Oh well a couple of days is OK

Got in a couple of good days of Olive fishing but as of today 3/22/19 that will be over for a while, the entire middle and eastern part of PA just got hammered with yet more heavy rain! Will we ever return to a normal year, well only time will tell, in a normal year the moisture shuts off around the end of May and we go thru summer dry. We all have cabin fever this year due to either cold and ice or just too much rain and run off. I for one have no desire to fish heavy nymphs and fight the current or walk and find water to fish close to shore, even Big Fishing Creek is just too wild at this time again, even if you have the chance of catching a really big brown there, it is just very hard to do.
  The best thing about this year is that no one should ever need to tie flies during the season, heavens knows I have more than enough for a lifetime but you always seem to want to tie something different or improve a pattern that you have. I have been tying a lot of the new Peridon nymph patterns and have tried them when the olives have been on but still think a Pheasant tail is still the very best pattern to have in your box, yes the new style does get down fast and stays on the bottom and does catch fish but not any better than a PT.
  It's too bad the fly exchange that used to be held in The Union County Sportsman's Club is no more it gave a lot of guys a good shot in the arm to exchange ideas on fly tying and new patterns and just plain BS between good guys!
  In any event go outside and do an NON rain dance and see if it helps!!

March 2019

As the Spring comes into view, it is looking OK not great but just fine, not too much rain/snow and stream levels are going down, except on warm days the level will bump up due to melt. If your going try to find a stable day that does not have those big spikes of warmer temps because the inflow of cold water will put a damper on the trout. Yes Olives and Midges are happening but you have to look at many spots to find the feeding fish, these hatches are not universal T/O the streams. Just got word the even Big Fishing Creek has some rising fish but you'll have to look for them. An Olive emerger in a size #18-20 is doing the trick and a black midge size #22-24 is the thing to use ( I also use a dark grey pattern), don't forget the Grif's midge!
  I was in TCO fly shop in State College and picked up a new fly box, Tacky Hydrophobic SD Waterprooof Fly Box and about shit when I felt how much it weights- not for me! At my age I'm trying to eliminate weight not add to it. If you get your flies wet of put wet ones in your box just lay them open when you return from the stream to air dry and in a short time all will be fine- check out the Tacky and I think you might agree.
 

Saw One

Over the weekend I was in State College and of course fished Friday & Saturday but not Sunday in 40 mph winds. On Friday afternoon I found a small pod of fish rising in a slow riffle, took 3 of them but they were all small ( 5" - 8"), all browns, I got out of the water and looked down steam in the wide flat below and saw them, large fish pushing a good amount of water when they took the olives- wow dam how can I get to them? There is no way to get close to them, very deep and a steep bank and no way to get to them. Can't get below them the steep bank covered in snow and the wading up stream is extremely deep, I can do it if the water is in late summer levels! Yes they were on olives and eating them well but it is a watch and see exercise. One of the hardest things to do at this time is find a parking space, even the parking areas are not clear, the large one at "The Rock" was fine but aside from Paradise no parking was to be found. On both days the fish took olives well but you again would have to find them and not assume they would be where you wanted to fish. Paradise was a good bet for small nymphs but no rising fish were seen. I checked below Bellefonte but with the spring dumping a ton of water into Spring and chance to fish below town was out!
   Let's just hope and keep an good eye on the stream levels and make sure that Axeman is about 110 cfs or below to get a good fish. But go if you can, be watchful the spin and bait guys are out in full force! 

Maybe now?

It's Feb 19th and dam it might be time to hit the water to find some good Olive activity this weekend but first we need to get thru yet another snow/rain event! Given that the weekend is to be in the mid forties and cloudy it is looking very good. Also on the menu will be little black stoneflies but they are best fished as a small black pheasant tail under a indicator or perhaps a small olive emerger. Midges are also ever present at this time of year and the two best patterns are; Griffit's Gnat or a spent winged (no tail needed) #24/26 black or dark grey body and clear wing works best, be careful because the fish can switch from Olives to Midges and back again so be ready. Do not disparage if it seems as if the rising activity has stopped just wait and it will resume again shortly, for some reason the Olives seem to come in waves.
   A quick up date on the Intruder swing flies, everything is going well after getting all the materials needed plus understanding that the makeup of the flies is not bulk but layered to look like bulk but with a ton of under water motion. I will try and get a few pictures of them to post this weekend. I'll be on Spring Creek this entire weekend and tying all night while dog sitting in State College!

Into Swinging!

No not that kind, no wife swapping! I mean the West Coast steelhead/trout new streamer type fly swinging. I have always heard a lot about the West Coast guys coming to the Missouri River and using this technique and flies with great success but really never gave it much thought until a year ago. I loved to streamer fish but hated the idea of so many missed strikes and the big problem of getting the fly to the correct depth while at the same time moving to different and varied locations in the stream. I began to YouTube the subject and was surprised to see just how complex the flies were then but in the last year the "intruder" style flies have become much easier to understand and tie. Make no mistake getting everything to tie these guys is a bitch, shanks, trailer hooks, good materials like Artic Fox and trailer tube material, OK got it all BUT wait now you need a method to hold the shanks (either straight or Waddington) of course my Dyna King can't hold the straight shanks- OK get a new add on and now I'm all set. Why do I like these guys, well they are fun to tie (except for getting stuck by the trailer hook while tying) plus the fact you can vary the weight just by using different hour glass eyes (brass or lead), materials are pretty simple and they are just dam fun to do. OPST has a good variety of flies to look at and materials to buy, but if you want to see more just look up "Aqua Flies" they have a great selection of flies to look at plus YouTube "Intruder flies" and wow there they are a ton to watch they tie.
  I use mostly Artic Fox, marabou, ice chenille, mallard dyed and a ton of dyed rabbit strips, that's about it.
  Fishing these flies is a very easy and slow process, cast quarter down stream and hold the line in your rod holding hand and follow it thru the entire drift till the end and at this point give your rod a few gentle pull backs, this helps to stimulate a fish that has followed your fly into taking. You can vary the speed but just adjusting your entry into the water or mending downstream to slow the drift. With this style your not going to get many if any short strikes. Your wading will be minimal and this gives you a good chance to get some of the bigger fish that seem to hide in the mid pool or close to the far bank, if you use a longer rod you can use a two handed snap tee cast or for that matter you can do it with a single handed rod also, so your casting never gets to be a pain nor do you have to watch what is behind you. Given the slow method you will be surprised at how hard the takes will be and the different size fish that you'll get. Give them a try and you might become interested in swinging!

A long overdue answer to some, The Secret Fly

Quite a few years ago on the eve of the TU annual picnic I went early because of the March Brown, Grey Fox and Sulphur hatch and the Grey Fox emergers were everywhere, catching them was easy, just get a good float over them and they ate it. It did not take long before I had guys watching and of course trying to coach me about how to do things so after a few more I decided to hang it up of course one of the older guys came running up and wanted to see what I was using and I said no! Well of course after that I was branded a shit head and the secret fly guy, well screw you! If you think about it after over 40 years of testing and having many days of not trying to catch trout but just looking and sampling the water for different forms of emergers I think I have earned the right to decide who gets to see what I'm using and who dos not. The fellow who wanted to see the fly could care less about how much work goes into a new pattern or a new type of fly, all he wanted was instant gratification (take up golf), and he would have given it to everyone he would have seen. I have no problem helping people but when it comes to just giving something that has taken that long to refine I draw the line. Some people just want the end result and could care about the journey, well go some where else to get it. From that time on I got my ass busted and heard snide remarks about the "Secret Fly", well guess what we all have them. If I had it to do over again I would do the same thing to this guy, oh I have given the concept to other people who can keep their mouth shut and not shout it out on the mountain top. If you work on something that long and it works for you keep it and if you want pass it on ok but be careful who you tell. I love to share concepts and some patterns but those that work so very well for me I keep close to my chest. Call it stupid but if you know who I'm talking about I am sure you would agree, just a pattern junkie was he.
  Well it Jan 24th and we are to get another 1+" of rain, just when it was getting to good levels on the waters we get this! Jesus I have more flies than I'll every need now but keep tying.

2018 A Year of Water Overload

Happy New Year to all, here's hoping that 2019 will not be a repeat of last years oversupply of water BUT the same weather pattern is upon us in December and now in January! Every time the water would go down to fishable levels it rained yet again, heck Penn's is still up and Spring is over 250 cfs at Axeman, I have never seen this before. We took a trip to State College last Sunday and saw first hand all the standing water in fields and how hard and strong the springs feeding into Spring Creek are, no wonder it's up so much. I would like to see this moisture in snow form and not rain, our snow pack tends to melt slower than rain falls. This weekend 1/5/2019 we are to get from 1/2 to 3/4" of rain again. I really do not want to have to put that much shot on my leader to get the nymphs down to the trout's level, that is just not fun. It is still a bit early to see any real BWO activity yet but if the water levels go down we can expect good hatches over the winter. There was no late fall midge fishing to be had on Penn's this year but my guess is our fish are fat and really happy now. If you do try fishing remember most of our trout will be in the inside corners of bends and in the dark bottoms of the deeper holes, no skinny water fishing now.
  I tried to post the results of the Spring Creek red count but just can not get it to load, we saw a 40-50% drop off in numbers of spawning beds this years and a 30% decline from 2015 to now, not a good sign but to early to define a pattern. Some of the lower numbers this year are a result of multiple pairs using the same area for their redd's, we saw a great number of them that were very long and appeared to have multiple depressions in them but we and others could not assign higher counts to them.
   Now is the time to take all your fly lines off your reels and clean them, use Ivory Snow or another mild detergent to wash them with a soft towel then dry them, after that apply a good quality line additive, use a name brand and not ArmorAll. Rio makes a great line cleaner cloth but I still like to wash mine after I use it and will use their products or a SA product to apply to my lines. I also take each and every one of my fly rods out and look them over for damage then wash them with the same mild detergent- not a glass cleaner, never clean your cork grips with steel wool, if you want them to look better just wash them. It's not a bad time to take everything out of your vest and clean it- they stink after a year plus you'll be surprised at what you will find in them, if your like me I found I carried way to many split shot- no wonder the dam thing is so heavy.
  Maybe this winter you might want to find a club or organization that is giving fly tying lessons and sit in and help with it, just do something to pass the time till the water goes down. Hell got to the movies on the Old Fart days when it's only $5.00 to get in!