Opening of Trout Season 2013 Top Ten List

Here is a list of random things that happened/I saw or overhead while heading out during the Southern PA opening day of trout season.

1.A guy walking by with 2 suckers on his stringer saying he couldn't believe he caught two browns under the stump upstream.

2.Local idiots camping out in a tent the night before on a stretch of stream that was about 12 feet wide and in between two housing developments, right off a main road, just to hit some 8 inch stocked fish.

3.One of the above idiots drunk as hell yelling "F*CK OFF" to every car that went by and beeped at the 300 people fishing at 8:15am. When I finally asked him to watch his language around all the kids he was like "Why don't you watch all the rock throwing from your a**hole kid". My 3 year old was throwing pebbles into a puddle behind me, not even in the stream. Needless to say, I left before I killed him. I later drove by and saw the  cops with him. I hope he got arrested. Dick.

4.My three year old decided to dive waist deep into the water about 20 minutes later at another hole because he saw a rock he "really wanted".

5.Carrying a shivering three year old and three fishing rods over a mile back to the car.

6.Heading out later in the afternoon without the kid and absolutely slaying trout on Greenie Weenies and Black Buggers while the bait guys watched in awe as I released every fish.

7.Spin fishing guys asking me if they could "fish a woolly bugger with a split shot" and if they could buy some off me.

8.Heading out around 10pm on Saturday night after the kids were asleep and hitting almost another half dozen on hoppers in the pitch black darkness

9.Twenty guys ganging up on one Palomino (golden rainbow) and one saying "Keep pissing him off and hitting him with lead. He'll eventually just bite".

10.Hitting a semi-crowded stretch on Sunday morning and seeing no one catching anything but fish rising like crazy to midges.. I cleaned up for an hour straight on size 22 Griffith's Gnats.

11.(I know I said 10, but this one is too good.) One of the spin fishing guys tying on a giant size 4 Royal Wulff, and casting it out with a bobber after seeing me smack fish on dry flies.

Yep, it was an opening day weekend to remember. Here's a few pics of the insanity.

17 incher on a Greenie Weenie

Fell for a dry

Michael, with his Anakin Star Wars rod, pre-swimming.

Quick, smash the Palomino!

Damn, I want this.

I swung by the Strip'n Flywear site today and I saw this.

I've been a Beasties fan since I was in grade school. I remember waiting until my mom got paid so she could take me to the local K-mart to get License to ill on cassette. I need this shirt. Swing on by their site for some other quality goods as well.

Here's one that reminds me of the summer I graduated high school, which is also the first time I got to see the Beasties live.

Any other Beasties fans in the house? This post was brought to you by Troeg's Perpetual IPA, and the frustation of getting skunked on a night carp fishing mission. Good night.

It's been a while

I feel like it's been ages since I actually posted something. The truth is, I've just been busy with life. Been working a lot, and spending a lot of time with the kids. I haven't even sat down at the vise in about two weeks. I've also been busting my ass with the exercise and I've managed to take off 43 lbs since March. I've even got my 5K time down to 33 minutes (I know that still sucks, but I'm trying!)

That's not to say I haven't been fishing. The smallmouth fishing in the creek behind my house has pretty much been spectacular. I've pulled in quite a few hogs in the past few weeks, almost all of them on big foam dry flies, which makes it more fun. I haven't gone to an actual trout stream in over a month, and to be honest, I don't really miss it. Smallmouths and big panfish have been more than enough fun for me.

So yeah, maybe I did miss some nice hatches, but I don't mind. I'm heading out for father's day to try and hit a sulphur hatch, and maybe I'll bring along my new Go Pro which hasn't even made it out of the box. I'll try to get a post-trip report together Sunday night.

Until then, feel free to jam out on this.

Somerset Fly Fishing Show - Blogger meetup anyone?

So, the entire fly fishing interwebs are buzzing about the show this weekend. It's going to be a really fun time and you'll get the chance to see all the Tenkara worshipers beat up Lefty Kreh. So far I know that Shane the bug flinger will be there, and I think Mr. Troutrageous, and the Functioning Fishaholic will be in attendance, but are there any other fellow bloggers planning on making the trip? I was thinking we could all maybe set up a meeting point and grab a beer somewhere.

let me know if you're interested and we can come up with something. It would be great to put some faces to all the names.

I don't have much else right now. I'm feeling a little better, and tying a ton of flies for some swaps, which I'll post once completed. Also got a nice package of wet flies in the mail today from the PAFF soft hackle swap. Expect pics of those coming soon as well.

Besides that, enjoy these wicked Pigeons.

Ghoti

Happy Friday.

Scouting new water, a small milestone, and did someone say fly giveaway?!

I found a new shortcut back to my house the other day and slammed on my brakes when I saw this stream. When I found it, it was 25 degrees outside and it was NOT frozen over. This means it most likely has some spring influence with consistent water temps and could possibly hold trout. I took a pic of it so I didn't forget to go back and explore it. My god, it's taunting me. I want to fish it.

I might try to check it out tomorrow. I'll post my findings. In other news, we hit 100 followers today. I was pretty suprised by that, and pretty damn happy! Thanks to everyone for stopping by. You might also want to swing by and become a fan of Dub The Thorax on Facebook. Rumor has it that there might be a fly giveaway going on....

Fly Fishing Film Tour? Yes please.

I'm pretty psyched. There is actually a date this year within driving distance of my house in Media PA! Any fellow bloggers wanna do a road trip?

Fly Fishing Film Tour 2012 | thef3t.com from The Fly Fishing Film Tour on Vimeo.

So, it's the holiday season

I have 4 days off work, well that is, unless my wife gives birth and then I'll be off 3 weeks. She's 3 cm dilated and 58% affaced (whatever the hell that means) so she'll most likely be going any day now. Between that and all the other things going on with work and holiday gatherings, I haven't had time to post much, although I have been able to fit in a few quick fishing trips.

Here's a quick recap of the past couple of weeks with as few words as possible.

Slaying trout last weekend on a new midge pattern I came up with called the Rubber Rat on the Little Lehigh with a couple guys from the EPFR forum




Still running in to trout late night on the stream behind my house



I got my winning package from The Fiberglass Manifesto. I look like a dumbass in a buff.




Is anyone else on Instagram? If you have an iPhone, you should jump on it! Take amazing photography, add a watered down version of Facebook, and a dash of Twitter mentions and hashtags, you have a pretty amazing app. Some great fishing photography. Here's a link to my profile. Feel free to link up with me. I've uploaded a few nice pics in the last week or so.





I'm lobbying to make Bell's Two Hearted Ale it's own food group



The best Youtube video of the year, hands down (I'M MAKING PANCAAAYKES!)



We lost another dictator. Boohoo.



That's about it. Happy Holidays to you and yours. Time to start drinking.

Happy Saturday

I'm going fishing.

Fright night ramblings - beer and fly boxes

It's Friday night. I've had a long week. I've been unwinding with my hoppy friends. This post is brought to you by the following beers. The Big Eye is by far my favorite. Not quite as good as their Sculpin, but pretty damn close.



I realized this week that I have too many fly boxes. I'm up to a total of 10! I have Umpqua, Morell, Redington, Orvis, Plano, Cortland, and I still felt like I had to pick up a new one this week.

I got the C&F Designs CF1506. It's a small swing-leaf midge box that holds up to 564 flies. It's designed for sizes 16 and smaller. Typically, I would never spend $40-50 on a fly box, but I got a hookup at a certain outfitter and I managed to pick it up for $20. Not a bad deal. I actually picked one up for a Christmas present and I liked it so much I went back and got one for myself.

I bought this box because I think it can allow me to cut down to two boxes for winter fly fishing, especially since the streams I fish rarely require flies bigger than a 16. For trout in the cold weather, I typically carry a nymph box, a junk flies box (eggs and worms),a midge box, a streamer box, and a box for dries and terrestrials. (Other boxes are for steelhead/salmon, bass, carp, panfish, and saltwater). Well, I'm hoping this fly box will allow me to cover midges, nymphs, junk, and dries, which will just leave me with a big box of streamers. I'll start posting pictures as I fill it up over the next week.

I christened it tonight with some Infamous Pink Worms I've been constantly reading about. It seems like about 90% of the pictures of fish I've seen online in the past two weeks have this big worm puncturing their jaw, so I finally broke down and decided to whip up half a dozen. I'm gonna try them out tomorrow to see how well they do vs. a regular old San Juan. One thing's for sure, they are much bigger.


Also, I had my Steelhead and Salmon flies in a big Plano box, which I think is more well suited for streamers. Since my nymphs are gonna head into the new C&F, the Steelhead flies are getting a new home in the Orvis Posi-Grip.

No, Rainbow Bright did not throw up in my fly box, but it sure looks like it.




So, I'm curious to see what everyone else has to say. How many flies boxes do you own? How many do you typically carry? What type? I'm open to suggestions because this tying addiction isn't making fly organization any easier.

DIY fly box for mailing flies, and holy cow, we turned one!

I didn't even realize it until this morning, but a year has passed since I started this blog. Hard to believe. I'm quite surprised at how many of you actually stop by to read and comment on my half-assed flies and sub-par fishing experiences. I started this thing to pretty much chronicle my fishing and tying, and it still surprises me every week that there are more followers, and I see my name pop up on more and more blog rolls. Thanks to everyone for following, stopping by to read, and adding a link on your site. Special shoutout to Mike @ Troutrageous. He was the first blogger to comment, and link to me and the traffic started flowing in as soon as that happened. I'm really surprised I made it this far. It seems like there are more and more new blogs out there every day and I'm honored that all of you stop by to browse and comment. Thanks again.

Speaking of Troutrageous, I got the mail last night and there was an envelope with a return address that simply said "T!". I opened it up and now I have some new stickers for my car and tying bench. Thanks man.


I also got something else interesting sent to me today from one of our readers via text message. He wrote a rap about my "Damn Lucky" post. (seriously, I can't make this shit up.) I'll keep his name out of this save him the embarrassment, but here's the message, exactly as I received it.

It was a cool black night and a clean white moon
Dub the T was on the stream, tryin' to pursue
Some trout for his blog or maybe a big carp
tying on his fly...headlamp in the dark

Just hit the east branch up in Perkasie
and his mission is the find that one big trophy
Seen a pool full of trout aint no need to tweak
all ya dudes know whats up with Dub the T.

So he hooks some fish on streamers and midges...
He casting on the banks and underneath the bridges
He lays down the line and say what's up
Then Lucky jumps in and now he's stuck.

I got this message while at work and I laughed so hard that I literally spit coffee on my desk. He said to sing it to the beat from Regulators by Warren G.



Anyway, here's something actually fishing related. I've been joining a few fly swaps, and mailing out some flies I sold and I came up with a good idea.

Remember all those cassettes from the 90s? You know you still have that Nirvana Cas-single, and House of Pain's first album on cassette. Now you can put them to good use.

1.Get yourself a empty cassette case. I would take out the Debbie Gibson sleeve, unless you're mailing the flies to Owl Jones. He loves Debbie Gibson.


2.Grab a pair of pliers and rip out the little plastic points that were used to go into the cassette holes. This is so they don't press down on the flies that will be on the other side of the cassette.



3.Measure and cut a piece of craft foam (yes the stuff you use for tying, and the same stuff you get at Michaels for .99 a sheet) so it fits where the sleeve used to be. Just coat the back of it with some superglue, and press it into the inside of the case.


4.Fill it up with the flies you were supposed to mail Cofisher for winning that contest two weeks ago. (Co- as an added bonus, I included one of the woven stoneflies tied by the author of the rap song above. I'm curious to see how it works out west...Oops, did I just give everyone a clue on how to figure out who our rapper is?!)


5.Close it and you're ready to mail it. These actually fit in regular letter envelopes.

And the winner is...

I said I'd give it a week to announce a winner from the "name that worm pattern" contest. Well, it's been a week and with all pun intended, the early bird got the worm. I'm going to go with Monoworm! That was the first reply, and I think it just fits. The winner is Cofisher, author of Wing Knots and Tangled Lines. Shoot me your address and I'll twist up some bugs to send your way. I'm also happy to say that the worm did kind of work on Saturday. I had a bow take it but he spit the hook when I got him close.

A bigger post will be coming tomorrow, including a tying show and fellow blogger road trip recap, my first shot at pseudo-guiding people on my home water (which resulted in failure), and bugs. Lots and lots and lots of bugs. Stay tuned.

Pink vs. Pink, Fly Tying Symposium, and Fly Giveaway Reminder

New Bugs

Continuing on the European style fly kick I've been on, the czech nymphs are starting to take up some more space in one of my nymph boxes. I came across a cool Davie McPhail pattern that uses floss instead of dubbing but has a similar feeling to a czech nymph. He uses a razor blade to lightly cut through the bottom, giving the appears of brushed out legs come off the belly of the fly. here it is compared to a fairly basic pink-hot-spotted czech nymph (with too big of a thread head because I'm a bit tipsy). I like to tie my czechs with a few strands of shaggy dub at the head. I think it just gives the fly a tiny bit more movement and I've found that they outfish the ones I tie without it. Sometimes it's the little things...

Which do you think will fish better?



Fly Tying Symposium
Just a reminder, the Fly Tying Symposium is this weekend in Somerset NJ. I'll be heading there early Saturday morning to try and find some hackle before the hairdressers wipe it out! It actually turned into a blogger road trip because I'll be carpooling with Mr. Troutrageous and the Functioning Fishaholic. We might even attempt some fishing after the show if the water levels drop from all the rain we've just had.

If you're going, drop a line here if you want to meet up with us, grab a beer, and get 5 minutes of fame on a blog or two. Also sounds like it will be quite a meetup with the guys that troll frequent the forums over at PA Fly Fish. (Although stay away from that SBecker guy...Every time I fish with him I get skunked. He's cursed!)

Fly Giveway
If you missed the post from a few days ago, I'm going to give away a nice assortment of flies to the person who comes up with the best name for the worm pattern I created. I have a favorite so far, but I'm going to let this run for a week so there's still time to make a suggestion.

That's about all I got. I'll see some of you on Saturday!

Going bananas

One of my co-workers just showed me his artwork. Epic!

I've got some catching up to do...

Time has been flying by, and I just realized it's been well over a week since my last blog update. In all honesty, I've been busy as hell at work, painting the nursery for the upcoming addition, and doing a lot of commercial tying for a few people.

I'd love to post up some pictures of the bugs, but unfortunately I lost my camera. Yes, that camera. I really liked it so I do hope it shows up somewhere. I don't think I've ever tied up so many rubber legged copper johns in my whole life!

The camera also has pics of some fish I got in to on Sunday. After the bad storm last week, I haven't been able to get out fishing. I finally decided to take 4 hours on Sunday and hit the Little Lehigh. I was pretty disappointed when I got there. First off, it was packed with people. Also, since they lifted the no wading restrictions you now see yokels standing in the middle of the stream, walking through the best runs to fish, and kicking up the spawning beds for the brown trout. It's really depressing to see. After watching some guy fishing for two big spawning browns without luck and deciding to just walk out to where they are and cast over them, I said "hey man, you're kicking up some spawning beds. Can't you see that?" He replied with "Who cares? These fish can't reproduce here!". I've caught 3 inch fish from this stream so I know that's not true. I decided to be the better person by picking up a big rock, chucking it into the lane he was fishing, waving at him and walking away. Sorry dude. Show some respect.

This stream isn't that wide and I can literally roll cast across the whole thing in the widest stretch with a 7'6 four weight rod. Why are you wearing chest waders?! Anyway, everyone I talked to seemed to be complaining about a tough bite, most managing only one or two fish. I felt that way for the first half hour, but about 6 fly changes later, I found the golden ticket. Red size 18 zebra midges with a white glass bead head. I went on to land 4 nice fish and fight about half a dozen more. The fish weren't huge, but definitely had some deep, dark fall coloring. I think the run off from all the snow caused some colder water temps which darkened them up. If I ever do find my camera, I'll post the pictures.

In other news, there's a couple of events I'm pretty excited about. First off is the upcoming Fly Tying Symposium in Somerset NJ.



The lineup looks great for this and it should be a good day. I'm definitely bringing some cash to stock up on tying supplies. If anyone else is heading there, feel free to drop me a line and let me know if you'd like to meet up and grab a beer.

Also, on 12/17 the guys over at PA Fly Fish are hosting a fly tying jam. Looks like I'm going to be tying there, and actually doing a demo. I'm looking forward to it. It's also close to the Pohopoco, so I can hopefully sneak in some good fishing before and after it!

In closing, I'd just like to say that Daylight Savings Time officially sucks. It really smacked me in the face tonight when I left work at 5:30pm and it was pitch black when I walked out the door. I think the worst part of it is those little quick fishing trips you can sneak in on the way home from work while stuck in traffic can no longer happen. Spring can't get here fast enough already!

Chasing the toothy critters

I've decided to hunt for pickerel and pike this weekend. I'd also say Musky, but I don't have a few spare years to catch one.

The lake I fish for pickerel contains a ton of small bass that are a bright emerald green color, so that's where I started. I call this one the Wes Mantooth.

Size 4 3XL streamer hook

Marabou - olive (tail and collar)
Orvis crystal dumbbell eyes
Sili-Legs - chartreuse
Crystal Flash (tail)
Grizzle neck hackle (sides)
Hare Ice Dub - olive green (body)
Schlappen - olive (palmered over body)
Cut up zonker fur wrapped in a dubbing loop (head)



Also, I checked out Whitakers.com today and noticed that they uploaded one of my king salmon photos that I submitted the other day. Pretty cool.


By the way, don't get Wes started on his mom, or he'll kick your ass.

Obiwan's jedi spey casting skills

I was checking my google alerts last night and I came across this article about a new movie called Salmon Fishing in the Yemen starring Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt. We all know Obiwan Kenobi, but if you're unfamiliar with Emily Blunt, she looks a little something like this.



Not too shabby. Anyway, it's a Hollywood, Baliwood, London, Lolliwood film written by the guy who did Slumdog Millionare. That was a good movie, but I don't think it will be anywhere close to being true to our sport as, say, A River Runs Through it. Honestly, it's about a sheikh who wants to introduce Salmon to the Yemen River. From the sound of it, I'd probably be more comfortable sitting through Divine Yaya Secrets of the Traveling Pants Sisterhood with my wife. (Or whatever the hell that movie is called)

After reading some poor reviews of the film after it's recent premiere, I've came up with some thoughts on what they could have done differently.

First off. You have a f*cking jedi in your cast. Go with it. The double handed grip on a jedi sword equates to Spey Casting. I could just imagine two jedis battling it out with two 14 foot spey rods chucking tunghead sex dungeon streamers at each other in a fight to the death.


Next up, Emily Blunt. Actually, no. Don't change that. Just have her in every scene, wearing this. It would be much more attractive than a flannel and hip waders.


Finally, we all know sure as sh*t who should be playing the sheikh.




This post was powered by Adobe Photoshop, and Rogue Morimoto Soba Ale. (probably a little too much of it)

EDIT! I found a Youtube clip, and it's even worse than I thought it would be.

Random Web Goodness

I really wanted to get out and fish today, but I wound up driving all the way from the Jersey shore to South Philly last night to meet up with some old friends. Long story short, I wound up driving back to the shore at 7am this morning with a pounding headache and not a wink of sleep. I did get in a few hours in a nap, but I'm still too wiped out to chase some small fish.

Since fishing was out of the question, I was pretty much a vegetable in front of the laptop, stealing some neighbor's unprotected WIFI. I spent a good amount of time browsing various fishing blogs, posts, sites, etc. Here's the best of the best from what I've read today.

First up is the John Gierach web invasion. From what I've heard, this guy has historically been pretty elusive as far as interviews and video footage goes, but all of a sudden there's a ton of stuff out there on him. If you didn't catch Tom Chandler's interview with Gierach the other day on Trout Underground, you need to get over there. I then came across a post on Orvis News mentioning Tom's post, but they also had a cool short on Gierach (minus the awful audio editing).


I also stumbled upon Pat Cohen's blog titled "Superfly". I watched this guy at Somerset earlier this year tying these amazing spun hair bluegill patterns. He's got a ton of pattern photos on his site, and it's definitely worth a read.

Image courtesy of gotbronze.blogspot.com

Up next, we have Up The Poudre. Sanders has been sending me traffic and commenting on my posts, and I feel bad about not returning the favor (I really gotta update that blog roll). I finally took the time to really read his blog today, and it's great. The writing is phenomenal, and every post tells a story. Plus, his logo kicks ass.

Image Courtesy of upthepoudre.com

I'd post more, but I'm about to pass out. Time to finish the beer and hit the sack. Tomorrow holds the challenge of driving home in labor day traffic, unpacking, and getting the lawn mowed. Plus, I have a feeling there's a few smallies that need some sore lips now that the water flows are back to normal. Happy Labor Day.

Thanks to Owl Jones

For getting his new awesome song stuck in my head. I've been walking around the house and slamming beers while whistling "this is a song about outdoor bloggerrrrrrrrrs".

Outdoor Blogger Song from Owl Jones on Vimeo.

Trout are freshwater fish, and have underwater weapons

This will be stuck in your head all day. It also gives Owl's "I love fly fishing" song a run for it's money.

You're welcome.