March Brown, Grey Fox 2020

Went to Penn's on Wed. had the entire pool to my self. Waited till I saw some of the good guys mid pool start to rise and planned my wading carefully because the water was still a bit on the high side. Took the first brown of about 17" on my Grey Fox emerger then saw another one a bit down stream, well I did not realize just how deep it was until I got on shore! The second brown was a solid 19" fish that was fat and colored up really nice, after trying to get the GD GoPro to turn on I released it and waded back to shore and realized that my vest was soaked and the fly boxes of course had some water in them-Stupid. I took a drying cloth to them and put them on shore by my lunch to dry a bit but as I was wading back to shore "3" yow butts came walking up the bank and of course took up positions just below the riffle where a few good fish raise. Decided to eat lunch and watch the surface, OK some more rises down near the picnic table, walked down and caught them of course all Penn's Creek Tarpons (chubs)! Saw the one fish on the far bank just as the stream starts to widen and I wanted to try for him, took off my vest and waded within safe casting distance, a 9"0" #6 Winston gave me the extra umpf that I needed, well he ate as soon as the fly drifted over him, another really nice brown. Waded back to shore and looked up now the tree guys are still in the same location. I walked up and watched them fail and throw crap over the fish as they were rising! Holy shit they still were staying and not getting anything at all, finally one of them walked down and started to talk and asked about the fish I had caught, he said that he might go down and try for some of them, now this fellow was maybe 5'6" and had waders that were hanging down near his waste, I told him to be careful! The two other guys never moved and never did get any fish!
  After I was finished I decided to drive up to the main parking lot and see how crowded it was- the LOT WAS FULL- we are loving the shit our of Penn's again. there was "4" cars at Cherry Run and
"3" cars at AFREO! So much for working from home!
  New advice don't go to Penn's, find another place to fish-please.
All my fish were taken on a size #12 1x long light wire Grey Fox emerger, never did I see a March Brown emerge when I was there, as usual it was all Fox's.

Brook Trout !?

Fished Fishing Creek (Clinton Cty.) on Monday and found the stream a bit on the high side but still more than Ok, have been watching George Daniel fish there for the past couple of weeks and why not give it a try. Wanted to fish just below the top bridge but someone had that run so I decided to fish were Paul and I fished many times in the early spring, no one there so I parked and got dressed and walked in, this is a small parking area just below the SIG Center drive way. Walking back I saw how many trees have fallen due to the high winds we have been having and the litter the fallen trunks have caused. Arrived at the area and found once again the geese are there and of course noisy! Got everything ready and tied on a smaller Hendrickson emerger to start and then just waited for some thing to happen, it did not take long! A rise here and a rise there from top to bottom. OK lets give them a try, bang the first cast a good looking brookie of about 10", then another and another. Saw some other rises that were a bit better and cast to one of them, well he refused the emerger so I tied on the trusty Olive #18 emerger and he took, another brookie! Saw two fish rising in the tail out and decided to give them a go, the first was the closer part of the tail out to me and he took on the first cast! The second was on the far side in the other section of the tail out, these are fish my buddy Paul just loved to fish to, well I got this one also and as soon as I landed it I looked to the sky and said this one is for you Paul, of course another brookie. Thru the course of a few hours  I landed 16 brookies and lost at least 10 more, this is very strange and not normal at all. Maybe 20 years ago we might catch a brookie here and there but never that many? I think that the cabins in that area must have stocked that entire area with brookies for their kids? I moved up to the big pool at the rock slide and began to see a few rises in the flat water and caught some of them ALL browns. Saw a really big fish on the other side just eating like a pig but all my best casts fell 3-5' SHORT, a DT3 just can't get that kind of distance, should always carry a 7wt just in case. On the road side there are some great log jambs and of course there was a really fine fish just eating like another pig tight to the outer branches of the bottom log jamb. This section is just too dam deep to even think about stepping off the bank or even using a downstream presentation, some fish are just not meant to be caught.
  I should have stopped in to the Tylersville hatchery and asked if the know anything about the brookie stocking. If they did stock them than was a very dumb thing to do, stock fish into one of the best naturally reproducing stream we have????
   Had an adult Raccoon swim across the stream no more than 15 yards above me, never had that happen before, he got on the far bank and just looked at as to say what the hell are you doing in my area.

Go go fishing now

Today is a blue bird day and a great day to fish, yes the streams are up but you can find some water to drop a line in. Think about making the stream smaller, break it up into smaller sections and concentrate on them and not on the entire section your on. Spring and Big Fishing Creek are a bit high but you can get down using weight, Olives, Blue Quills and Caddis  along with Hendrickson's on Fishing Creek will get some fish up. Don't go early unless you want to hit the caddis emergence, they come off early in the day and return in the evening to mate. I watched a George Daniel video the other day and he crossed over into the "Dark Side' fishing squirmey worms, mop flies and eggs BUT he did catch fish! The segment was shot on Fishing Creek.
  I am sad to report that the 11th season of "Fly vs. Jerks" was a complete bust, 1 fly team against 6 artificial bait casters, I just loved the photography and the new fly patterns that those guys would throw at the pike, not much was show from the fly guys! I still like to watch Fly TV on YouTube it's from Sweden and sometimes you just have to watch and turn the sound down because you can't understand them, the content is good.
  I love the fact that at any time you can see any pattern tied by at least 4-5 tyers on YouTube,some are a lot better than others but you get the meat of it at any rate.
  Still tying a ton of flies, now on the spinners using stripped peacock quills then covered with a thin layer of Loon thin UV, they look great and we shall see what the trout say soon.