Penns Creek Angling During Our Recent Cold Spell

With the recent cold temperatures that we've experienced around Central PA, I've made trips to fish Penns Creek after taking water temperature readings of 62 and 64 degrees.  The fishing has been great in the early morning when I fished with Patrick Williams and then Jeff Scipione later in the week.  

Both days were productive and the main fly patterns were green weenies, stoneflies, hellgrammites and a variety of meaty streamer patterns.  Below are a few pictures from some of the fish that we caught, missing in the photographs are the two fish that tore me off while fishing 3x tippet.  The first time it happened, I thought was the bottom and then it took off downstream and the other was around eleven o'clock when a trout took my mouse pattern and its splash sounded like a bear chasing sockeye salmon in Alaska.  

The opportunities to fish Penns Creek under ideal water temperatures during the summer are few and far between but if you do make the trip to fish Penns Creek make sure you take a stream temperature to not put excess stress on the trout during the summer months. 

All in all, it was two great days fishing Penns Creek.  We had the opportunity to see a lot of trout, bass, a bald eagle, a dobsonfly attack Patrick, whitetail fawns, what a bat sounds like when it gets hooked and on top of it all, Central PA will miss Patrick Williams as he leaves to teach in North Carolina.  I know that a lot of anglers will miss talking to you in the fly shop but I can't say the same as the trout will not miss you Patrick, good luck!

Enjoy!

The fattest 6 inch trout I've ever caught. 

Nice brown trout caught by Jeff Scipione on a slumpbuster

Patrick Williams throwing some fly line.

Fishin' with the Fam

Earlier this month my dad, brother, and cousin came down for a little fun in the sun and also to wet a line on the new boat. Well we successfully completed both of their goals and landed a couple fish to top it off. Below is a photo montage of the boys and some of their fish. Enjoy!

Bahamas -- San Salvadore

When we picked up and took the boat across the pond for a second time this summer it was for a small billfish tournament that takes place on San Salvadore Island in the Bahamas. This time we were determined to learn from our/my mistakes and land a marlin. Ideally a blue marlin, since they count for the most points.

Thankfully, on this trip the mothership "Angel Wings" (shown below) was along for the journey that way my work load ended when the boat was washed and cleaned at the end of the night and my friends on the big boat could take over.

We did have some success on this trip and I was able to land my very first blue marlin. This blue marlin happened to be one pushing 400 pounds. A real monster. There isn't a more adrenaline pumping experience I've ever had fishing than holding on with my hands to this 400 pound monster. At any point I could make the wrong move and get tangled in the 250 pound test and this beast would rip me over the side and I'd never be seen again. It's fishing only with the fear of death. It's exhilarating. I can't wait to do it again. 

The photos below are a bunch of the best from the trip I hope you all enjoy. 

There is a storm brewing batman.

Michael with the big one on.

Action shot 400 pounder gone vertical.

Coming up to smile for us. 

Right before the release. 

Bahamas - Chub Cay

Well I admit, it has been way too long. I mean way too long. I've been busy... fishing haha. I realize now, that it's a lot more difficult to capture photos and movies when you are the one in charge of landing all the fish. I mean my hands are usually pretty full... So these photos have been borrowed by the core of people that have been sharing fishing adventures with us across the Atlantic. 

The first group of pictures are from Chub Cay a small island in the Bahamas island chain. We spent 5 full days fishing had a few opportunities to catch white marlin but came up a little short. We did catch a pile of dolphin, or as you may know them as mahi-mahi. 

Fishing Creek, PA (07/11/2013)

The past few weeks have been filled with excessive rainfall and it has kept me busy observing all of the flow levels on the USGS database.  Most days you could still fish but the conditions were not optimal by any stretch of the imagination.  When I've gone out to Spring Creek we have had a lot of fish but nothing gigantic like Jeff hooked into on Thursday.

Due to the precipitation that we received in Central PA on Wednesday night I checked some of the stream gauges and decided that we would take a gamble and check out Fishing Creek.  The numbers were not insane but the fish we hooked into were healthy to say the least.  The first fish of the day was a nice brown trout and then we worked further up the stream and I heard Jeff say "I don't even know what to do with this trout."  Knowing him and our fishing conversations, I knew it had to be a hefty trout because I've never heard him say that when he hooked up with a fish.

After making my way downstream to him, I caught a glimpse of this trout's body and knew this was potentially the fish of the summer.  He was using 4x tippet so he was nervous to apply a significant amount of pressure onto the fish, so he let it make a few runs and applied minimal side pressure until we got his head out of the water.  Once Jeff got its head out of the water, I knew the Nomad hand net was about to be engulfed by this huge brown trout.

I was glad to be a part of this big brown as I netted it for Jeff but the conversations that were had about this fish kept us busy for the remainder of the day and into the night.  We reminisced stories about the fish like it was Bill Brasky from Saturday Night Live.

Enjoy a few of the pictures of this toad of a brown trout! Special shout out to my dad Greg Hoover for capturing these photos, he was clicking that camera like Marty Stouffer.

Jeff and his big brown trout

Nomad net saves the day again! 

Spring Creek Before the Storm!

Jeff Scipione and I hit up the streams today before all of the rainfall arrived in Central PA.  We fished Spring Creek and had a lot of activity fishing sub-surface.  Initially the morning started off slower then what we thought but we ended up hooking into a bunch of healthy trout.

We started off taking fish on inch worms and sow bugs and then the rainfall started to drizzle.  I quickly switched to an aquatic worm and fish destroyed the pattern.  Several of the initial takes from the fish almost took the rod out of my hand and made the hook ups very easy to land the trout.  As the rain started to pour down on us the fishing picked up and we were slamming into trout.  Soon after, the grumbles of thunder and the realization of the two-inches of precipitation that was on its way forced us to call it a day.  If only it could've held off for a few more hours, but we always need the rain this time of year to keep the streams healthy for the remainder of the summer months.    

Shown below are only a couple of the larger fish that we caught, but stay tuned for the rest of the fish that are on Jeff's camera!

Enjoy!

  

A Morning on Spring Creek!

The summer is almost officially here and in full swing and Spring Creek is in great condition.  I took the opportunity to fish several sections of Spring Creek and had a great day of subsurface fishing.  The patterns I fished was a wet ant, inch worm and a variety of Czech nymphs.  All flies yielding nice fish and the only thing I had to worry about was the constant stare from the adult ducks tending to their young in the slower moving water.  

Attached are a few of the pictures of some nice trout that I picked up throughout the morning and afternoon.  I haven't uploaded a few of the underwater shots that I took, so stay tuned to see how they turned out.

Enjoy!

Salmonfly Hatch in Colorado

Below is an email that we received from one of our good fishing buddies, Luke Massaro.  After reading his email and enjoying his pictures, he found a way to make me extremely jealous of his time spent on the headwaters of the Colorado River.  Enjoy and thanks to Luke for the update! 

"Boys,

I had the opportunity to spend two days on the headwaters of the Colorado River fishing the hatch of all hatches, the Salmonfly hatch.  It was truly a sight to see fishing the mouth of Gore Canyon where the Colorado River gets to take a breath after rushing through class IV and V rapids farther up in the canyon. My first thought after hiking up into the canyon and seeing the Salmonfly hatch in action was, "Man these flies are huge!" And for good reason, the flies that I was seeing buzzing around like Chinook helicopters had been maturing for three years and had finally made their migration to the surface.  Fishing dry flies this big at size 4-8 reminded me of the 17 year brood of Cicadas that hatched in PA back in 2011 and the Salmonfly hatch is a similar phenomenon where the entire ecosystem thrives off of one insect for a three week period.  At 2.5 inches long, an adult Salmonfly is quite the meal for a brown trout or bird. Dry-dropper rigs and high stick nymphing the fast water proved to do the trick and bring up sizable brown trout that were keyed in on Salmonflies. While I forgot my camera in the truck on day two as a result of shear excitement, I did manage to snap some pics on day one to capture the hatch.

Cheers,

Luke"

"Howling at the Hatch"