1 wt. & Trico's

Was looking for an empty Sage 3100 spool and found "2" spools loaded with 1 wt fly lines and wanted to try them again for Trico's but they both had old Doug Swisher flat butt leaders on them and I had to chage them, heavens knows how old they were? I took the flat butt off and cleaned the lines then added a Trout Hunter 9' 5x finess leader to the end of the line. Checked just below Paradise and there were a billion Trico's over the stream, so I drove downstream looking for rising fish, found some spots that were good but drove to Milesburg to check Bald Eagle- a big fat "0" was going on there. Drove above Bellefonte and found a spot where the fish were eating, got ready and put on a dark olive #24 Trico spinner and 6.5x Trout Hunter tippet and got to working on them. I can tell you that a 6" on the 1 wt feels just great and the Scott very soft 8'8" #2 was the perfect rod for it. Just lined them up and maybe not the first float over them but they would at some time just eat the Trico. After about an hour & a half the action started to dimish so I tied on a #18 cinn. foam ant and cast to the banks, well they ate that also. I got to the head of the pool and wanted to get a bite to eat and move to another location that I have had great action in. Ate then drove up and walked to the tail of the pool and almost killed myself getting down the bank, started to wade up stream to avoid the drag at the tail out and became stuck in the mud on the bottom, this resulted in a 30 yard struggle to get upstream and not set foot on private land all the time not knowing if I could manage to get free in some spots. This was exausting to say the least and NO dam fish rising at all, no Trico's no takes on the small ant (the pool is very deep). I tied on a #12 black beetle and that was not the best thing to do on a 1 wt with 6.5 tippet! I cut the tippet off and used 5x and began to catch fish on the plopped beetle. If you do not get a take in the first couple of feet try and slowly bring the beetle to you before you make another cast, they seem to follow it quite a distance and the action triggers them to take. After I got to the top of the pool I had to get out on the road side bank, yet another adventure but based on the day and fall would not have made to sad. A good day to fish and learn Only used "3" flies the entire morning, not loosing any to the tree gods!