Spring Creek, PA

Outing Information

Fish Caught

Brown Trout

Rainbow Trout

Weather

Other Patterns Tried

No other pattern information for this outing.

Fishing Partners

No fishing partners were saved with this outing.

Waypoints

No waypoints were saved with this outing.

Notes

MCB, TMM, & BD:

I was thinking about fishing the Little Bald Eagle or the Kish this morning, but then when I was checking water levels, I thought I might as well fish where I know there are a lot of trout and where I know I probably can catch a few of them. So, I headed off to Spring Creek and decided to fish at Benner Springs. I know it's one of the sections on Spring that gets the most pressure, but I often have a good morning below Benner Springs. I got to the parking area about 6:45 and there were already three vehicles parked there. When I got back to my truck at about 10:45 the parking area was filled. There were 7 or 8 vehicles including some Virginia and Ohio plates. Lots of pressure on Spring. I guess by now I should just accept the fact that my two favorite trout streams, the Little Juniata, and Spring Creek, are also a lot of other people's favorite streams. They are certainly two of the best trout streams in the state, and two that get more publicity than almost any other streams. As Troutmaster Mike has often pointed out, all of these people buy a license and have just as much right to fish the streams as we do, so we should just adust. I could fish the little mountain streams, but most of them involve too much work for me to fish and most of the time there aren't as many big fish on the little streams. I have developed a way to deal with the pressure on the streams and most of the time it works for me.
1) I never fish on weekends or holidays. Actually I don't usually fish on Mondays and Fridays either. Most of my fishing is done on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Fewer fishermen, less pressure. One of the major benefits of being retired along with my Senior license, yeah for the Senior license.
2) I try to get to the streams early and I can usually be the first one on any section of a stream, unless of course, Frank Nale has picked that stream on that particular day. Frank generally starts fishing while I am still in bed. I am normally done fishing in about three hours and off the streams before it gets very crowded.
3) I try and fish sections of the streams that aren't as easy to get to as the sections close to the parking areas are. This morning, I walked downstream for 30 minutes before I started to fish and then fished back toward the parking area at Benner Springs. Yesterday I walked back the trail at Barree for 20-30 minutes before I started fishing and then I fished away from the parking area.

I had another great morning on Spring Creek. I caught 34 trout in a little less than three hours, so my trout/hour rating was 11+. I caught 32 brown trout and 2 rainbow trout. Only two rainbows, but wow, were they ever nice fish. The first rainbow was fish number 11 and was an 18 inch beauty, the second rainbow was fish number 15 and was a monster 20 inch trout. I caught both of them in the same general area in a nice fast run. After I caught the first rainbow, I was thinking about retying my spinner, but then I thought, oh well, I'll retie it after another couple of fish. When I caught the big trout, I was thinking I shouldn't have been so lazy and should have retied my spinner. I did manage to get the big boy in my hand and then he snapped off the line, however I had him and even saved the spinner, so I guess I was lucky. I caught a couple of 14 inch brown trout and maybe a half dozen browns that were little fellers, 6,7, 8 inches. Most of the browns were nice trout in the 9-12 inch range. All in all a good morning.

O&O:LJH