him to get him to take and after a really good fish had him in hand, another good fish, that was just the cherry on top, time to stop and just be happy with the evening. On the drive home the road was filled with at least a billion spinners on the road till about Little Mt. Road but the raod then goes away from the creek but I am sure the sky was just filled with spinners stream wide. This year the spinners seem to be on the smaller side, most years they are about a size #15 with a kink in their body but this year i got a ton of them in the car as I drove home with the window down and had pleanty of time to look them over when I got home and took a bunch to the tying bench. Well went another night a few days later and decided to get into position for the 3 really fine fish just below the riffles, these guys and I have a few years under our belt with most years them winning the battle. All of them were up but not in any kind of good rythm yet, they were on emergers and of course that is what I put on, well the lower fish was eager to eat and he did, a really good solid fish who gave a great fight. Some ass hole of course had to come in just above me and begin to cast, well he caught a smaller fish above me and played the shit out of it and released it BUT it ended up belly up in front of me! Not happy with this kind of half ass fishing, learn to fight your fish fast and relaese them alive not spent. Well the two other really good fish were getting hotter and hotter and the night settled in. The closer fish came up for my emerger and GD I gave him the atomic hook set, just taking the fly out of his mouth before him turned to go back down. These fish have been stung before and know how to keep their mouth open till they turn to go back down so it is a slow hook set for them. So 1 out of three is ok so it's back to the really good one in the seam, this time I had a #16 black spent wing on and waited till he was in a good rythm and moving upstream and he does, he starts lower and keeps eating as he moves upstream, well he took and I gently set the hook and all hell broke loose, a great bend in the rod followed by violent head shakes and a run that resulted in a SNAP and gone! At 75 sometimes my knot tying is not the best and this time I got a curled leader end to show that I did not infact tie a good knot! After that I went to the bank and smiled, decided to just go home and lick my wounds. I have a half ass picture of one of the ones from the first night that I will include but I will tell you that trying to take pictures with a camera while your fighting and landing a fish is a total cluster f--k, I amy going back to my GoPro.

The Drunella (Cornuta) will be on the stream for a bit longer but the lower water conditions has condensed the emergence and will tend to shorten the duration. Look for the ISO's to come early as will the larger cream/oranger duns. Be aware that the gypsy moths are all ovr and a catapillar pattern will be a good choice to have ans will ants and beetles.