Not a bad Saturday

I had two options today. Drive over an hour south and fish a clear stream for rising fish and deal with a ton of people or drive half an hour and fish a stream that might be running a little high but would still have a lot of people. I opted for the latter, and once again I found myself at the Little Lehigh in ripping water conditions.

I sat up Friday night whipping up some Hi-Vis BWO Parachutes that I unfortunately didn't get to use.

I opted for a bugger and picked up a small brown. Then nothing. For a long time. It sucked. Frustration sank in. Then another fisherman told me to try a caddis larva.

DING DING DING DING DING!

We finally found a winner. Picked up a few ugly stocked rainbows before heading off for a quick bite to eat.

I was informed that the PAFLYFISH Newbie Jam was starting at 2pm on the stream so I wound up heading back to the stream and chatting with some familiar faces. Picked up another fish on a tungsten nymph and watched my good buddy Becker slay fish with his fancy snagging competition nymphing tactics. It was great to see him getting his son on some fish.

After that, it was home to install chair rail. Managed to land 4 fish, have a few beers, and get the whole foyer and hallway done by dark. WIN.

The leaves are turning, and the trout are looking up

It was a perfect day for fishing. It was too cool for shorts, just right for jeans; too chilly for a t-shirt, but just right for a light windbreaker.

I packed light, only carrying two fly boxes instead of my typical five (yes, I have issues), a couple spools of 6x and 7x tippet, and some floatant, dry fly powder, and some shot in my windbreaker pocket.

The air was about 60, the clouds seemed like they didn't want to let the sun peak through, the leaves were turning yellow, and I just knew there would be mayfly action.

Although I'm not a hunter and I pretty much despise being anywhere near a firearm, I always love when deer season starts in PA because the trout streams are empty. I pretty much had the place to myself, besides one other angler, who made the trip from up near NYC just to fish the Little Lehigh. We had some good conversations about various fishing locations while picking off fish.

Oh yes, they were looking up. Olives and Midges were coming off all afternoon, and oddly enough, Sulphurs starting making an appearance around 3:30pm. I've never seen them that late in the year. I wasn't complaining. I lost track at 5 fish, the biggest a fat healthy rainbow around 17 inches. I caught them in various spots, up and down the stream.

After a few hours, I headed home for some family time. One of the funniest things I've seen in weeks was watching the two little guys go crazy in the bathtub tonight. They are getting so big. Ethan is only 9 months and he's just about walking and constantly saying Dada already.

 I'm taking Michael fishing tomorrow with his uncle and cousins and I asked him "Do you want to use your Spongebob rod with worms and a bobber? I know you love playing with worms."

 His response?

 "No daddy, I want to fly fish like you." He's only three, and wise beyond his years.

(p.s.) Check the fly shop link up top. Some new patterns rolling through pretty soon...)

Some tasty Saturday morsels (well..at least the fish will see them as tasty)

I spent today over at the Calvary Outdoors Expo with my son. Unfortunately, the only fly fishing stuff there was a booth by Mainline Fly Tyers. There was lots of camoflage, dead stuffed animals, and soft plastic fishing baits, none of which are really my thing. I did pick up a really nice LED flashlight for $4 though.

I am a little tired, partially because I was up last night tying like a madman. Here's a couple that came off the vise around 2am.

First up is a BWO looped wing emerger. I wanted something different to trail a BWO dry so I thought I'd give this a shot. I tied a similar midge emerger pattern that cleaned up a few weeks back.

Size 18 emerger hook
Green goose biot
olive 12/0 thread
CDC - light dun
Z-lon, dun (tail)
a tiny bit of Jan Siman peacock bronze for the head


Next up, here's a pattern for carp that I recreated from looking at Roughfisher's website. He calls it the carp crack. I won't list this recipe here because if you really like it, you should go buy a few from him :)

Valley Forge Fly Fishing Show Recap (and some non-skunked goodness!)

Today was bittersweet. There were definitely highs and lows. I didn't go to bed until 2am, and I woke up right before 5, wide awake. I stayed in bed trying to sleep until 6 and then I figured I might as well just get up and head down to the convention center to beat the crowds. I hit the road just before 7. The usual 1-1.25 hour commute only took me about 35 minutes and I got there and realized that it didn't open until 9. Oops.

The good thing was that Valley Creek was only a few miles away. I scouted it yesterday so I knew I could find fish. I strung up and started to hike it upstream through some water I didn't check out yesterday.

Unfortunately, I didn't see many fish and the few I did see took off like a bat out of hell the second I got within 30 feet of them. I swear these browns have eyes in the back of their heads. Or it could just be that I'm 6'4", weigh 270, and it's pretty much impossible for me to stay out of site. You can see me coming two miles away.

But moving on, I did see a ton of BWOs coming off the water. I guessed them at about a size 18. I took off my nymphs, switched to 7x tippet, and threw on a few no hackle CDC dries in 18. I hiked back down to the familiar water from yesterday and sure enough, they start to rise. Swinging 18s over them for half an hour got me zilch. I started wondering if it was the pattern, or the size.

I switched to a 22 and started working one fish that was about 40 feet downstream from me that I could see rising just behind a branch hanging down from a tree into the water. I hid behind a tree so he didnt see me, and just started repeatedly casting until he finally took the fly. Even though they claim the water here is polluted and you can't keep any of the fish, this fish fought like he was a much bigger fish and jumped clear out of the water 3 times before I got him in. He looked 100% healthy, plump, and had beautiful red spots on his side.

My first Valley trout


I love dry fly fishing for spooky wild fish. Few things in the fishing world are more fun to me than hitting small streams like this. I worked my way down for about another 200 yards having a blast and started to head back to the car.

On my way, I saw a pod of about a dozen fish happily rising to olives about every 2 seconds in the tail end of this long pool. I knew that if I moved another two feet towards them they'd be gone, and that this was going to require a very long cast and a ton of patience to even have a shot at one of these fish. I kneel down, turn around, and get ready to get my gear situated and into the water, and I was reminded at just how f*&^king stupid people are sometimes. This portly fellow, who I noticed wading basically dancing around dead center in the middle of a 15-20 foot wide stream and casting at the bank wondering why no wild spooky fish would take his fly see me scanning the water and notices the rises too. He starts literally trying to run through the water to beat me to the spot. As soon as I saw him moving I could just see the fish take off upstream at 50 MPH, and into deep cover. (Mind you, he was a good 50 yards downstream..I wasn't creeping up on his spot) He stops right where the fish WERE rising, and starts chucking a giant size 10 nymph into the water.

I walked by and pretty much just said "You know there were just a dozen fish rising immediately where you're standing right?" He replies "Yeah, that's why I got to this spot." Idiot.

I didn't let it phase me too much. I didn't get skunked. And I'm sure he did. I then shot over to the convention center. I have to say, I was dissapointed in the show. It was about 1/3 the size of the Somerset show, yet it was the same $15 entrance fee. The show was much smaller than I thought it would be. Quite a few of the guys listed to attend were not there, and there really wasn't that many good tying material shops in attendance. I spent less than 2 hours there. I think $5 or $10 would have been much more reasonable for a show of that size. And since there were less fly shops there, it meant that the ones who were there were less competititive with pricing. I didnt' really get any good deals. I did buy a ton of stuff anyway. (click to enlarge)


As for highlights, there honestly wasn't that much. I'm pretty excited to take George Macaig's tying class after seeing those woven stoneflies again.

Bruce Corwin was once again cool as hell. He let me test out the Ekich automatic bobbin and I actually decided against buying one. They are way too heavy. He also has this trick with wood duck to make mayfly wings which is totally insane. I have to try it out.

Aaron Jasper put up with me asking a ton of questions and was really cool about answering all of them while I watched him tying his polish woven patterns. He makes it look so easy, and he even gave me one of them. (thanks again and good luck with the grayling!)


I was looking for some Jan Siman dubbing and some magic shrimp foil, but unfortunately no one had it. Luckily, I came across Kevin Compton's booth and he had some cool euro materials for sale. I picked up some Dohiku barbless hooks, UV Quill body (this stuff is awesome), and some Sybai pearl braidback in two colors.

And that honestly just about wraps it up. Also, what's up with not serving beer there!? I think next year I'll just stick with Somerset and skip Valley Forge. Not worth the money. So yeah, I caught fish, had a run-in with an idiot, paid way to much to enter a rather small show, but still got some good materials (even if it did cost me way too much). Definitely some highs and lows.

Patterns, patterns, patterns

It was 60 degrees today. It's going to be 65 tomorrow. I walked outside today around noon and just knew that I had to take a vacation day on Friday. Needless to say, I'll be in jeans and t-shirt, hunting for a BWO hatch. I love this weather.

So yeah, here's some new flies I've been toying around with.

I noticed when I looked at my fly box that I never quite messed with the color blue for any attractor patterns. I picked up some royal blue flashabou at Cabelas so I gave it a go on some size 18 nymphs.

Size 18 scud hook
Tungsten bead
Uni-thread 8/0 -black
Peacock herl died green, stripped (ribbing #1)
Flashabou, royal blue (ribbing #2)
Z-lon - grey (tail)
Senyo Laser Ice Dub, neon blue



I also acquired some olive quills recently. This stuff annoys me because it kept breaking, even after soaking it in water. I think my olives look better with just thread. This fly looks like hell but I'll post it anyway.
size 22 dry fly hook
olive quills
microfibbets - light dun
hen wing feathers - dun
14/0 olive thread



Here's my first attempt at a Hot Wire Prince. I changed it up a little bit and tied it on a 3xl nymph hook. I'll probably play with it some more. I think it's screaming "GIVE ME RUBBER LEGS!" I was quite happy with the yellow and olive wire combo.

size 18 3xl nymph hook
gold bead (avoided tung so it wasnt too heavy with the double wire)
goose biots - amber
UTC ultra-wire, sm, olive, and yellow
goose biots -white (wings)
peacock herl
hen saddle feathers (legs)


I took a shot at really small Copper Johns. I figured with the coloring it could double as a stonefly or as a small baetis nymph. This is a size 20. I'm not posting the recipe because it's readily available and my eyes are getting heavy.


And last but not least, I have a new egg. I was reminded that it was pre-spawn for the bows last weekend when a male bow soaked my net with the nasty stuff. I wanted to experiment with UV epoxy so I came up with this. I just take a bright tungsten bead, glue it on a size 18 hook, and then build thin layers of epoxy around it. Just keep doing a paper thin coat, hitting it with the light, repeat, etc. After I had it nice and round, I added some pink coloring with a prismacolor. It will definitely be heavy enough but I'm not sure if it will catch fish. It looks pretty cool though :)

You know you fish too much when..(a.k.a Christmas recap)

You know you fish too much when you're watching Elf and look at Buddy's shirt collar and think that it would make some nice parachute posts.

Well, Christmas came and went yet again. Only this time, I had a little guy who actually knew what was going on. Your whole view on Christmas changes once you have a child who understands it. He was up at 6:30 am ready to see what "Tan-ta" (we're working on the S's) put under the tree. I think he managed to get more presents this year than I got from when I was 2 through about 8. Keep in mind he's only 20 months old.

He walked off with about a dozen Thomas the Tank Engine characters, a ton of tracks and playsets, a train table, a Thomas Power Wheels car, a Moon Bounce, Little People stuff, a golf club set, stuffed animals, bath toys, a fishing set, DVDs, books, money, clothes, dinosaurs, race cars, a giant tool center, a McDonalds playset, a keyboard, mp3 player, an aquarium, a playskool grill, beanie babies, christmas ornaments, savings bonds, stickers, an easel, etc

I could keep going for a while. By the way, yes, I said a Moon Bounce. What kind of parent would set up a Moon Bounce in the kitchen because there was no more room anywhere else in the house to use it? This guy. That's who.


I also didn't do to bad with the presents. My wife hooked me up with some sweet New Balance Hikers in a 15 wide. They are super comfortable. She also got me a magnetic net release because my old one broke, and a copy of "An entirely synthetic fish" by Anders Halverson. I also received a Dr. Slick scissors gift set with 3 pairs in it, some Anvil midge scissors (which I love!), a few fly fishing books, and $100 towards a new vise. I think I'm going to pick up the Anvil Apex this week.

But the best present of all this year was definitely the Troy-Bilt 2100 snow blower from our in-laws! It came just a the right time! I was so excited to try it out and it worked like a charm this morning after our 10 inches of snow. I hate the white stuff, but it was fun taking Michael out last night to go sledding.



At this point you're probably wondering why you're reading a fishing blog post that has nothing to do with fishing. So, I guess I'll get in to that now. We did a family outing at the Little Lehigh yesterday morning with my stepdad, bro-in-law, and myself. We fished from about 6:45am-12:30pm. The bite was very slow. I hooked in to a small brown on a midge but he popped off as I went to grab him out of the water. I landed a small bow on a zebra midge. I caught a nicer bow on a chartreuse size 16 egg who again popped off the second I tried to unhook him. The other two got the skunk. It was a very uneventful day and it was too darn cold to bother pulling out the camera for pictures. Boring, I know.

And in the world of tying, I was cleaning up my stuff the other day and I came across some olive goose biots. Now, I've never bought olive biots, and I have no clue where the hell they came from, but I figured I'd make use of them. I tried some BWO parachute emergers tonight. I suck at parachute flies, I know. But they will probably work. Here's a size 20.


I have 3.5 free hours tomorrow from 9:30am-1pm. Is it worth driving 45 minutes each way to hit a trout stream that just got a foot of snow last night to fish for about 2 hours in 25 degree weather?

Is that a midge in your pocket, or are you happy to see me?

It's freaking cold outside. It didn't even hit 30 degrees today. When I can't fish, I tie. I'm currently sitting in my basement in front of the vise whipping out some quick flies in case I get some spare time to hit the water this weekend.

I hit up Michael's Arts and Crafts and bought a bead container. It has made my life so much easier while tying. I'm no longer looking for a little packet of beads buried in 20 other packets.


Since the beads were easily accesible, I knocked out a dozen or so Zebra Midge patterns. After Saturday, I'm now a big fan of hot spots.


Also knocked out some more olives in size 20. I'm experimenting with bigger wings which will hopefully give a little more time on the top of the water before it dips into the film. I'm really trying to get around spending money on tiny dun hackle. I'll let you know how it goes.


Time flies when you're tying and bumping early 90s house music.

Dry flies in PA in mid-December?! Oh yes. It happens.

I was psyched to hit the water this morning after a long week at work. I had a bunch of new patterns, I cleaned out my fly boxes, had a fresh leader, and brand new spools of tippet.

I tied up some BWOs just in case the rare hatch happened this time of year. I got to the Little Lehigh just before 11am. I started off by hiking half a mile downstream and didn't see one rise. A few small trout were feeding on midges, but that's it. Fishing was tough for the first 45 minutes. I took a break and hit the Fly Shop for some more tungsten beads and then got back on the water.

After that, it turned out to be a damn good day. I still didnt see any rises, so I started to fish midges. Turned out to be a good idea and I found myself in a nice 5 minute fight with this 18-19 inch rainbow in some fast water.



But what's that bright colored thing in his mouth you ask?


That would be a hot spot Zebra midge. (I apologize in advance for the quality of the fly in this picture. This is the exact one that caught the fish and it is mangled.

Orvis size 20 emerger hook
Uni-thread black 6/0
UTC Ultra Wire XS in silver
Glass bead from Michael's arts and crafts store
Hot Spot - Danville 70 denier 6/0 in hot orange
Coat the whole thing in Sally Hansen Hard as Nails



With no more luck on midges, I turned to a two fly rig with an egg up front and an orange flashback pheasant tail behind it. I literally watched this small brown move about 6 feet across the stream, scoop up the pheasant tail, and then he grabbed the egg before I even had time to set the hook. Even though he was hooked twice, he was released unharmed.



Here's the fly. Again, I apologize for the condition of it. This is the same fly that caught the fish.

Orvis 3x nymph hook size 20
Pheasant tail dyed orange
Krystal Flash
UTC Ultra Wire XS in gold
peacock herl



You are probably asking yourself, "I thought he said they were dry flies?" Relax, I'm getting there. After I released the brown, I saw one rise. Two minutes later..another. I then saw a baetis land on my hand. I immediately tied on some 8x tippet and threw on a size 20 BWO. I made a cast and was connected almost instantly to a brown that had to have been 20 inches plus. He broke me off in about 30 seconds by jumping. Damn 8X. Rerigged and connected a few casts later to a small brown who was landed with a quickness. Then after losing two more and missing a few strikes, I landed a 12 inch bow. I love fishing dry flies, and I usually miss it all winter, so I love when I come across a cold weather olive hatch.



I mentioned in an earlier post that I would post the BWO pattern I use so here it is. This is the easiest fly to tie and it can be done in like a minute. Thanks to Rod at LL Fly Shop for offering to show me this one.

You'll need
Size 18-22 dry fly hook 2XL
Olive thread - I use Sheer 14/0 but you can use whatever you want
Dun microfibbets (synthetic mayfly tails)-If you cant find dun, the black works just fine. I've used it.
CDC Puffs - dark dun

Build up a thread body about halfway back the hook. Tie in 4 microfibbets for the tail. Length should be 3/4 of the hook length. Work your way forward and build a tapered thread body until you hit 2 eyes lengths away from the top of the hook. Tie in a cdc puff with the feather shaft facing the eye of the hook using only 2 loose wraps. Pull the CDC towards the eye until you get the wing length you want and tie off. Wrap around the CDC to get it to stand up. Whip finish.

I've caught at least 50 fish on this fly this year. It's so easy to tie. It will sink after about 5 casts since there's no hackle but a few false casts dries it off instantly.






I also hate to admit it, but I caught a sucker using the new worm pattern I mentioned earlier this week.


My bro-in-law and I got drunk one night and made a fishing show video of us targeting dogfish at the NJ shore with bunker. Maybe I'll be an asshole some day and make a fishing show on sucker hunting. I know exactly what to call it.