Noticed something interesting

I have my list of flies to replace or redo this winter and have noticed a trend that has happened over the years, everything that I tie has gotten sparser! Case in point is the Drunella (Cornuta) spinners that fall after the Drake's over, thru the years I have tied them thinner and the wings sparser, maybe at some time I will regret toning down the wings because of the loss of eyesight but not yet. My caddis emergers also have been getting thinner with less material not that I want to preserve material I just think that most of us have tied flies that are too robust. Most all my spinners now have some 2mm foam on top of the wings to help them float but if they float flush so much the better, years ago we saw trout swing up and reject spinners that seemed to float to high in the surface film, we would cut some material from the bottom of the wing and get them to float flush- boom a take! Even my nymphs have lost some weight thru the years as has their color, most now are med/dark tan in overall color to mimic the bottom of the stream bed, except for olives and stone flies, not to mention cress bugs and shrimp patterns. My cress bug are round but not fat, just pick out the dubbing when finished tying and trim excess fur from the bottom, my shrimp and sow bugs are tied with various colors with pink and orange being the go to colors. My cress bugs are brown/grey or in some streams that have a lot of underwater grass olive is the key.
  The oxy to the above is streamers- I like them big and black or light colors- mostly tandem tied, throw in a few "rainbow" like colors and that is that. Try some Hareline "Ripple Ice Fiber" for your streamers, not much is needed but boy do they look great in the water. If I could figure out how the hell to record fly tying I would post a new fly every week!
  Heads up I just tried some Duku hooks from Europe and they are just crap- soft- hell some of them bent in the vise!

They Just Keep Trying To Kill Our Resources

The Proposed Prebble Mine, subject of 20 years of controversy, 2.2 million public comments, a dozen Congressional hearings, multiple documentary films, media campaigns, ballot initiatives, lawsuits, and the most ubiquitous sticker in all of fishingdom, is back on the table. Seemingly the result of one 30 minute meeting between two men: EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and Prebble CEO Tom Collier.!!!!!!!!!
  The above is from an article in "The Drake magazine,Winter 2017 issue titled;Reignited, EPA moves to scrap Prebble Mine restrictions By Mark Menlove, read it and wonder what the hell is going on!

In the same issue is an article "Yellowstoned" Locals fight to protect Paradise Valley from mining By Jesse Robbins,  Can you imagine drilling on public lands adjacent to Yellowstone National Park, read this one and think what the hell is going on.
  I also read another article about the continued assult on Public land in Utah, these guys will not rest until every public land we hold dear has a oil or gas well on and guess what we will still pay $2.75 a gallon for gas at the pump. We are helpless in this fight.

Baby it's cold outside

Spent quite a few days in State College in the past weeks  watching the temp's carefully in the hopes of getting a Christmas or New Years trout but not with a high of 10 degrees most days and a strong wind, so I did the next best thing- took a daily ride along Spring Creek. Above Paradise along Rock Road the stream was clear with only minor shelf ice but in Paradise and up the walk in road it was just covered with ice and only a few open water pockets available, not till the outflow from the hatchery joined Spring just at the end of Paradise did the water become open and remained that way to Bellefonte. I assume that the canyon section must get really cold and battered by the wind but I also assume that just below the hatchery outflow of  Benner Springs the water would also be open. Any section that is open would be a good spot to just give it a chance this week, maybe Friday?
  Most of the time I have been cleaning fly lines and finally cleaning out fly boxes that I have not taken care of, when I'm fishing and need to replace a soaked fly I just toss it back in the box and tell myself that I'll pick it out and dry it when home- ok I do dry them with the box open on my desk but most of the time never take the time to fluff them back up- so that is what I am doing now plus taking inventory. Most of the time I have more than enough flies but I never seem to have enough of the #16 tan caddis CDC bubble back caddis dries that I need, note to self you dumb ass tie more!!!
  I have a new pattern that I have been messing with for a few years and here it is, tan caddis;
#14-16 Tiemco #921
Body; tan Aust. Opp.
Wing; tan CDC under wing & Med dark deer hair on top, with the head clipped
Legs; poly tied spent winged style on the top of the hook then clipped short to just come out past the clipped deer hair head
  Using this has given me a fly that lands just about perfect every time and floats higher on the surface. The best poly is a clear or slightly darker off shade, do not use much and don't tie it in on a bare hook (it moves) when done with the head clipping just turn the fly over and hit it with a bit of glue. I am tying it in both tan and a sotty darker olive for the Grannom.
  Happy tying!

Loon UV Infinity Light

If you have read this blog for a time you will know how much time and effort I have put in learning what products do and do not work in the UV resin world, gone is Clear Cure Goo (bad product and really bad company). I settled on "Deer Creek" from the UK because is was thin and cured tack free but back then it was a bit hard to get but now it is readily available on the market. The UV lights have been a source of frustration because unless you use them a lot by the time you set up to tie you will need batteries in them or wonder why you heads are tacky, along comes Loon with a really nice new product;
   Loon Outdoors UV Infinity Light that uses a USB charging system, it has a 3 watt output, rechargeable using a USB cable (included), uses 1 18650 battery( included), on/off switch indicates power level. I got mine and wanted to set it up so like a dumb ass I hooked up the USB cable and plugged it in and left it for 4 hours, green light on but no light, OK what do I do- call Loon. Loon tells me to take the battery out and take the plastic off, OK I thank them and hang up. Well trying to take that GD battery out is just madding, until I discover that the light comes apart in two sections and you only have to push it out, I tried every way to get it out even resorting to a pair of pliers! OK set it up again and same shit, OK now I have to turn the battery around to get it to charge. I leave it charge 4 more hours and took it off the USB cable and turned it on- NICE bright light and now I want to tie some streamers but can not get the dam thing to turn off, I can turn it off when plugged in but who the hell wants to do that, call Loon again and they tell me to hold the switch down for "2" seconds-WORKS. Tied some big streamers and some midge pupa using both Deer Creek and Loon UV resins and the cure was tack free and less than 10 seconds, and in all a dam good product, not cheap but worth the $59.95 price tag. Loon has told me that they will include a better set of instructions and also Fly Fish Food is going to do a short video on how and what to do when you buy one.
  Loon has been one of the top companies in the Fly Fishing industry always moving forward with better products, this is just another example of that as is their selection of resins that do cure tack free. Give them a try, available in most well stocked fly shops and on line.
   Now is a good time to hit the water, post spawn trout tend to eat to regain their spent energy but they will not move that far for your offerings. Have not seen a great deal of movement to their typical winter spots yet, the water is not that cold yet but look for them to seek the softer water very soon and at that time it is slow and deep!

Final results of 2017 Spring Creek Redd Count

Well another redd count season is behind us and the results are down but confusing, best guess is that we were early in our counting, perhaps another week was needed in order to get the trout going but here they are with some sections to note.
Boalesburg downstream to just above the quarry, 13 active redds BUT in 2016 this section had 171 active redds!

Route 26 bridge downstream to Puddintown bridge, 67 active redds and in 2016 this section had 30 redds BUT - NZ mudsnails were found in this section! Be careful and allow your wading gear to dry well between fishing sessions or have two pair in the ready to rest one and allow the snail fry to die in the air and absence of moisture.

The bridge on Rockview property down stream to the bridge above the PFC pistol range had 181 active redds and in 2016 it had 184 redds, a good solid number each year.

The Rout 550 bridge downstream to the Distillary bridge had 39 active redds and in 2016 it had 119 redds, some of this area is very hard to see but still the numbers are down.

   Overall the number have fallen in the past years,
2015 had 1945 redds
2016 had 1597 redds
2017 had 1236 redds
   A drop of 348 from 2016 to 2017 and a drop of 361 from 2016 to 2017, I hope this trend does not continue but I think we need to go back to are old date to do our survey even if it hurts us in the cold, just more hot coffee and chili to keep us warm in the process.

2017 Spring Creek Redd Count

It was another cold one at the start but warmed up to 43 by 11:00 AM, we stated at the blue bridge at "The Rock" on Rock Road and worked our way down stream to the bridge at Benner Spring's Hatchery, water conditions were better that 2016 with more water and good color. We did not see any redds till about 30-80 yards down stream because of the slow deep nature of this section just below the Fish Comm. concrete dam, we started to see redds as soon as we got to the sections that had 6" to 12" of water and moderate to fast flows, the key is having small gravel for them to work with. this year for some reason most of the redds were on the hatchery side of the stream, we would go good distances without seeing any on the "new path side", When we got to certain areas we would find multiple redds but found only "1" that had a female on it, not sure if our section was post sawn or just getting started- BUT we saw no trout around the redds except that "1". Our total count was "107", a bit more than 2016 and less that 2015 but again there were long sections that were devoid of any redds and the years before we had them in these sections but to be fair the water was up! When we returned to the Spring Creek Park to turn in our results we found that ours was one of the highest numbers reported that day and some teams found "0" redds, a sure sign that the survey was too early in some of the sections, it is true that not all trout are active spawning at the same time but they at least are in the same time frame, I would look for a flurry of activity this week or the next and some of the guys plan on going out again to conduct a resurvey. I did check in on the one really big bed just off Rock Road and it had a few small males darting around the redd but no big female.
   As soon as I get the final results I will post them for you but know Spring Creek is doing well. There is a new parking area just above the "Rock" parking area just up the road to the airport and a really good walking path down along the stream to the Benner Springs bridge but be aware it is a steep last few 100 yards walking back to your car!

 

Redd Count this Sunday

Our annual Spring Creek redd count is this Sunday starting at 9 AM an lasting as long as it takes for the teams to finish walking and counting redds both active and non active sites. I have always been amazed at some of the sizes of fish we have seen both on the redds (females) and some of the males seen alongside the redds. I remember one site that has if there is water has always had one very large female and male active on it and a bunch of small males just darting around the edges, what a site to see, it is alongside the road not more that 20 yards from it! I will You Tube some of the sites in order for folks to see them and if we are lucky maybe even some of the really big guys. I will check Penns on my home in the afternoon. Hey the chili is good and hot as is the coffee, 9 AM at Spring Creek Park in Houserville, within site of the PSU stadium. We can use the help but this is a very good chance to get a good look at the stream and see just how many Brown trout there are.