Our family spent the Christmas vacation in State College this year and the day before we were looking for an adventure with our granddaughter, OK let's take the dog for a walk at Paradise on Spring Creek and visit the hatchery. Dec. 24 turned out to be a very nice day and of course we had to check out the hatchery runs with all the trout in them, we all had a great time just looking at the fish and watching the dog want to jump in. A very nice young man from the Fish Comm. offered a 3/4 filled bucket of feed to our granddaughter so she could really get the trout going, the big golden trout just went wild. The entire time I kept seeing midges flying all around, not just a few but a lot of them, they live and hatch off the empty (of fish) raceways and are a welcomed sight in the winter. Well it turned out they also made their way to Spring Creek to mate and lay eggs, as you can imagine it resulted in a great midge feeding event, trout we everywhere! The same guys that are there every day were in their positions and casting to feeding fish! What a wonderful Christmas present for us and the guys that were fishing. Oh by the way the hatch was on again Christmas Day! The midges were #22 black bodies, quite large for the early season, expect them to be in their normal size range during the Winter season. You really don't need much for them, down winged patterns of black mole fur bodies and spent poly wings or even a Grif's Gnat will do the trick, expect to use 6, 6.5 or 7x tippet to fool the trout, it would also be wise to carry some BWO patterns in size #18, 20 & 22's mostly emergers or pheasant tail nymphs with a post of poly to grease it to float. Not much to carry at all and easy to get around. As a side note it's not a bad idea to get your self a pair of Patagonia neoprene gloves, nothing will keep your hands as warm as these will and at $48.00 a bargain compared to some of the steelhead Kast gloves!
Celebrate the New Year with a Winter fishing trip and don't forget to be careful, wade with caution.
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