A little fishing stoke?

[tomitrout]

Tax Day on Penn's.

Never fished out of Weikart before, ridden and raced the bicycle through there a plenty, but never fished the C&R water. Stopped in at Bruce's nice little shop, Penn's Creek Angler, filled up on some local favorite flies and stream beta and was hiking upstream by 10:30.

Lots of folks out, but never once felt crowded, everybody leaving plenty of space and enjoying some time on the water. Chatted with this fella as I ate lunch, he asked about fishing the riffle, told him I'd fished down thru it about25 minute ago, have at it...I had my eye on the slower water below.

Slow action until about one, plenty of time spent just watching and waiting, eating lunch. Finally got into some consistent risers, don't know to what exactly, I tried a lot of stuff and had two takes on a #18 b.w.o. emerger, then a nice fat fish broke me off with a surprising leap, showing off plenty of girth before the tippet blood knot gave....and broke off the next one on the take.

Then finally, in the water most folks wade through, just above me in the knee deep water was a nice fish working out of a nice little pothole in the rocks with a second riser below him.

Fish on.

This is the lower fish, about a 16"er, took a grannom off the surface. First fish on the newly built out rod.

Second fish, the other one in the the 'wading zone'. Beautiful tip and take and one hell of a reel screaming first run. Every bit of 17, pushing 18"....

Missed a couple more to a hendrickson dun. Wrapped up and hiked back out around 4ish as the fishing' seemed to be slowing down, pretty content with my day. Good stuff.

 

[Swattie87]

Great post Tomi. More time on Penns, other than just my usual evening rise or two in May is high on the list for me this year.

 

[Dave_W]

Wow - love it.

Tomi has always been handy with a camera but that second pic of the feeding brown is top notch.

 

[franklin]

Very nice. Made my day.

 

[RCFetter]

Nice report Tom. Thanks.

 

[lestrout]

Yo To

Nice report. What stick do you have there? Nice swelled butt.

 

[turkey]

Nice Tom. The important question is what are the details on that rod? Looks sharp.

 

[McSneek]

Love your photos Tomi. Penns is a nymphing game most of the time and those blue bird skies only make it more difficult.

 

[geebee]

Great report - I love the 3rd pic, great 'feel' and composition. You should enter that in the photo comp.

 

[BrooksAndHooks]

Thanks for sharing. We go to spring mills each year and fish as tradition with my father. I try to coax a few browns out from among the stockers. Fishing was slow this year so I convinced him that we should head downstream to some better water. Hiked back in and around 1-3 the grannoms were falling like leaves. Few risers however, never got into any action. Got a few nymphing caddis case patterns.

Grannoms also hatching on spruce creek, we caught a few on the way home.

Beautiful fish, thanks for sharing. After today, I will be wanting to make a trip back up there to fish again this year. After seeing your post, I'm even more persuaded that a trip needs to be planned soon.

 

[3wt7X]

Great post Tomi... Wonderful pics and thanks for sharing your day on Penns!!!

 

[tomitrout]

thanks guys, was a nice day to break in the rod. It's nothing special really, Payne 100 taper (7.5'/4wt), ferruled blank from Tim Zeitak...fishes great, my varnish work leaves a bit to be desired on this one. Looks good from afar, but far from good....fish don't seem to mind though.

 

[turkey]

Spar can be pretty touchy I've discovered. I don't take those glass-like dipped finishes for granted anymore.