Upper Allegheny River Report 03 June

The weather this week put a bit of a damper on the fishing.  Intermittent heavy rains either muddied up the streams or made the lower Allegheny impossible to wade.  Fortunately the rains moved out by the end of the week.  We opted out of fishing Friday night, and instead hit the Crittenden Hotel with neighbors and fellow God's Country TU chapter members Bob Volkmar and Frank and Janie Weeks to listen to Blues guitarist Tas Cru and also enjoy some Ballast Point Grapefruit Sculpin IPA.  Yes Virginia, there is culture in Potter County.

Sunny skies and temps in the 70s on Saturday not only cleared the streams, but also brought the prospect of good hatches.  So Bob and I headed to the delayed harvest section of the upper Allegheny Saturday afternoon.  We arrived at the lot around 6:00 in the evening, geared up, and walked up to a section known as the Beaver Pond.  This section is only a few hundred yards long, but has all the classic types of trout water; a riffled area at the top of the section, followed by a decent stretch of slower and narrow moving water, and ending with a slow moving section brought on by nature's dam builders.

We were greeted with sporadic risers when we got to the section.  A dry/dropper rig brought a couple of decent Rainbows to hand, with several misses, which was to turn out to be a trend for the evening.

By the time we moved down to the beaver pond, Sulphurs were coming off and the fish started riding at a more frequent rate.  For the rest of the evening we fished a variety of dries, emergers, and wets, catching a few more Rainbows and a couple of wild Browns, and missing perhaps twice as many strikes as we caught fish.  To finish up the evening we moved back to the slower section, where March Browns were coming off.  A bunch of misses on a foam March Brown emerger proved to be the right fly but again stymied by failed hookups, probably due to the mesmerizing site of a trout coming up to take the fly about five feet in front of me.

All in all one of the better evenings so far.  With evening temps down in the 40s, and more rain on the way this week, the streams should remain in great shape, the hatches continuing, and the trout willing to take a dry.  All that's needed is a little more patience, but then again, I'll give the trout their day to enjoy watching the take.

Back to Annapolis this week, where both the Striper fishing and crabbing are starting to heat up.

Tight lines,
Mikey D Fishing