Wednesday and Thursday Captain C.C. and his lovely bride Mary took part in the 10th annual God's Country TU chapter's Project Healing Waters event. A national initiative on the part of TU, the event provides disabled vets the opportunity to fly fish on some of the best waters in the country. Since its inaugural event in 2007, the chapter has used Moore's Run Fish and Game Preserve (http://www.patrout.com/), a beautiful piece of property in Austin, PA, about 20 miles south of Coudersport. The preserve offers both lake and stream fishing, both waters offering the opportunity to catch 20 inch plus fish, which are raised on the property by owners (and TU chapter members) Roy and Cathy Magarigal. And the Chapter does a phenomenal job of providing the vets a first class event, taking care of everything from lodging to some of the best eating I've done in awhile.
The first day of the event consisted of some casting tips and instruction on properly releasing fish. Then it was off to the water. The chapter members acted as guides for the vets, helping with their casting, changing flies, and releasing fish.
Mary and I teamed up with Angelica, a young Air Force vet from Buffalo. The weather on Wednesday was perfect; temps in the 70s under sunny skies. By the late afternoon Sulphurs and a few Green Drakes were coming off, providing an opportunity to toss dries. Fishing was to be honest quite challenging. We decided to focus on the stream, which is no wider than the stream behind the house. Overhanging trees made casting somewhat tight, but Angelica managed to land a few fish, including a really nice Brownie.
Wednesday night the rains moved in with a pretty steady downpour in the morning. Mary opted out of the second day of the vent, which was fortuitous because it spared her experiencing a rather eventful trip to the preserve. One thing that I learned the hard way on Thursday morning was that there are no short cuts in Potter County. Heading towards Austin, I noticed on the GPS a road that cut over the mountain and would allow me to cut the corner and save some time. So off I went down Little Moores Run road,which was began as a gravel road, then turned to dirt (or rather mud), then began to close in on me the closer I got to the property. To add insult to injury, about 1.3 miles from my destination, I hit a gate. With the closest place to turn round about a mile behind me, I had to back the truck in the pouring rain with my head stuck out the driver's window, only to run into something (not sure what) that dinged up my rear bumper.
So with my Colorado so christened, I made it back to the spot where I could turn around, and headed back to the preserve via the long (and paved) route. On the up side, the chapter members decided to keep the vets dry and give them fly tying instruction, leaving the morning to do some exploring. I fished down the stream for a few hours with fellow chapter member Mick Grassley. As I said earlier, the stream is not wide, nor deep. With the rain the water was kind of stained, but fishable. What was amazing was that every spot that looked like it held fish not only did, but held a big fish. I've never seen so many 18 inch-plus fish in a stream that small. Yeah, they were stocked, but didn't look like stocked fish, and didn't fight like stocked fish. For the most part I watched Mick pick up fish after fish, including a Brownie that easily went over 26 inches in a pool that couldn't have been over 12 feet in diameter!
By the afternoon the vets were back, and after lunch Angelica and I lit off to re-fish downstream. The second day proved more productive, not only in numbers but in size of the trout. Angelica landed several Rainbows in the 18 inch range, including landing a fish after her reel had come off the rod.
The rest of the week has been spent hitting various spots in the area. The West branch of Fishing Creek is a bit low, but still fishable. I managed to lose 3 fish one afternoon, but picked up an 18 inch Rainbow in a pool downstream from the property. Also got to explore a couple of new sections of the Allegheny, one of which provided the opportunity to throw dries to willing trout in the early afternoon. Finishing up this report was an outing to the upper Allegheny special regs section last evening, where the Sulphurs and Green Drakes came on pretty strong and resulted in a good number of 8-12 inch Rainbows (and a 'Bow that Josh Wiles, who introduced me to the Beaver Pond section of the river, took with a Drake).
The rains this morning have given way to partly cloudy skies and mild temps. The prospect of another hatch of big bugs this evening is too much of a temptation to pass up.
Tight Lines,
Mikey D Fishing
