Is That A Wild Rainbow?
Punxsutawney Phil is a damn liar and he shouldn’t be trusted. A recent cold snap here in central Pennsylvania has slowed down fishing and rains have washed out most of the creeks. Early spring… pfft. Why do we trust a rodent to make our meteorological predictions? When facing fluctuating temperatures and weather patterns, identifying spring fed streams can be key to finding runs where fish may not be as sluggish. One of the many advantages of spring fed waters is that they maintain more consistent water temperatures in both winter and summer. On the coldest days, water temps below a spring run may be a few degrees warmer than average and during the dog days summer, a few degrees cooler than other areas of a stream. On a cold and windy day in March, fishing below the confluence of a spring should give a more consistent bite - I decided to head over to Spring creek mid-morning once the air temp rose just above freezing.
Despite the on-and-off snow flurries, the spot I was fishing was sheltered from the wind and was mildly pleasant, as I was dressed for the occasion in long underwear and a winter jacket underneath my waders. I figured low and slow would be the key on a day like this, so I tied on a mayfly imitation nymph and applied a little extra weight than usual, just to slow down the fly and bring it right to the bottom. When you don’t catch fish in a particular spot for a while, it can certainly feel like the water itself is just devoid of life. In cold weather however, most of the times you’re presenting to fish that are just not interested or are sluggish. To combat this, I drifted each run a multitude of times, sometimes switching up the weight or tying on a new pattern to make sure that no stone went unturned. This tends to be a consistent pattern across many fisheries - I have to remind myself that a bunch of casts in one spot for a springtime largemouth or a holdover striper may not be enough to declare the spot fishless.
As the sun started to peak out of the clouds and my hands warmed up, the fish began responding. One pool yielded a few small but mighty rainbows after I drifted it over 50 times, proving that patience does pay off. Catching a rainbow on a Class A wild brown trout stream somewhat puzzled me, as Spring creek is not stocked, so I put this quarry in the back of my head for later. One additional juvenile brown trout rounded up the slow but rewarding day. As I was hiking back out of the spot, I noticed some apparent debris floating down the stream and a closer investigation, to my surprise, revealed a localized baetis hatch occurring during intermediate snow flurries. I stood still for a few minutes and studied the surface - sure enough, a quick disturbance and small gulp confirmed that it was time to throw on a dry fly. I pull out my dry fly box and to my utter shock and disappointment, it was a baren, disorganized, and wholly tasteless display of flies that would have made any respectable angler curse to the heavens. I tied on the best imitation that I could find, slathered it in Gink’s, and presented it as best I could. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly), this yielded no results and I decided to pack it up for good and head home, as I had now been fishing for nearly 4 hours and had to drag myself to work shortly. Plus, I had a nagging question in the back of my head: was that a wild rainbow trout?
A quick foray in my Pennsylvania fly fishing bible, Keystone Flyfishing, confirmed that it likely was a wild rainbow. The Pennsylvania Boat and Fish Commission stocks rainbow trout into nearby Bald Eagle creek, into which Spring Creek (where I was fishing) flows out into at its terminus. The consensus among local anglers is that the southern section of Spring creek from Bellefonte to Millsburg currently supports wild rainbow trout that are the product of stocked rainbows surviving and reproducing from Bald Eagle. This certainly speaks to the tremendous water quality of Spring creek and is a poignant reminder that stream protection and restoration is perhaps that most important aspect to restoring other less fortunate trout streams throughout the East coast. As the weather continues to improve and the hatches come with more vigor and consistency, the fishing here should be great in the next few weeks.
- Declan
