Yellow Creek Area

[dryflyguy]

I'm thinking about heading out to yellow creek (bedford county) in the next few days. But am concerned about possibly a lot of snow melt blowing out the stream. (which happened to me out there a couple of years ago at this time of year)
The recent warmup has melted all of the snow around here. But I'm sure things are probably different in bedford county.
Anybody live in that area - or perhaps even visited that stream the last few days - that could chime in and let me know how much snow is still around there?

 

[evw659]

I live in cambria county and theres still snow on the ground though its melting rapidly. The frankstown branch is just north of the yellow creek drainage and has a usgs guage, so it is a half decent indicator of what the flows on yellow will be, and it is going up currently (around 500 cfs). With that said, the frankstown branch watershed is made up of a lot of tribs that flow off the Allegheny front, where snowfall amounts are much higher almost all the time compared to further east. Thus, yellow probably won't see the same spike in water levels as the frankstown branch. Close call imo.

 

[Acristickid]

I made into Sometset Co yesterday, fished Laurel Hill at Humbert , it was bank full and a little cloudy from 12-2pm. It became unfishable in the night. Saw a few stoneflies and some midges. I see dunning gage has crested and is dropping. Probably more snow in Laurels. I'd guess it would be ok if doesn't rain much.










I just guessed at the times since I had no watch.

 

[dryflyguy]

Checked dunning creek this morning, which is the closest stream to yellow that has a flow gauge. Yesterday, it went from 200 to 600 cfs. It dropped a little this morning. But with the continued warm weather, might well rise again today.
And with all of the snow that's still around Laurel Hill in Akids picture, I decided not to head out. Probably would have been a 2.5 hour drive (one way) for nothing
Maybe try it next week. Hopefully, most of the snow will be gone by then

Thanks for the responses

 

[JackM]

Never in my life have I seen Yellow too high to be fishable. Certainly I have seen it high. Amen.

 

[dryflyguy]

JackM wrote:
Never in my life have I seen Yellow too high to be fishable. Certainly I have seen it high. Amen.

I guess that depends on your idea of "fishable".
If you don't mind dredging heavily weighted patterns in murky cold water, then today may have been OK.
I go out there looking for hatches, and rising fish. And it just didn't look like a good bet.

Expanding more on an incident I mentioned in my OP -
I met another forum member out there this same time of year, a few years back. It was a very warm, sunny day for late february. There was no snow around home - but still quite a bit in the mountains around central PA. The stream was OK upon arrival. But as the air temps climbed, the water level rose noticeably, and got a lot murkier.
There was no surface activity the whole afternoon. And even the fishermen who were dredging, complained about the lousy fishing.
Snow melt really seems to shut a stream down.

 

[turkey]

A few years back I drove to the Little J, met up with some friends, and it was coming up rapidly so we drove to Yellow and it was chocolate milk. In an effort to save the day we stopped at Bob's Ck and watched paraleps (I think) hatching from the muddy water and no fish rising. Some good conversation was had though. I think I'm going to wait a bit longer to take a dry fly drive.

 

[rrt]

Comment about snowmelt shutting them down is true. Talked to a guy who got out prior to snowmelt yesterday, and he was doing all right until the melt hit the creek; then they shut down. I didn't get out till the melt was coming in, and after only a half hour, the fish quit, even though the water temp was still 48 degrees. If I have the energy to go out tomorrow, it will be a lot earlier than I went on Sat, even though it's to be a colder day.

On the plus side, most of the snow is now gone -- has run off and has sunk in. Hopefully the wintry mix scheduled for Wed won't screw things up too much -- but it could.

 

[foxtrapper1972]

I've seen a lot of streams high.

 

[UncleShorty]

... and some more than once...