Kyle and I had planned this trip for a long time. We tried to go at the beginning of October in 2015, but it was the weekend Hurricane Joaquin blasted the east coast. So we rescheduled.
This time, we aimed for the end of April. Besides being a prime time to fish anywhere, the end of April/beginning of May coincides with the beginning of the Sulphur hatch on the Little Juniata, which is the stream’s premier mayfly hatch.
Turns out, our dart thrown 7 months ago hit the bulls-eye. We have had a warm spring on the east coast, with a definite lack of heavy precipitation. Even though the weather looked like it was going to bring rain before and into the weekend, the Spruce trees of central PA soaked up the 1/2″ of water that fell on Thursday and left the Little J with below average flows - around 200 cfs, perfect for fishermen. Saturday had little to no precipitation, but it was cool and overcast. Because of the low flows, we were able to wade across the stream easily, and out into the main current where necessary to reach fish that would not be reachable during average flows.
But most importantly, the warm spring meant the Sulphur hatch got underway about a week early. Thanks to Shane of TCO Fly Shop in State College for the heads up!
Kyle and I got our start on the road at 7:01 am on Saturday. That meant we got to the Little J just before 10:30 am. We could see fish rising right away. A fisherman was coming off the stream a few minutes after we got out of the car, and we asked him what was coming off, and his reply was, “dunno, some midge or something that I can’t see.” I looked at Kyle after the fella was gone and just said, “Disagree.” We could see the fish rising to sulphurs right from the back of the car!
Well, Jonathan and Kyle and I eventually started down the path along the river and put in a good 20 minute hike. We passed two railroad bridges and came to what we later learned from other fishermen is called the Espy. The Espy was a part of the river where the river descended from a shallow riffle into a deep pool, which split around an island below the tailout. Kyle took the run on the near side of the island, Jonathan set up to cast some risers in the bottom of the run in the deep pool, and I trudged across the tailout to the far side of the river and took the opposite side of the island.
Over there, I found an interesting riffle and pool that had about 30 fish rising in it when I walked up.
It took a little while to figure out what pattern the fish wanted. They were clearly rising to sulphurs, but what stage of the life cycle and what sort of pattern did they want? Turned out, they wanted a pale yellow, almost a light olive, parachute pattern. It only took cycling through three other patterns before I figured that out. They didn’t want Orange. They didn’t want CDC emergers. They just wanted the parachute pattern that’s been sitting in my box for two years that I’ve never had the opportunity to use. Luckily I had about 6 of these, and so I was able to share my ammo with my buddies.
But back to the fishing. Once I figured out what pattern they wanted, the catching started. I got three fish out of this first pool on the far side of the island, and raised several more, but missed the hookset or lost them. The first fish of the day was a strong 15 inches. The second one was probably 13. The third one was pushing 16. Read more about catching these fish in the expanded content.
First fish of the day was a beaut!
Third fish.
After catching up with Kyle, Jonathan and I headed above SP. Kyle stayed closer to the car to meet up with his friend who was arriving from NYC around 1:30. On the trail, we saw the following awesome campsite:
If you look real close, there are two abandoned granola bars on the end of the table.
Heading upstream, we walked about 1/4 mile past a long slow pool. Above this, the river turned around a horseshoe bend with an island dividing the river into streams of about 1/4 river flow and 3/4 river flow on the far side. Jonathan and I found a few risers in a shallow, riffly pool on the near side of the river and Jonathan was able to fool his first fish of the day, a beautiful 10 inch brownie.
We moved across the island and found a perfect riffle. The top of the riffle was choppy but unbroken water about 3 feet deep all the way across that went for about 150-200 feet before breaking into a new riffle formation. It held tons of fish that rose steadily about every 30 seconds. Even though it appeared at first glance as though the rises were random, the trick was to figure out where a fish was holding in the riffle and get a drift over it, repeating until the fish took. I caught at least 4 fish out of the riffle this way, and actually this time they took a klinkhammer I had randomly tied in the right color. I caught my only rainbow of the trip:
And then my favorite fish of the trip, a beautiful 17 inch brownie with a charismatic red spot on his cheek:
Jonathan and I actually had a double when I caught this fish, his fish took on the swing just when he was looking upstream after I hooked mine!
The sulphur hatch started to taper a bit around this time, about 3:30-4 pm, and I wanted to try some czech nymphing tactics, so I took a break to switch out my rig. The riffle below the top riffle looked like prime nymphing water, with boulders and multiple current flows creating different speeds of water across the river. I caught a couple of 10-12 inchers this way, and it was gratifying to get them each on flies that I had tied which were semi-experimental. I was extra pleased to get one on the epoxy-backed sexy pheasant tail that I had high hopes for. It’s part of my “sexy” line of nymphs. I call them that because I imagine the pink collar, black legs, and gold tinsel rib to be pink bra, black thong, and gold hoops earings, respectively. They catch loads of fish. Available from my Etsy fly shop if you are interested!
Eventually we headed back downstream to get closer to the car and maybe find Kyle and Jeremy. We hiked back to the first railroad crossing and hadn’t found them, but we were in touch by text message.
Jonathan caught a nice 12 incher from underneath the railroad bridge, and then we crossed the stream and went above the bridge.
Above the bridge was a beautiful choppy but unbroken run, again about 200 feet in length. I pulled about four more quality fish from this run before I decided I was tired and cold. Fishing this run, though, was one of the coolest trout fishing experiences of my life, and I write about fishing it more in the expanded content for this post.
You should definitely consider giving my expanded content a read. I expound on the various situations I encountered, and how I solved the puzzle to catch (and land) the fish I brought to hand. Blogging is one thing, sharing my insights is another, and my insights are what you get in the expanded content, along with illustrated photos.
Here are a few more various photos from the day. Enjoy!
Those bark shavings are caused by a porcupine in search of grubs.
Sulphur on the water.
Centipedes going at it. Mating or violence, who knows?
An old well. Really makes you think of the times when the Iroquois would have been around.
Thanks for reading! Bonus GIF of some spent spinners!
