Me with a nice holdover brown trout, caught on an elk hair caddis

This past week I had the opportunity to fish Oil Creek, near Oil City, PA with Andy Traister and Mark Ferringer.  To say we had a lot of fun is an understatement.  After getting up at 4:00 am and spending the entire morning hunting turkeys with Andy Traister, I was exhausted.  This was the first time that I had ever went running and gunning for turkeys and needless to say, it was fun, but Traister had me about ready to pass out.  I told him that if he picked one more mountain to run up I was gonna fall over of a heart attack!  We came real close at 11:00 am on closing the deal, but the birds got hung up and wouldn’t come within range.  I will be back later this week, getting after them again, I am HOOKED on turkey hunting!

Photo of the swarms of caddis on my waders

Once we finished turkey hunting at noon, we grabbed some lunch, I got my second wind and we headed up to Oil Creek to meet Mark.  Fortunately for us, Mark fishes this stream a couple of times a week and knows all the honey holes and flies to use.  He took us to one of his favorite stretches and we were immediately catching fish on top. I used the same dry fly all night and caught lots of fish.

To say there was a caddis hatch would be an understatement!  The bugs on the water were unbelievable and there was a point in the evening when Mark said, “Jason, look at your waders!”.  Literally, I couldn’t see my waders as they were covered in caddis.  Back when I was a kid, being covered in bugs would have completely freaked me out, but as all guys and gals who fly fish know, this is a wonderful experience.  The only downside was, we were competing with thousands of real life bugs on the water.   We still managed to do very well even with all the real caddis on the water.

Releasing another nice fish

On a side note, this was Andy’s first time fly fishing and it got off to a rough start.  We were walking down to the first hole and he gave a little yell and asked if I could come help him.  When I got there he had stepped on a nail that went all the way through is hip boot.  Now, I knew it was going to be tough for him to fish Oil Creek in hip boots, but now I knew it was going to be even tougher with a hole in the bottom of his boots!

Andy Traister in the middle of the stream getting wet.

Andy was a trooper and stuck it out the whole night.  We were going to take up a collection for him, but he has already ordered his new pair of chest waders.  We finished off the night when we were leaving the creek to a sow and two cubs crossing the road in front of us.  This is only the third time I have seen bears in the wild!

Oil Creek

All in all it was a great day outdoors, from Turkey hunting to trout fishing and it was spent with some great guys who really know their stuff.  Traister really got after it turkey hunting and like I said, I could barely keep up.  Mark really knows this stream and fly fishing and I look forward to hunting and fishing with both of them again very soon.  Thank you Andy and Mark, I truly appreciate it.  Until next time, tight lines to all and good luck turkey hunting.

Mark landing a nice rainbow

Another nice holdover Rainbow.