A long overdue answer to some, The Secret Fly

Quite a few years ago on the eve of the TU annual picnic I went early because of the March Brown, Grey Fox and Sulphur hatch and the Grey Fox emergers were everywhere, catching them was easy, just get a good float over them and they ate it. It did not take long before I had guys watching and of course trying to coach me about how to do things so after a few more I decided to hang it up of course one of the older guys came running up and wanted to see what I was using and I said no! Well of course after that I was branded a shit head and the secret fly guy, well screw you! If you think about it after over 40 years of testing and having many days of not trying to catch trout but just looking and sampling the water for different forms of emergers I think I have earned the right to decide who gets to see what I'm using and who dos not. The fellow who wanted to see the fly could care less about how much work goes into a new pattern or a new type of fly, all he wanted was instant gratification (take up golf), and he would have given it to everyone he would have seen. I have no problem helping people but when it comes to just giving something that has taken that long to refine I draw the line. Some people just want the end result and could care about the journey, well go some where else to get it. From that time on I got my ass busted and heard snide remarks about the "Secret Fly", well guess what we all have them. If I had it to do over again I would do the same thing to this guy, oh I have given the concept to other people who can keep their mouth shut and not shout it out on the mountain top. If you work on something that long and it works for you keep it and if you want pass it on ok but be careful who you tell. I love to share concepts and some patterns but those that work so very well for me I keep close to my chest. Call it stupid but if you know who I'm talking about I am sure you would agree, just a pattern junkie was he.
  Well it Jan 24th and we are to get another 1+" of rain, just when it was getting to good levels on the waters we get this! Jesus I have more flies than I'll every need now but keep tying.

2018 A Year of Water Overload

Happy New Year to all, here's hoping that 2019 will not be a repeat of last years oversupply of water BUT the same weather pattern is upon us in December and now in January! Every time the water would go down to fishable levels it rained yet again, heck Penn's is still up and Spring is over 250 cfs at Axeman, I have never seen this before. We took a trip to State College last Sunday and saw first hand all the standing water in fields and how hard and strong the springs feeding into Spring Creek are, no wonder it's up so much. I would like to see this moisture in snow form and not rain, our snow pack tends to melt slower than rain falls. This weekend 1/5/2019 we are to get from 1/2 to 3/4" of rain again. I really do not want to have to put that much shot on my leader to get the nymphs down to the trout's level, that is just not fun. It is still a bit early to see any real BWO activity yet but if the water levels go down we can expect good hatches over the winter. There was no late fall midge fishing to be had on Penn's this year but my guess is our fish are fat and really happy now. If you do try fishing remember most of our trout will be in the inside corners of bends and in the dark bottoms of the deeper holes, no skinny water fishing now.
  I tried to post the results of the Spring Creek red count but just can not get it to load, we saw a 40-50% drop off in numbers of spawning beds this years and a 30% decline from 2015 to now, not a good sign but to early to define a pattern. Some of the lower numbers this year are a result of multiple pairs using the same area for their redd's, we saw a great number of them that were very long and appeared to have multiple depressions in them but we and others could not assign higher counts to them.
   Now is the time to take all your fly lines off your reels and clean them, use Ivory Snow or another mild detergent to wash them with a soft towel then dry them, after that apply a good quality line additive, use a name brand and not ArmorAll. Rio makes a great line cleaner cloth but I still like to wash mine after I use it and will use their products or a SA product to apply to my lines. I also take each and every one of my fly rods out and look them over for damage then wash them with the same mild detergent- not a glass cleaner, never clean your cork grips with steel wool, if you want them to look better just wash them. It's not a bad time to take everything out of your vest and clean it- they stink after a year plus you'll be surprised at what you will find in them, if your like me I found I carried way to many split shot- no wonder the dam thing is so heavy.
  Maybe this winter you might want to find a club or organization that is giving fly tying lessons and sit in and help with it, just do something to pass the time till the water goes down. Hell got to the movies on the Old Fart days when it's only $5.00 to get in!