Saturday, April 12, 2014

Things are warming up

I'm thankful the snow is finally out of here! It's been in the 60s almost every day and even hit 80 yesterday.

I've been sneaking in fishing trips any time I can...

10 minutes while running some errands to cast to rising stickies with dry midges...


Heading out in the evening for the same stockies and realizing the panfish are waking up..

And some quick 15 minute trips to a small lake near my office on my lunch break for some cruising carp..


It's been awesome to finally get to target some non-trout species. Now i just need to find some bass.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have about 50 hours of yard work ahead of me. At least I have some cold friends to help me out. Happy Saturday.



Thursday, April 3, 2014

Opening Day of Trout Season 2014 Top 10

In keeping with tradition, here's my annual post of about shit show that is opening day in Pennsylvania. I decided to stay local this year again, and was planning on bringing my 4 year old.

I spent time prepping the night before, twisting up some small tungsten head buggers which is all you pretty much need for these dumb fish.

Since the little guy would be worm dunking (screw helping him fly cast surrounded by morons), I even put on my headlamp, and walked through the yard at 10pm after a rain and pulled a ton of night crawlers up. I refuse to use that Powerbait stuff.

The morning rolls around and he doesn't feel like fishing anymore. I knew a few inches of rain was on it's way so it would be a muddy mess after an hour so I wasn't too upset about it. I grabbed my stuff, drove about half a mile, and got to the stream by 7:45, ready to go. I hiked about two miles of the stream after the opening bell, and picked up like 6 or 7 fish in under two hours. 

Then the rain crashed down and I called it a day. So without further adieu, is my opening day top ten...

1.Once again, the Palominos continue to attract all the morons. It was a shit show of Cabelas Neoprene, Duck Dynasty Camo hoodies, Powerbait, snelled hooks big enough to hook a Tarpon, and lot of corn.

2.I found plenty of open water to fish and caught the majority of my fish without another soul in site, but when I did find big pods of people, the look on their faces was priceless when I would just walk right in, catch a fish on my first or second cast with a bugger, release it and walk away.  "Dude, you're throwing away meat!"  

3.I should have tied more buggers. I made $20 selling them to spin fishermen for $5 each. Seriously.

4.You may have heard of the Fly Fishing "Brah App" which recently poked fun at the younger fly fishing generation these days, well now there are spin Brahs as well. Flat brimmed Volcom hat, Simms waders, neck beard, stinking like weed, but the difference between these guys and a typical Colorado fly fishing blogger is the choice of fishing method and their feelings toward catch and release. There is no hip fiberglass rod and hot pink Allen reel, but a St. Croix ultralight spinning rod and a Shimano Stradic reel. 

"Hey bro, what color you throwin?"

"Pumpkin Seed Sparkle Bro. Just nailed 3 more"

"word Brah!"

These guys took their stockie fishing serious. They'd surround a pod of fish, and hammer them with nothing but different colored trout magnets until they wiped out every one in the hole. 

5.Watching three stocked fish in an slack eddy rising to cigarette butts from the littering morons upstream.


7.Remembering how ugly looking a stocked rainbow is....

8.Seeing a giant bobber the size of a tennis ball swimming around with no line stuck to it. I put on a big streamer, snagged the bobber, and reeled in a 17 inch brown, releasing him to safety.

9.Cabelas zipper front guide waders. Review coming soon but safe to say I love them.

10.I met some cool spin fisherman as well. These guys do fly fish on occasion, were only using artificials, and releasing every fish they caught. One even released a 20+ inch pally to the dismay of the power bait crew. They earn my respect.

More coming soon. I nailed a few on dries today :)