Spruce 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 wanted to fish the LJ this morning, but it was still too high for me. I thought about fishing the DHALO section of the LJ because even when the LJ is fairly high, you can usually fish that section without too much trouble, but then I remembered that it's been open for taking fish since the middle of June, so it probably has been hammered. I could of course fish Spring again because I know it's at a good level for spin fising, but I didn't feel like driving to State College again this morning. So, I thought, what the heck, I would give Spruce a shot even though I couldn't tell what level it was at because they only report the levels on Spruce once every six weeks or so. Which isn't very useful to me on a day to day basis. However, Spruce and Spring are often at about the same levels and the same conditions for spin fishing.

Spruce was fairly high, fairly fast, and best of all, cloudy! Usually, Spring is really hard for me to spin fish it because in the summer time, it's low, slow, and crystal clear. The trout are really easy to spook because they are fished over so much, but if you can catch it on a day when it's a bit murky, it can be a really good day. Spruce is full of trout, I know that for a fact because I was there one morning a couple of years ago when PSU was shocking Spruce and counting fish. I forget the numbers, but it was an impressive number of fish in the PSU section of Spruce.

I had a great day, similar to one Bob and I had about five years ago, when the water conditions were pretty much the same. I caught 30 trout, 29 brown trout, and 1 rainbow trout. I also lost and missed at least another 10 or 15 trout. I mean it was just a really good morning on Spruce. I caught 6-8 little wild brown trout that were in the 5-7 inch range, but many of the trout I caught this morning were 12,13,14 inches long. The biggest brown was 14 inches and I probably caught three or four that size. The last fish I caught this morning was the winner and the only rainbow trout that I caught. I was getting ready to quit for the morning, but I thought I would sneak up to the pool behind the white house that sits above the upper limits of the PSU section. The cable that used to mark the upper limits of the PSU section has been down for years and so I sometimes will finish my morning by throwing my spinner behind that white house. I'm really glad that I did this morning. I hit a beauty and Eyster would be proud of me because as soon as I felt that it was a monster fish, I lossened my drag and let him run with the line. When I worked the fish to my feet it was a hugh rainbow trout. I have my rod marked up to 22 inches and this fish was bigger than that, but since I would only be guessing, I say it was 22+ inches long and it was one heavy fish. Good old Donny Beaver, my buddy, stocks these further up Spruce and once in a while I get to catch one in the PSU section. I'm fairly sure this isn't the same rainbow that Bob and I have caught a couple of times before on Spruce.

You couldn't ask for a nicer morning, the weather was great, the fishing was great, and I had the PSU section entirely to myself. That's also a fairly rare occurence. Then I drove home over the mountaind on the Colerain road and didn't see another living soul from Spruce Creek to Mooresville. The windows rolled down, the fresh mountain air coming in, and great Bluegrass music on my satelite radio. It doesn't get much better than that. That's 10 plus miles of driving through the State Forest land and not seeing much of civilization.

By the way, I caught those 30 trout in about 2.5 hours this morning, that's almost Frank Nale trout/hour numbers. Every once in a while you get lucky. I think I have had two or three other mornings on Spruce that have been as good as this morning, but they are rare.

O&O:LJH