Fished Penns below Coburn on Saturday Feb 18,2012, water and air temps were at 40 and they were not going up all day log. Fished a tandem nymph set up #12 Yellow Perla Stonefly with a #14 Copper John trailer. The only hitch is we were using Thingambobbers, what a pain in the ass they are, difficult to cast and you will have a least one very bad encounter with a total leader mess. Not that I don't like them it's just they have a place, that is 100% upstream or total down and away seems to be the best for them. Trying to target pocket water from the slightly upstream and side will give poor results in hookups, the fly gets to the bottom quickly and the strike will not be detected as it should, yea you catch fish and you loose quite a few, if your getting fish to come up when you feel or see the strike indicator move and you loose them as they turn you simply did not have a good set and that is a result of not knowing that you did in fact have a strike. Call it what you may but all the hype about European nymphing is not new nor is the 10' rod fad, it's nothing more than high stick nymphing! We tried the 10' rods years ago and came to the conclusion that you could not land a fish if your by yourself, unless you carry a long handled net, that's too much shit to carry. The best method to catch fish on nymphs on Penns is target the pocket water, wade slow and quiet, get close and roll the nymphs in and get the rod high to either feel or detect the take. As far back as 30 years ago we used Doug Swished flor. green/yellow flat butt leaders, tied a short 4 or 5x tippet section with a shot or two above the knot and caught a ton of fish, not a pretty method but very effective. As we grew older we stopped wading these areas but below Coburn there are areas that are not that tough to wade. I looked and Doug Swisher does not carry the leaders but you can get them from http://www.flyriteinc.com/ a Michigan company that has been supplying materials and leaders for many years. I caution you this was the leader that we used for all our fishing per Barry Beck but some time ago they changed the butt section and made them just a bit to soft to effectively turn over a dry fly (especial the new Shark Skin lines) but for this kind a non casting they work well and are easy to see with out using any indicator (read bobber).
The trout did cooperate but as I said the good fish were not effectively hooked and that was a disappointment, two of them were in the 16" class but all the fish taken were in great shape, no skinny fish here. I did try to upload a short video on one nice fish but the thing stalled out and I lost the entire post last night! Next time I'll take some pictures and try them.
Jim
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