11-26-04 - just a real dusting of snow...not the white covering everything (pretty) that I had been hoping for!

11-26-04 - it's really cold and windy at 12 Mile!

First steelie for the morning!

11-26-04 - It's an early weekend in PA - Stick with what works, Day 4/6.

Waters Fished: 12 (Twelve) Mile Creek, 16 (Sixteen) Mile Creek, 20 (Twenty) Mile Creek
Fish Caught: 14 (if you count the two I landed twice)
Outing Date: 11-26-04
Weather: Snow, Rain, clouds!
Air Temp: COLD - 40's max
Water Temp: N/A
Water Level: coming down
Water Color: clearing up
Fish Species: Steelhead
Pattern Fished: Eggs Eggs Eggs
Pattern Color: Orange and Red were hot as usual!
Fishing Quality: Improving!

Talk about a strange day. It's the Friday, "Black Friday" as some folks are calling it, the Day after Thanksgiving. Everyone has the day off (to shop!)...a few more lucky local men are getting to spend it on the water.

The big "fiasco" of the day was trying to find a license for my brother. Walmart? K-Mart? Forget about it. Apparently this late in the season they've sent the licenses back!! Supposedly we could get one at the County Courthouse; if not we'd try the Ultimate Angler So while heading to the Ultimate Angler, we got in touch with Tom Gribble who did some phone calling and found us licenses back where we started, around NorthEast, at Poor Richard's!

Without a doubt, lessons learned in the day prior told us to start right back at 12 Mile Creek. It was windy and cold, but that wasn't going to stop us from fishin!

Bart and Margaret didn't stay too long after we finally arrived, instead opting to head over to Twenty Mile Creek. Meanwhile, we absolutely slammed them on 12 Mile. Chris managed 5 steelies in the morning...I landed 14! On the downside, my Nikon's shutter problems were worsening...in fact it would sometimes take several tries, pressing the shutter button with all my might, just to get a picture. Heck, sometimes it just wouldn't work at ALL! The bummer of that was that I missed getting a picture of my brother's FIRST steelie ever...I'd have to settle for #2.

Steelie number 2 or so...	Randy battles one...stay in the river...stay in the river!	Chris works the log jam, a productive spot for everyone today!
FISH ON!	Another steelie for me!	Still more steel for MP!
Randy finally lands one!	Fish on again! Chris is probably thinking "are all steelies this easy?"!	My bro with what's actually his 2nd steelhead ever...the camera refused to take a picture of his first!
More and more and more steelhead for everyone, including me!	Yup, got this one twice!	WHOA, check out the fresh chromer! My last fish of the morning!

Towards noon folks really started showing up - 12 mile is very short and can get crowded really easily. We opted to start scouting where we had left off the day prior - next stop, 16 Mile Creek!

We headed over to 16 mile and started at the mouth.

Lots of guys were fishing the water upstream...clearly a waterfall was visible.

A couple of guys landing a steelie on 16 mile.

Upstream on 16 Mile was prettier but the fish weren't nearly as thick.

My last look at 16 Mile.

At first 16 Mile looked like it'd be a poor spot - a long flat ran from way back in the trees to the shore. One lone guy sat and fished. Upstream there were two congregations of anglers; the first fishing what turned out to be a deep spot in the flat, going at it indicator style but not having much luck.

As I scouted onwards, the next group of anglers was sitting on a huge pod of fish that had formed directly below a steep waterfall. All of the anglers seemed to have the place "camped"..it was easy to understand why as I watched them hook up on almost every cast (not always a fair hook mind you). While one guy moved downstream to play a fish, I asked his buddy, "Mind if I slide in and make a couple casts?" Afterall, I'd need to actually wet a line at 16 mile to truly consider it a stream I've FISHED.

"Fish Downstream" was the reply from this PA angler. Now, ordinarily that wouldn't bother me but in this particular case I was kind of annoyed. Why? Because downstream, all the way to the next group of guys, there wasn't a single fish. Yes, the water had cleared to the point where you could see that most of the water was shallow and not a single fish was present. Meanwhile this guy was sitting with plenty of room around him and a good 100 fish in front of him, but rather than share the spot with another angler he clearly intended to horde it. So much for never meeting an asshole in PA...I actually have a picture of the guy but opted not to post it. So I guess that's something new for today, the day I met my first Asshole in PA.

I was all too clearly perturbed; Chris had left to grab some lunch. Meanwhile Randy hadn't asked and truly considered pulling a Root River on this guy and his "crew". I look at it like the times we camp certain spots - if someone ASKED me if they could fish I'm always willing to share the spot provided they ask. Anyway, Randy opted to head upstream and look - all too quickly he found NOTHING. So we left and headed farther upstream.

Upstream wasn't much better so we left (after scouting and finding Chris) to hit 20 Mile and find Bart. So much for that, he had gone far downstream. Despite now clearing water, none of the same spots held fish and there were loads of anglers running around. It didn't take long for me to round up the guys and suggest an alternate course of action...I later found out that the likely spot for the oodles of fish we had found 2 days ago was now in NY STATE!

What next? I was pretty much honestly done, frustrated and tired and plenty of fish under my belt. Chris headed back to 12 mile (as did Bart and Margaret) while Randy fished the upper stretches of 16 Mile again, determined to up his numbers for the day. I tried to get my camera working better but otherwise just tried to relax and get some rest. Being frustrated isn't very condusive to an enjoyable time on the water. Tomorrow we'd go for something completely different!

  MP