Sunday, September 18, 2011

A great weekend to kick off Autumn

It's definitely getting colder outside. I think it hit 42 degrees here the other night. I tried to make the most of this nice weekend with temps in the 60s by getting out as much as possible. This is a long post. You probably won't read it all. :)

I set my alarm for 6:30 on Saturday morning and I was on the stream at the Little Lehigh by 7:30. Unfortunately, it was either too cold, too early, or the hurricane/flooding just messed up the tricos, because nothing was rising. That didn't really matter though. The fish were going stupid over those size 18 egg patterns I posted a video for in my last post. If you'd like to try a few of them out next time you're on the stream, Dave has some of my eggs for sale now at the Heritage Fly Shop. Orange and Light Cream were the best producers for me.


I bought a total of 5 bows to hand. Three were stocked and two were wild. I also tested out a new version of my rubber legged copper john that I tied using longer legs and tail in a smaller diameter, which produced this fat mutant stocked bow.




While walking upstream towards the "lunker hole" as I heard it called on Saturday, I noticed the tree that got knocked down by Irene wasn't totally removed. It was cut in half, and pushed a little downstream. This created a massive deep pool with a zillion fish podded up under it. Unfortunately, some idiot decides to wade right into it and spook them all right when I got there. (I hate the fact that you can wade this stream now. There's no need for it)



I also was messing around with my camera and did another quick release video of one of the bows.


It was a fun morning of fishing, but the most fulfilling part was when I saw a local guide walking by with a kid that couldn't have been more than 10, looking to get him into his first fish. The hole I was in was full of easy fish and I offered to let them fish it. Well, that kid caught his first trout ever. Trading off the 2 or 3 more fish I could have pulled out of that hole was well worth it.

I headed home early, around 11:30 because my wife wanted to take Michael apple picking over at Solebury Orchards in New Hope PA. This place is full of stuck-up, rich people who wear Prada to hike through a field picking apples very eccentric people, but besides that it's a blast. You go there, jump on a tractor, drive out about a quarter mile, pick a ton of apples, ride back, pay for them, and then finish it off with a homemade cider ice (think italian water ice, but made with unfiltered apple liquid) and an apple donut. There's also some hay stacks and flower gardens for the kids to play in.




We then headed over to Peddler's Village, which is a huge outdoor mall-ish type place with outlets and artsy shops. Michael got an awesome Duck hat from the Balloon dude.


There's a brew pub restaurant there called The Porterhouse that we hit up for dinner. I wasn't feeling their in-house brew on tap (They only had a porter!) so I opted for a cold delicious Dale's Pale Ale. Their burgers rock. I was highly suggest hitting up this place if you're in the area.



Today I decided to spend some quality time with the little guy, so we did some shopping. We hit up a local flea market in search of some old fishing gear to hang in the man cave bar. No luck, but I did take him to race some RC cars. He freaking loved it.


I got him home and when he passed out for a nap, my wife took over watching him and I darted to the local stream for two hours. The fishing wasn't that great. The largies and smallies weren't budging for streamers. I did get a tiny smallie and about a dozen gills on a hopper. I also decided to practice czech nymphing through a run full of 8-10 inch shiners, just for the hell of it. I was picking up two fish on every cast, which was fun for about 10 minutes.



I capped off the day by installing 4 new outdoor lights around the house, putting in a new garage door opener keypad, and mowing the lawn. There's something to be said about a well manicured yard. Enjoy what's left of your weekend.

3 comments:

  1. Nice fish! That burger and beer look great.

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  2. Apple picking! Some of my fondest memories are of walking in fall orchards as a kid...

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  3. fish, family, and food... that's all you need. I had decent luck on the east branch walking the dog for bigger smallies recently. I don't know how you could replicate that on the fly rod though.

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