Arrived in beautiful Coburn,PA on the past Wednesday, around 11 am.
Jonas directed me to the bridge pool, where I noticed about 12 feeding trout
and the start of a decent Grannom hatch. Headed off to the Axelrad stretch
to wait for the Handy One, and commenced to fish. Now, as I said, the
Grannom hatch was on. This isn't one of your "a few hundred bugs in the air"
type of hatches....no, Penn's produces what Datus Proper once stated was the
most massive caddis hatch he had ever seen.
We are talking, in any given spot for over 10 miles of creek, literally
millions of blackish caddis crawling on, in and around every object, anglers
included. The air appears, for a few hours each day, to be one moving cloud
of flying insects. The fishing can be challenging, but a few new flies I
have been working on seemed to simplify things. Landed 3, lost another 3 in
a couple hours of fishing and headed up to the trailer with Mike to open up
for the season.
We returned to the stream in the evening, caught several more(largest of the
day about 18 inches), and went back for dinner. Frank Reid appeared, and
stayed with us throughout the rest of the time in camp.
The following day found us in Ingleby, where the Grannoms put on another
typical show and we blasted fish after fish, all afternoon long.
Friday proved a bit nippy, and blustery at times. Still, all involved(Gene
Cyprich had joined us) took several trout and the Millheim served a
wonderful prime rib to accompany our Yuenglings.
Saturday, the NOAA weather channel was calling for late day showers, with
potential hailstorms, followed by 1 or 2 inches of snow. I left town.
Still and all, three fine days of angling. Largest fish was a 22 inch trout
on a dry fly at Ingleby. The trailer is open for business, and the clave
lies ahead. With any luck, Penns will stay at the current flow levels until
then(readily wadeable in many, if not most spots).
Tom