Merry Fishmas!!

Checked out Spring Creek on Sunday and it was as good as it looked, nice BWO hatch in the normal spots from 12 to 3:30 PM not great yet but a dry fly tug at this time of year is just special. We had a mature Bald Eagle circle around us about 50' above, weird to see the shadow just pass over us a few times, the fish did not like it very much! I know that a few spots on Penn's have had midges going on BUT be very careful if you go below Coburn on the creek road, it's just ice covered because the sun really never hits it well in the winter. The section of Route 45W from Hairy John's area to almost the town of Woodward was also not nice Sunday morning because of the wet frozen surface not getting any sun on it from the snow that fell last week, just drive slow or take Rout 80 BUT not if there is any snow squalls in the forecast!
  I still have been tying more flies this winter than ever, now working on a new supply of black beetles with imitation peacock dubbing and rubber legs, of course foam is the name of the game- you need a bunch of them because of what the brown trout teeth do to them. Don't be afraid to tie them in #12 & 14's bigger means a better plop which means more fish, also tie some up on longer shanked hooks because you see a lot of wood beetles in the early spring higher water, use some weight for these guys and no peacock for the body.
   Still waiting for the total results of the redd count on Spring Creek! I wish the Fish Comm. would stop with their crowing about how good the stream is, if not from a chemical spill years ago they would have continued their put and take management style on it. Now with Spring Creek TU's improvements and FFF no kill of course the population is 4000+ per mile, same could be said for Penn's if they really tried to manage it better. The only real improvement  the should make is get rid the three dams on Spring Creek that the Fish Comm. has- kind of an embarrassment for them?
  Merry Christmas and if you can go fish!!

Some Hook Thoughts

Doing quite a bit of tying in the last few weeks because of the length of the evenings and have been using both FireHole Sticks and Fulling Mill hooks and have come to really like both of them but I re ally think Fulling Mills is just a bit better. Some of the FireHole Stick models say they a 2x heavy but when you compare them to Fulling Mill they look kind of weak, yes Fire Sticks are a bit cheaper but if you loose fish to hooks that bend out at what cost were they then. In no way will I ever give up on Tiemco or Orvis by Diach- big eye straight eye hooks, these hooks serve a real purpose. The only problem with Tiemco is they have become relatively hard to find and they are not cheap, oh those cheap hooks you can find on line suck. A few years ago I got some on them on line and tied up as bunch of Trico's and only fished them during a good Trico spinner fall on Bald Eagle- every one of them bent out, they went into the trash can as soon as I got home! Please remember that our tippet material has gotten much better and we must consider what hook we are using and where we are using them, some hooks will withstand a Penn's brown long run but the same hook will not stand up to a Missouri rainbow's epic take and run. Another problem is the amount of hooks that are coming in from Europe, how can one keep up with all of them? I have used a few of them and find the short shank 60 degree jig hook to be a good choice for that style of flies. A good test might be to see how well a hook can stand a pull on 5x while you have the hook embedded in a piece of wood, if you can't bend it with moderate pressure then consider it a keeper.
   As a side note FireHole also sells beads for your flies but they are of very poor quality given the finish on them, I have not bothered to preorder any of their new slotted tungsten beads either. Beads are another big problem, it is really hard to get a good supply of them, every where you go they either only sell the small packs that are expensive or are always out of the size you want or the guys that sell them by the 100 are always sold out!!++##  Anyone have ideas where to get a good supply so your not always looking for a supply?