Sulphurs are still going strong on the Little J...

I find it hard to believe that I would frequent the Little J over Spring Creek in the early hatches of the 2013 fly fishing season.  Every angling experience that I partake in on the Little J presents multiple opportunities to get into great fish.  The last two evenings have had abundant spinner falls and the dry fly activity has been great.  

On Monday, I could not fish all evening as I had to call it quits around 6:00PM, but the nymph fishing was very productive.  I started the afternoon fishing an inch worm due to the increased winds the last few days and caught a bunch of fish.  After that I switched to a sulphur nymph once I saw a few duns and picked up a few additional solid brown trout.  

One other notable observation that I made was due to the low water conditions and that these trout have be subject to a lot of dry flies, you may want to use a smaller diameter tippet.  A no brainer, I know but sometimes I find myself being a creature of habit and I forget to take specific variables into account.  With that being said I typically use 4X tippet but recently have had trout rise up completely vertical to refuse to eat dry flies.  After making the switch to a 24 - 30 inch 5X tippet segment, fish began to attack my fly once again.  Try it out, as I'm sure most would be able to make these distinction but it is often worth trying if you find yourself experiencing similar refusals in shallow or slower moving water.   

Below is a group of photos of some of the fish that ended up in one of Kevin Best's beautiful Nomad hand net.  

March Browns on Pine Creek

My father and I had one of the most memorable afternoons on the stream this past weekend fishing Pine Creek.  We stopped into the Slate Run Fly Shop and Wolfe's General Store to get one of the best homemade sandwiches money can buy to eat for dinner after fishing.  If you ever fish Pine Creek, stop into their shop and make sure to get a sandwich and check out their fly shop downstairs.  

After we got our dinner, we headed straight to Pine Creek and had a lot of fun fishing some bigger water.  Both of us got into nice fish and once the March Browns started popping I switched to a dry pattern and started picking up fish after fish.  It was an amazing afternoon on the stream and what was even more fun was that I had the chance to share this experience with my father.  Even afterwards a fisherman came up to us and said you guys put on a clinic and this unnamed fisherman enjoyed my response, saying "Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in awhile."

Below is just a snippet of some of the beautiful brown trout that Pine Creek has to offer.  There are certainly a lot larger trout lurking and there was one trout that I hooked into earlier in the day that I never got to see but it snapped me off within seconds of hooking into it.  Reason enough to go back and see if we can get into that trout again!

Enjoy a few of the photographs from our trip to Pine Creek!

Calm Before the Storm (Little J)

Jeff Scipione and I made another run at the Little Juniata before the heavy rainfall started last night.  We got there around 4:30PM and the Sulphur's were starting to come out in full force along with a fair amount of tan caddis.  

After the rainfall we received last evening and this morning the streams have elevated water levels but we needed the rain to support the trout/aquatic insects at later points this summer.  

It was a crazy few hours of fishing and we hooked into some beautiful brown and a healthy rainbow trout!  Below are a few of the better trout we took on a variety of dry fly sulphur patterns.  

Photos from the Little J

Recently I've made a bunch of trips to the Little J and there have been some very memorable trips angling for "river trout."  Jeff Scipione, Doc Scipione and I had an extraordinary evening on the stream using a myriad of crane fly, sulphur, caddis and BWO dry fly patterns.  The stream has literally been flooded with insects. 

I've been seizing every opportunity to make the trip to the Little Juniata because every time I go there, there is either a good fish is caught, landed or lost and put into my mental log for the next trip!  

Spring Creek has sulphurs, so does the Little J and Penns has reported some good march brown activity.  All of the local streams are heating up and anywhere you go, I'm sure it will result in great fishing!

Kevin Best at Nomad nets would enjoy the amount of use that his incredible hand net is getting.  There have been several occasions where we had multiple fish in the net at one time from numerous "doubles."

Here are a few photos of recent adventures on the Little J, enjoy! There were plenty of other trout caught and not photographed because things were crazy and we were into a ton of fish.  

Grannoms on the Little J

Hello Everyone,

I know it seems like all that I have been fishing is the Little J, well that's really all that I have spent time fishing because of my crazy schedule.  This past Sunday was a beautiful day to be out on the stream and the insect activity was even better!

Grannoms were apparent yesterday but it was a non-stop swarm on Sunday.  I was thankful that I wasn't getting hit with sleet or snow with the weather we had in Central PA on Saturday.  Sunday there was a change in what was flying through the air.  I was continually getting pelted in the head and sunglasses with the grannom caddis swarm (and BWO's) that were moving throughout the stream.

I began fishing around 3:00PM and the last fish I reeled in was at 7:58PM (on a dry fly).  I switched between a bi-visible and a elk hair caddis and the only time I changed flies was when my fly got beat up and I had to put a crisper imitation on the end of my line.  The height of the feeding frenzy took place between 6:00PM - 7:00PM where the water was boiling with aggressively rising fish.

If you get a chance I would get to Fishing Creek, Lower Spring Creek, or the Little Juniata to take part in this remarkable hatch that we are lucky to fish on an annual basis.  Special thanks to Kevin Best at Nomad nets for providing me with such a durable and dependable hand net!  It's been getting a ton of use again for the second season!

Below are a few pictures of a few of the longer fish that I hooked into, enjoy!

Little J Update (4/13/2013)

Hello Everyone, 

I didn't get a chance to fish opening day but my schedule cleared up Sunday to hit the streams for several hours.  BWO's were cruising around for most of the day but there wasn't the dry fly activity that my father and I witnessed the previous weekend.  

I had a lot of success fishing underneath with an assortment of nymph and larval patterns.  Throwing streamers and slump busters yielded fish as well.  Here are a few pictures from my time on the stream and I look forward to getting back out again to fish the optimal conditions once the Little J returns back to normal discharge levels. 

Hopefully everyone got a chance to hook into a few fish over the PA trout season opener!

Enjoy!

I had to add this because of its unique color on the pectoral fin.

Thrill On!

I recently came across Thrill On, the ultimate video and jpeg library for outdoor enthusiasts.  Once you set up your account and narrow down your interest boards (anything from fly fishing, saltwater and freshwater, to surfing, skiing or mountain biking) you'll be able to fill any void of time that you could imagine.  

In Central PA we are witnessing quite a thunderstorm and through this website you can immerse yourself or discover numerous watersheds that offer footage of amazing fishing.  I've attached a link to a recent video that I viewed when thinking about how good the sulphur and grannom hatch will be around our local fisheries.  

Sipping Dry Short Film

Enjoy!