Fish Pics

I haven't sent an update out for quite some time, but the the absence of fly fishing posts does not necessarily mean that we have not been out fishing.  Below is a snippet of the fish that we have tangled with throughout our fly fishing outings.

Another polar vortex has reared its ugly head in Central Pennsylvania, but that doesn't mean that fish stop eating! Get out on the streams and wet a line!

Here is an assortment of pictures that I've had the opportunity to capture since our last freshwater fly fishing post.

Enjoy!

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!

  

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.  

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.