Return to the trout, and something to scratch off my bucket list

It was back to work this week after 9 days at the beach. 45 hours of work, about 20 meetings, and 1500 emails later, I was in need of some relaxation again. I haven't actually fished for actual wild trout since the end of April and I felt I was due for some trico action.

I sat up Friday night and tied half a dozen trico spinners, 3 females and 3 males. I was on the water by 6:45am. I forgot how beautiful a limestone stream is in the morning.



There is something zen-like and soul cleansing with early morning trico fishing. The fog starts to lift off the water, the birds start swooping down inches from the water picking up the spinners before they drop, and then you see the first dimple from a rising fish. I missed trout fishing. It's a far cry from throwing straight 10 lb leader with big flies to bruiser smallmouth in my backyard.

To say the fish were smart would be an understatement. They've been doing this dance a thousand times this summer; easily snubbing your fly for the 200 naturals around it. This stretch of water gets hammered with anglers. They've been stung way too many times, and know the difference. They are so accustomed to people fishing while they gorge that they aren't even afraid anymore and will sip flies 5 feet in front of you but almost always will just stop even examining your fly after 5 casts.

I had to work really hard, but I did come up with a couple of rainbows in an hour.



I was going to pack it in, and then a saw a flash of orange downstream from me. Turns out a nice fat Palomino decided to come to the party. I've been trout fishing a long time, and I've never seen one rise. Not only was he rising, but he was rising every few seconds and was at one point, less than a foot in front of me. Even though these are mutant stocked fish that are bred for nothing more than being a stuffed trophy over the fireplace in a house that watches way too much Nascar, I still thought it could be cool to take one on a size 24 trico.



I worked him for about half an hour, and finally got him to take a spinner. The fight was boring. He had been caught quite a few times before and knew the drill. I picked him up, snapped a pic, and send him on his way.

With that, I called it a day. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday morning.

Tricos, Trout, and Tornado Warnings

Well, we've had an earthquake and a hurricane and I'm still standing. Sorry for the lack of updates, but it's been a pretty long week.

With the imminent danger of the hurricane, I decided to sneak in some fishing on Saturday morning. I got to the stream at 8am and there was barely any action. I found a few rising trout, but the bugs on the water and the in the air were extremely scarce. I also noticed that now that it's later in the season, the trout are more sketchy about trico patterns. The same flouro-fiber pattern that was killing them a few weeks back was no longer working. They'd constantly rise and refuse. After about 45 minutes of skunkville, I switched it up from a female with flouro wings to a male with white antron and sparkle organza wings. That did the trick. I brought two trout to hand in a matter of minutes. One was a beautiful little wild brown that put up a heck of a fight. The other was a slab stocked bow which pretty much gave up fighting as soon as he was hooked.



As soon as the second fish was landed, the rises just stopped. I think the trout got the memo about the incoming storm and got lockjaw. Or it could have just been the wind that was picking up. I tried for another half hour and then packed it in. I wanted to get home before mother nature started trying to destroy us all. I hadn't caught a trout in a few weeks so it felt good to go out and hit a few on some dry flies. I do feel bad for those trout. When I left the stream, it was running around 85 CFS, just slightly high. It crested at 8000 yesterday.

By the time I got home the weather started to get worse. Winds picked up. I spent the day like everyone else; glued to the TV and switching back and forth between the Weather Channel and the local news. By 8pm, the rain was coming down and the trees were bent sideways. I knew it would be a long night.

My wife and son went to bed around 11 and then the tornado warnings started. We had 3 or 4 of them from 11 until about 1:30 in the morning. I kept hanging by the windows and door, listening for a freight train approaching, ready to pull my family out of bed. Luckily, it didn't happen. It was definitely scary though. I dozed off around 2 and woke up at 4 to check the basement for flooding. Bone dry! Go sump pump. Luckily, we were one of the few I know that didn't lose power once for the entire storm. I couldnt sleep so I wound up just sitting there again, watching the news until they woke up around 7am.

Once 8am rolled around, the rain had tapered off to a drizzle, and the winds were only around 20mph. We had cabin fever so we decided to drive up the street to a diner for breakfast and to check out some of the damage. I noticed the creek behind our house had swelled up out of the woods and into the corn fields behind our neighbor's farm. After breakfast, I dropped off the wife and my son and drove to a few spots on the creek to get some video and pics. Here's some first hand images of the Irene carnage. Keep in mind that the normal size of this creek is 18-20 feet wide at the most in the areas where I took pictures.













I drove over it today and I was pretty amazed at how much the water receded. It might actually be fishable tomorrow. Now whether or not there's any fish left, who knows.

The skies cleared more and more throughout the day, and by 6pm the strong winds were almost gone and it actually turned sunny. Irene did say goodbye with one hell of a sunset.

Barely any fish, but still a nice weekend

I spent Friday afternoon alternating between weather.com and the USGS online water gauge for the Little Lehigh. There was a 40% chance of Thunderstorms/Flash Flooding, and of course, it happened. The stream was running around 68 all day, and then between 7 and 9pm it jumped up to 130. The last time I tried for tricos during high waters was a pointless trip, so I wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.

I decided that I was going to hit up a tailwater in the Poconos that's only about 20 minutes north of the Little Lehigh that I knew wouldn't be washed out. Luckily, Becker, one of the guys over on the PAFF forum that I met once on the LL lives right near the tailwater and offered to help put me on some fish. I wasn't going to say no to some top secret fishing holes!

Well, he did show me some nice water. We fish a deep pool with some braided water and a nice smooth tailout. I came across a giant swarm of tricos while I was waiting to meet up with him around 7am so I was hoping it would be a good day. When we got there, we saw all kinds of mayflies, even some blue quills, which I've never actually seen up close before. We fished for about 4 hours to some sporadic risers. Unfortunately, I got the skunk. I had quite a few takes, and had a couple on for a few seconds, but it just wasn't my morning. Becker brought in two, including a nice wild brown. All I've ever caught on that stream were 8 inch rainbows, so I was surprised at the bulk on this fish. My apologies in advance for the picture quality. I forgot my camera in the car and only had the i-phone with me.




Although I didn't land any fish, it was still a beautiful day on the water. I'll definitely be back to that stretch again. We also hiked downstream about half a mile and found some really nice holes that I can't wait to go back and hit again. I might try for next weekend.

Since I was out for a good part of the day yesterday, I decided to get some father and son time in this morning. I took Michael on his first trip to Cabelas. He had a blast. He got his first encounter with the toothy monster in the aquarium and couldn't stop looking at him.




We walked around for a while, and I picked up like $40 worth of tying material, but unfortunately, no grizzly hackle. I did manage to find some really nice dun colored elk hair. Expect some BWO comparaduns shortly! He had a good time and told me he wants to go back again to see the elephant :)

Speaking of grizzly hackle, if you want to know what to get me for Christmas, you can start with this:


This evening, I spent two hours organizing all my tying stuff. It looked like a flock of birds exploded at my desk. It was a total mess. I now have everything nice and organized. This will probably only last a week, but for now, I'll enjoy it.

Not a bad day on the water...at least for me.

It turns out that one of my coworkers who is new to the area enjoys fly fishing. I had heard great reports of the Trico spinner fall on the Little Lehigh so I asked him to join me. I hit the stream around 7am on Saturday and after a 20 minute wait, I saw the first rise. By 7:45, it was game on. I hooked in to my first fish around 7:50am, a 12 inch bow.

My coworker arrived as I was releasing the fish. We proceeded to fish for the next hour, with constant rises in front of us. We had a few missed strikes, but no more fish were landed. I was fishing the pattern I posted last week and they were pretty flawless recreations of the naturals, but the fish weren't having it. Trico females have a white body, males have a black body. We tried both with no luck.

He decided to hike downstream to check out some deeper water, but I was determined to land two fish; one nice bow that was constantly rising in the opposite end of the stream, and another rising about 5 feet out and 10 feet upstream from me. Both had ignored my flies at least 50 times and I wanted revenge. I noticed the rising fish further away from me actually swing around to get away from my fly. That made me realize it was the tippet size. I was on 7x. I switched it up to 8x and wound up hitting the one across stream on the first cast. Two minutes and an amazingly tight roll cast under a low hanging branch later, I got the one directly upstream from me. They weren't huge, like 11-12 inch bows, but I was still happy to get two fish that were ignoring me for an hour. By the way, the water was starting to approach 70 degrees, and it was hot outside, so I didn't remove these fish for photos. They were netted, had a quick snapshot, and had the fly popped out, while remaining in the water. I'm not going to take a chance at killing something for a stupid picture.


The rises tapered off around 10am so after hiking back to the car for a cold beer, we hoofed it a mile downstream to find some fish that might not have been so pressured all morning.




We fished the covered bridge area, below the heritage section. My coworker found some fish in a nice channel and since he was getting the skunk, I let him have the hole to himself and walked downstream. I switched it up to an egg and some split shot and started hugging some fallen logs and stumps along the near bank. That got me a 15 inch rainbow with a GIANT sore on his head. This fish looked gross and I didn't take a picture of it. I quickly release him and two casts later I felt a bump as I'm bouncing the egg under a big stump. I set the hook and had a nice little fight. Turns out to be the first brookie I caught all year! I was pretty happy about it, although I think he might have been stocked.


I figured this would be the perfect time to test out the under water camera. I've been afraid to use this thing underwater, but it worked like a charm. Unfortunately, I'm a shitty cameraman and you only see the fish for a second.



After that, it was approaching noon and 90+ degrees, so I decided to call it a day after 5 hours and 5 fish. Not a a bad day. My coworker, not so lucky. He got the skunk. In his defense, he's used to fishing size 12 and 14 dry flies and streamers for landlocked salmon, so tying on size 26 flies with spiderweb sized tippet is a whole new ball game. I'm sure he'll get the hang of it soon. He did have a great collection of flies in bigger sizes, but I hooked him up with a small box of like 30-40 patterns to get him started around here. Hopefully he'll put them to good use.

Tying small flies

I got frustrated very fast the first time I sat down to try and tie some size 24 and 26 tricos. I've started to get the hang of it though. Thoughts on the proportions? Yes, that's a beer bottle cap they are resting on. That's how small they are.

Mustad dry fly hook
Uni-Thread Black 8/0
Microfibbets tail (light dun)
Beaver dubbing (thorax)
White GloBug yarn (wing on top fly)
White Flouro Fiber (wings on bottom fly)

Mega post: Epic Fathers Day, A Surprise Bow, and Fishing My First Trico Hatch

In case you can't tell, the majority of my posts in the last month have been short one paragraph posts from the iphone. I admit, I've been busy. I got a promotion at work, I've been doing a ton of yard work, and quite honestly, I've just been enjoying a ton of quality time with my wife and son. But, I've also been doing a ton of fishing. I've had 3 seperate draft posts going for the past two weeks and I figured I'd just scrap them all and make one big mega-post.


Epic Fathers Day

My stepdad, Jack, my bro-in-law, Nick, and I planned to spend Fathers day fishing. My mom had a nice brunch for us, and then we headed on our way a little after noon to find some fish. We decided to try and hit a favorite spot of ours on the Lehigh River for smallmouth and trout. We've caught both there before, and figured we might be able to find a nice caddis hatch, or at the very least chuck big stones and buggers for some browns. We drove an hour and 10 minutes and when we were less than 5 miles away when one of us say "maybe we should check the dam release schedule". DAMNIT! For those that don't know, the Lehigh has a big dam called the Francis E. Walter dam, and since the state apparently cares more about kayakers than it does about fisherman and the quality of the fishery, they schedule monthly water releases that create white water conditions for the kayakers and rafters. Needless to say when this happens, fishing is awful. The fish shut down, you can't wade because the river is running at least double the normal CFS, and it's a waste of time trying to fish. As luck would have it, it was a dam release weekend.

The spot where we typically fish flows around 750 CFS at normal levels, and when we got there, it was running around 1600. We decided to give it a go anyway. Even at 750it's a tough river to wade. There are giant slick rocks and strong currents that can bring you under in an instant if you aren't careful. Double the water flow, and you're in for a world of trouble if you try and wade. This spot has a nice big island, and if you can get out there, you have your choice of a long deep hole, wide riffles, and even a nice plunge pool at the lower end with some nice structure.

We tried to wade at our normal crossing spot and realized it wasn't a good idea. Jack and Nick headed upstream to bank fish, but I decided to head down to the downstream section of the island. I noticed a spot that didnt appear to be too bad, I could see bottom almost all the way across and it wasn't white water, so like an idiot, I decide to wade it.

BAD IDEA. I got out about halfway across the river and realized I was in trouble. My wading stick was literally shaking in my hand because the current was ripping so hard. Every step I took, the water lifted me up off the ground for a second (I'm 6'4 and 270 lbs, to give you an idea of how strong it was). I mentioned that I could see bottom almost all the way across. The key word there was "almost". It started getting deep and I was almost up to my waist. I realized that if I turned around, I was toast. There was white water and big rocks about 30 yards below me, and I would have gotten washed in to that in a matter of seconds, so I had to keep going. My heart was racing. I almost went under about 3 times, and after a full ten minutes, I finally made it across. It wasn't really worth it, but the view from the island was incredible.

I had absolutely no hits after 20 minutes fishing around the island, so I decided to head back while I still had the energy. I decided to cross where we had initially tried to go through, and I'm not going to lie, it was still scary as hell, but much easier to get across. I met up with Jack and Nick and they weren't having any luck either. The high water was turning off the fish. We decided to hit the Pohopoco, a small tailwater stream that runs out from Beltzville dam. I've heard mixed reports about this stream, mostly that hatches were thin and extremely sporadic, and that the fish weren't too big. Well, one of the rumors was right....

We got there and I was much happier. It was a small stream, the kind I'm most comfortable fishing. Some nice calm runs, a few riffles, and some nice overhanging vegetation. Plus, it was absolutely beautiful.

We fish right at the start of the stream, just below the dam. Jack and Nick were planning on fishing big water all day, so they brought their switch rods. I had my six weight with me, so I was in better shape. With fished for an hour with limited results. I hooked into a nice fish on a san juan, which turned out to be the biggest fish any of us would encounter the whole night. He ran me into a bush and broke me off. Jack hooked up with a small wild bow, around 10 inches on a PT nymph.

As the sun started to lower around 7pm, we started seeing some rises. There were a few scattered caddis on the water, but nothing to write home about. As the sun lowerered, the rises became more common, and the fish started to turn on. Jack picked up another small bow on a BWO. I finally connect on a size 16 caddis and bring to hand a 9 inch rainbow.


Nick started working a rising fish with a CDC emerger and then it happened. This was probably the funniest thing I've seen on a trout stream. Nick roll casts over this rising fish. I watched the fish run at his emerger and take it. Nick goes to set the hook, but since he's fishing a giant switch rod, the 8 inch trout shoots out of the water, buzzes right by my head, and lands in the water behind him. I was laughing so hard I could barely stand up. He lands the fish, which would turn out to be his only one of the day. Luckily, the around the world tour the fish had just made didn't harm him, and he swam away perfectly fine.

Then, things got interesting. Rises were happening about every 30 seconds. Then about every 15 seconds, then every 10 seconds, until the water was just boiling. The sulphurs were on. I look over the water and there is just a wall of cream colored mayflies EVERYWHERE. We were just at the right place at the right time. Swarms of them surrounded us and the fish were literally rising right at my feet.

We fished until we couldn't see anymore. It turned out to be the most fun dry fishing outing I've ever had. I think the biggest fish we caught was around 10 inches, but my god, it was so damn fun! The size of the fish didn't matter. This was one of those epic hatches you read about, and we got to experience it first hand.

My sister finally called Nick asking where we were. We thought it was about 7:30. Turns out it was 9:15pm. Oops! My wife wasn't too happy about that one. Oh well, I had fun. These things happen. I didn't get home until about 11pm. It took quite some time to clean out the mess in the car.


Speaking of fathers day, I'd also like to let everyone know that we are expecting a new addition to our family on January 6th! Michael is going to be a big brother! Although my fishing time will be extremely cut down, I'm still pretty damn excited!

A Surprise Bow

So, I'm fishing a local creek last weekend that is stocked with trout by the state. I was at the confluence of a smaller feeder creek that runs in to the water I was fishing that is definitely not stocked, picking up smallies on foam hoppers and having a good time. I've never fished the feeder creek because it basically looked like muddy frog water, but I was bored so I decided to switch to a bugger and try it out. Hiking up this new creek, there's a dam about 150 yards up. The dam is about 5 feet high, there's no fish ladders, and there's basically no way in hell any normal fish could make it up over this dam short of an epic flood, which we haven't really had since the last stocking (I know because I helped stocked)

I picked up a nice 15 inch largemouth below the dam on a bugger and figured why not see what's up above, so I climb over the dam and head upstream.



I started wet wading about 10 feet out from the bank and it's like bath water, extremely warm. There's a really deep channel in front of me with some downed log so I bounce the bugger off the edge of the log and let it drop. A fish smacks it after about 2 seconds. It was fighting like hell, and I thought it was a smallie, but it turns out, it's a bow.


Less than a minute into the fight, as soon as he hit the warm shallow water, he went belly up. I tried for about 5 minutes to revive him, even going waist deep and getting him down into the cooler water, but he wasn't having it, so I unfortunately took him home for lunch (I will admit, he tasted damn good).


So anyway, the only way I think this fish could have gotten up that dam is by someone maybe releasing him up there. The nearest stocking point to where I caught him was about a quarter mile downstream in the original creek I was fishing, well below the dam. Even if someone did release him, what are the odds of him making it and me catching him?! Is there any way he could be a wild or holdover that somehow got over the dam and managed to find a spring to stay cool?

My First Trico Hatch

Jack, Nick, and I decided to head out on another trip yesterday for the 4th of July. I've heard stories of how the trico hatch on the Little Lehigh is amazing and that you can set your watch by it on July 4th every year. I sat down the night before, tied some ungodly size 22 and 24 tricos, and was on the water by 7am on the 4th. The spinner fall was supposed to happen between 8 and 9am. We were ready to go, but around 8am, there was nothing really going on. I didn't see any bugs, at least nothing that would resemble trout fodder. Jack wound up with a bad stomach ache and had to leave around 8am, so that just left Nick and I. Around 8:30, we finally found a few rising fish. I didn't see any trico spinners on the water or in the air, but I did see a few sulphurs coming off. I opted for a size 16 sulphur sparkle dun, trailed with a size 24 trico male spinner. After a while, I found a foot long rainbow consistently rising and started casting to him. It took me about 50 casts, but he finally took my spinner. The bad part was that the way he flipped, the sulphur caught him in the belly, which made for an awkward fight. I got him to my hands and he broke me off as I was about to unhook him (I was using 8x), so the pic didn't happen. Oh well, I still consider him landed :)

About an hour later in the same spot, I found another bow rising. After working on him for half an hour, I got him to take another size 24 spinner. This time I got a pic.


The hatch was definitely not as major as everyone makes it out to be, at least not yet, but I did work hard and land a few fish. Nick didn't have any luck and things were slowing down so we headed downstream. After a few shots at some risers and missed hookups, I came across a bow and a brown, about 16-17 inches, fighting for a feeding lie at the tail of a pool. They were more concerned about who would hold the position to feed, and were fighting for whatever insects drifted down the path, but they were definitely not looking at the surface or film, it was all on the bottom. After a dozen dry fly casts, I decided to go with a size 20 egg, figuring that they'd both fight for it if I got a good drift into the right spot. My hunch paid off, with the 16 inch bow taking the egg. He didnt put up much of a fight and was definitely a stocked fish, but he was still nice looking. Nick was nice enough to snap a shot, but I messed up my big hero shot with my hand covering the majority of the fish! doh!


After that we packed it up and headed back home for some beer. 3 fish on that stream is a good day in my books (although Nick got the skunk!). The trout in that water "have PHDs" according to the Orvis fishing reports for that stream, and I was happy to have fooled 3 of them. :)

Hopefully the hatch will get better in a few days. While in a meeting today at work, I got a picture text message from Nick around 10am. He avenged his Monday skunk with an 18 inch beautiful wild brown trout this morning. He said he worked that fish for 20 minutes before he took the fly. Persistence pays off big time.