On June 25th I had the opportunity to go fishing with Jason Sheaffer, AKA-Trouter, the moderator of our Penn’s Creek stream conditions, and Mark Ferringer, AKA-Muskratnymph, the moderator of the Oil Creek stream conditions and we were blessed with ideal weather for this time of year.  The temperature when I woke up in the morning was only 53 degrees.  I thought to myself, things are really lining up to be a great day of fishing.

Me with Jason Sheaffer after fishing Penn’s for the day.

A great day fishing can mean a lot of different things to many different people.  To some it will mean lots of fish, to others it may mean great company and great memories, maybe something different like a couple of young fawns coming for a drink of water or a fisher on the banks looking for his next meal.   Well we didn’t catch many fish, but I had “A GREAT DAY FISHING!”

Anytime I have a chance to meet great folks and spend time getting to know different stretches of water with good company is always a great day. The weather was great and the scenery was beautiful and Jason was a terrific host.

Now, about the fishing.  As you probably noticed there aren’t many photos accompanying this article.  Well there is a good reason for that, and that is because I didn’t catch any fish.  Yes that is right, I fished the entire evening from 5:00 pm until dark and didn’t so much as land one fish.  You might be thinking to yourself, “Maybe the fish were not real active that night and it was just tough fishing?”  I would agree with the tough fishing part, but the fish were certainly very active!  At one point and time I had a least 15 different fish within 15 yards all around me working the surface.  I think I tried every fly in my fly box with an occasional snub from a very picky brown trout.  I am sure that most of you out there at one time or another has run into a similar situation, so you can certainly empathize with me and my plight.

As bad as this may sound, it does help you to feel better when you talk to every angler coming off the stream and they all had the same experience that you did and were unable to really figure out what was going on.  We spoke to several other groups and they all had the same story, “We just couldn’t figure them out!”

There is something very interesting that I learned while up at Penn’s Creek and that was the story of a certain bug that makes an appearance every 17 years.  Right now at Penn’s when you walk in the woods the sound can be deafening from these Cicadas and the roads a littered with dead ones where ever you step.  They are a big bug and they are everywhere, so I am sure your next question is, “Do trout eat them?”.  The answer is yes!  In the morning Mark was able to land a very nice one with a Cicada pattern and missed numerous other ones.  These bugs are so big that it was very easy to watch trout taking them and when they take one, they explode out of the water.

Cicada come out every 17 years, so all you fly fisherman remember in 17 years to have a bunch of these guys in your fly box!

The key to catching trout with Cicadas is to make sure you have some in your fly box.  Mark happened to have two in his fly box and I of course didn’t have any and Jason didn’t have any either.  Well, Mark was kind enough to lend us one of his and you guessed it, it wasn’t long before Mark lost his in a tree and I wasn’t far behind losing the last one we had to another tree!  Mark compared them to casting a ping pong ball with a fly rod.  Needless to say, I had a brown trout that was easily over 20″ explode on my Cicada and miss it.  It was two casts later that I lost that fly to tree and wouldn’t have another strike the rest of the night.  I guess that monster brown just got me a little too excited!

As I have told many of my friends, I may never again in my lifetime experience a night like I had on Penn’s about 6 years ago, when I literally caught a fish on every cast for nearly an hour.  It was unbelievable, but that being said, Penn’s Creek is quick to serve you up some humble pie and keep everything in perspective!   Again, it was great meeting Jason and seeing some great new areas and believe me, I will be back up there next year to chase some of those awesome brown trout on Penn’s Creek.