who would have thought it.....

.....rain at Penn's. Lots of it, Saturday evening, screwing up a potentially
fine spinner fall. Now, to rewind:

Weds--arrived mid-afternoon at the Penn's Creek Angler,
in Millmont, and joined the owner Bruce Fisher in some
evening fishing. Eventually, a good hour-long spinner
fall(Hendricksons) led to some good fishing. Nice start.
Thurs--caught up with Mike Shaw. We fished hard to no
avail down near Weikert. The river was still up a bit
from recent rains, and bugs were spotty. Evening found
us in the familiar hole at Stan's. Egglaying caddis from
5 pm-6:30 got me a couple of fish, and the spinner fall
brought a few more.
Friday--getting warm for Penn's in April, 76 degrees.
We beat the Coburn area to a pulp with little success,
all of it deep. We'd been joined by Mike Makela, who
fished Elk and the Junction hole early, with good success
and came downstream to help us beat the Tunnel Road
stretch. The caddis were less numerous, and Rusty
Spinners lesser as well, but the two Mikes did get a few.
I had taken one early on a wet fly, and hooked and lost
a couple at Stan's before landing a smaller, slow witted
trout near the end of the spinner-fall.
Saturday--Up to 78 degrees today....with a cold front
approaching....hmmmm. Fishing during the daytime was
lackluster, even for Makela, fishing stonefly nymphs. We
all caught a couple or so, all subsurface. The breezes
subsided around 5:30 preceding the hatch. All was well,
then it started to get dark. Really dark for 6 pm EDT.
Finally, Makela notes a 'few' raindrops in the pool. We
head toward the vehicles, and within 3 minutes, moved
to a driving downpour, with impressive lightening.
This storm killed the fishing, probably for a few days,
but filled the springs and prolonged the season.

As always, the high points were a beautiful locale, good friends and
challenging fishing....especially, the friends part. Nature highlight: we
spotted either a large osprey, or
smaller eagle flying upstream on Friday, lugging a decent,
and still flopping, trout, in it's talons.
Note to Mr. Miller: all your fears are for naught. See you
in May!!
Tom