Fishing 8/28/09

Rich (fish guru) Neiley and I went on a little scouting mission.  We had heard reports of a spring creek in the area of Horseheads NY that held trout rumored to be from 15" to 30".  We found the spring creek.  It starts as many outflows or "freshets" near Horseheads.  The pic above is a large spring pond.  It's super clear and we saw extremely LARGE fish in it.  Mostly carp (of the spring creek "blue trout" kind), very large bass, and lots of pickerel.  These fish where uber-spooky.  We are sure that a few resident trout still live in here.  Except we couldn't see far enough to the backside of this pond to sight them out.  We could not fish this pond since it's 'kids 15 and under' fishing.  Lots of fish Redd depressions in the water with a bass living in the bottom of the depression.  Lots of minnows and fry.....  Super clear water (a touch milky in spots).  Nice to see an pond with such natural reproduction in it.  Very impressed that this pond held so many large fish.  BUT... we had a mission to accomplish.  We followed the outflow and it is a spring creek! Reports of habitat building for trout was completed on this creek.  I'm sure we didn't walk along it enough to find the structures or the trout.  In some spots a small 3 to 4 foot wide pool was the largest part of the creek.  It runs through very swampy and brushy areas that we could not fish.  (and sighting of big black snakes... so Rich and I wasn't about to trek through a swamp with snakes... NOoooooo way!)  The brush was "old growth" and way too thick to get into to fish.  So it was kinda a bust of a trip.  But the spring creek does exsist!  Which was pretty cool to find.  There are not many spring creeks in our neck of the woods and it's a little gem of a creek.  I'm sure a few bruiser trout live in this tiny trickle and are very big.  Not even die-hard bushwacking anglers like Rich and myself could even fish this creek half-assed... so the trout will continue to live here and grow bigger.  I think in the fall it would be worth the time to scout this creek again when the a lot of the brush has died and you can get closer to the creek with out having to bring a machete.  Please note we saw a LOT of "Private Propery" signs and this area is populated.  You will be seen my landowners and they are quite nosy.  (We had de facto permission to scout this creek by the contractors who built the structure habitat... not fish it... but just to walk along it).

Then we fished the Chemung River at the Lowman/Wellsberg DEC access.  This is a spin fisherman's area of the river...  deep slanting backs with undercut, fallen trees, and slow runs.  We could not flyfish this spot productively and if you want to throw Rapala's...   this is the spot!

We drove to the Athens Twp access at Tozer's Landing in Wilawanna, PA.  Of course, Neiley hooked up at the head of the pool past the large riffle on his very first cast.  (Figures... Rich!!!  You need to play the lottery with your luck)  and I... of course... got skunked.  Wouldn't want to break my consistent pattern fishing with Rich, right?  Rich caught at least 5 or 6 smallies while I flogged the water like a frustrated Oprah Winfrey trying to put the moves on a fat Roast Beef hoagie!

However, I was greatly pleased that I got to fish and do a little scouting!