Close Encounter of the Critter Kind

Those who spend time in the outdoors tend to have some rather odd animal encounters. I had such an experience last week.

Along the First Fork of the Sinnemahoning, I noticed an adult mink hunting in the shallows about 15 yards away. He had not seen me, so I just stood still. After a minute, the mink began running to the nearby cover of willows.

On a whim, I began sucking on the back of my hand, imitating the sounds of a small mammal in distress. The mink immediately changed directions, coming toward me, looking all around for the source of the sounds.

Since I was standing in the open, eventually at a distance of only about five yards, the mink knew something was not right and scurried back to the willows.

I started the distress squeals again. Moments later, the mink emerged on

Joe Kosack/PGC

a dead run. This time, though, he did not stop at five yards. He came in until he was at my feet.

He momentarily paused, and then, full of suspicion, retraced his steps back into the willows. By this time I had a huge smile on my face and figured I would give another call.

Joe Kosack/PGC Photo

My third distress call produced the same results, except this time the mink only came in to a distance of about six yards.

I finally decided that I had played enough tricks on the poor old critter and moved on.

Dry fly action was really starting to heat up on the Driftwood Branch in early June. However, after a couple good nights of hatches, things dropped off rapidly. Then, the heat put an end to most of the trout fishing as water temperatures climbed.

On June 2, I arrived in the village of Cameron just before 8 pm. I initially fished wet flies in tandem, landing one chunky 13-inch rainbow before some trout feeding on the surface persuaded me to switch over to dry flies.

I tried a general pattern, the adams, because there seemed to be a variety of different mayflies hatching in small numbers. The action was not spectacular. During the next half-hour, I caught a brown trout and a brookie.

Around 9 o'clock, a group of trout started feeding in the shallows behind me. I soon was getting takes on almost every other cast. Almost all were nine or ten-inch brook trout, with a few brownies mixed in.

The brown drake spinners were flying up and down the stream, adding a buzz to the air overtop the water and an exciting atmosphere for fly fishing. I ended up fishing until I could see no more. I had caught about a dozen trout.

Two nights later, I was back on the stream. Action was a little disappointing. I only saw a handful of trout rising and caught just two. However, the second one I caught was a hefty 17-inch brown trout that put up a heck of a fight on my four-weight fly rod.

The next night I arrived on the Driftwood Branch early, but the action was slow. The hatch was nowhere near what I had anticipated. I caught three trout.

On June 6, the first day of our heat wave, water temperatures in the Driftwood Branch had climbed ten degrees since the night before, to 76. Not surprisingly, there wasn't much action on the stream.

Just when I had been expecting good fishing, the heat put an end to everything, leaving me yearning for the heavy dry fly action that never really came to pass this spring on the Driftwood Branch.