TR Western Pa. (long)

The trip north to wring some use out of my last Pa. fishing license started
off badly - considered calling the whole thing off but kept going and arrived
late so we changed plans from trying to catch the drake hatch and ROFFians
over at Penns to going to the b-i-l's (Unk's) cabin a couple hours north.
Stopped at Brookville to get some fishing in before dark and I tried out my
new comparadun sulphers - first flies I've tied in a couple years.
Couldn't interest any with a dead drift but from the active rises action
seemed to be the trigger so I tried skittering. Got a number of hits, follows
50% of the time but I couldn't get a hookup. I had the wrong fly but movement
was very useful. Unk caught one on something small - BWO I think.
Up early the next morning to fish Spring Creek, (seems every county has a
Spring Creek in Pa) last fished it 25 years ago - didn't like it then, don't
like it now. A silty bottom - saw one pod of trout and another of suckers and
couldn't get either to move for anything we had in our fly boxes.
Moved on to the Tionesta.
It is wide water but shallow and heats up after June. We fished a couple of
very nice stretches, on the first Unk caught 2 and I managed to lose a few to
broken tippets - material was old, some of my long leaders dated back to 1997,
plus I was having an incredibly difficult time seeing well enough to tie
knots.
We moved on to another spot upstream. Gorgeous water. Unk commented he had
never caught anything in the riffle below where he went in. A red flag to a
bull ..... and I waded in. Tied on a pheasant tail and in a few casts I had a
spectacular take with the trout jumping 3 feet in the air giving me a very
respectable tangle on my reel as I forgot to secure the line. It broke off at
the tippet again but brought a big smile to my face none the less....I could
take those all day. I moved up 1 tippet size from a newer spool and in the
next half hour I missed three more solid hits on nymphs and another two when I
switched to the comparadun. My timing was really hurting me.

Evening and we stepped into the Tionesta just below the bridge where Blue Jay
Creek dumps in. I have the fondest of memories of this area. Unk and I both
became interested in fly fishing in the early 70's and this is the section
where we practiced our new sport. We fished wets then, because that is all the
old fellow who ran the service station near the stream tied & sold. I was
spectacularly unsucessful and was into my second season at least when I caught
my first trout. Those early trips, trout or no, reading, studying, always
hopeful, dreaming of being back up there were the absolute best of my trout
fishing life and that first trout, stalked and caught in the pool on the
little Blue Jay is the most vivid memory I have, perhaps because for the first
and last time I did everything right. The trout caught a few days ago have
already faded but this one always remains. I didn't get the chance to go up
Blue Jay - better I didn't as I'm sure it has changed much over the years.
This is a very special place to me and perhaps it is best left undisturbed in
memory.
I caught a brookie on a nymph in the pool at the outflow of Blue Jay and Unk
got one in the riffle below and as dusk settled, one in the flat below the
bridge. This is a grand place to fish a dry fly in the evening with rises all
around but I waited too long into the failing light to switch to drys.

Friday morning we drove the 75 miles over to the First Fork of the
Sinnemahoning and with the usual stops to look over streams, small town
general stores for flies, and a beer, we arrived around 1:30 in a light rain.
This is a lovely stream with the highway running adjacent to it....and a lot
of anglers. From the lower section Unk went upstream and I entered at a riffle
that separated two long, slow flats that had lots of rises showing. Though a
good sized stream, the riffles were small stream fishing to me and I picked up
4 rainbows quickly with the sulpher comparadun and missed several others. One
of the negatives to being near the road is that a bent rod is an attractor for
other fishermen and in short order a couple of vehicles stopped and with 3
guys soon crawling all over the place I left & fished below ...but those flats
are slow moving and way too tough for me.
We returned to the riffle after the other anglers cleared out just before dusk
and after another miss on the sulpher I noticed a very large, dark mayfly was
hatching so I snagged one with my aquarium net and popped it in a fly box.
I'm not much of a bug guy but having refreshed the memory about a variety of
mayflies the night before I guessed it was an Isonychia. The trout were taking
but nothing I threw at them worked with that big fly on the water. 16mm body.

I brought it home with me Saturday and Sunday put it in a plastic water
bottle, confirmed it was an Isonychia, put it on the window sill preparatory
to taking some photos and noticed its wings had come down.
Hot damn! The light had triggered a moult!
I snapped a bunch of photos which probably won't come out well and insisted
the wife watch this all happen.
She commented that I wasn't that excited when the kids were born.
I told her if the kids had moulted I'd have been excited.
As I'm too far away from waters where there are good hatches these insect
events are tremendous fun for me. It was a wonderful thing to watch anyway and
the little guy expired finally last night. I feel badly that he didn't get
laid before he died. Maybe I should have thrown a comparadun in with him.

We saw very few flies coming off for whatever reason. Too early, too late, too
small, bad eyesight? And no drakes where Unk felt we should have seen some.
I was totaly out of sync this trip with bad leaders/tippets, glasses, wrong
flies, crampy wading shoes I'm going to hacksaw the toes out of, non
breathable chest waders & too much beer, and no wading staff but I had a
delightful time none the less. I've got to improve my comparadun tie but still
it worked well. Used 'em before but never this much and I suspect it worked
better than any of the standard drys I tried because of the wing appearance &
landed rightside up 100% of the time so it was always fishable. Lots of stuff
to digest.
It was good to fish waters last fished 20 years ago and as with every trip I
have new ideas and new flies to tie....enough to keep me busy until the next
trip.

Kiyu