Conestoga 4/29/2012

I went out on the Conestoga River to do some more exploring and try to find some more water I can take my son to fish safely. A friend was showing me some good spots. It was a clear blue sky and outside temps were just great for fishing. We riffle hopped trying to find some cooperative fish. I only found one that was willing to cooperate. The water temps were still really cool. It only reached mid 50's. I think it was just a bit cool for them to be too active yep. And it seems like it is pre spawn yet here even though we have had such warm weather and low water conditions.

I guess I should have had a different fly box with me. This is a warm water stream but we were seeing some large cahills. They looked like size 14 or even size 12. To my surprise the bass were taking them off the top! I guess I should put a few cahills in my warm water box for next time!

I only got one bass, but it did come on one of my new streamers. It was the darter pattern I posted recently. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera available but it was a nice healthy 10+ incher.

New Creations

I have been doing some creating lately. I have had a lot of new concepts running through my head. I finally got some time and put some of these patterns to life. I am anxious to test them out and get the fish approval.

First is the sculpin.  I got some of the sculpin helmets and just had to tie some up.  They are really awesome heads to work with and they fish really well. 

The next thing I was wanting to come up with was cicada imitations.  I had gotten some of the "ThingAMaBody" and I came up with these imitations.  I had gotten one of the cicadas that we see every year around our place.  Should be fun this summer when they show up again.  I  also heard that in the next year or two there are going to be some of the 13 or 17 year cicadas showing up in certain locations.  So I was playing around with ideas for them as well. 

Here is a modification to the clouser or even a deceiver.  I have beed chain and on the end of the chain I put artic fox or marabou.  It has some nice action.  I am hoping the fish like it as much as I do. 

I was playing around with some minnow imitations for my next bass trip.  There are some greenside darters and some other small minnows that I am trying to imitate.  These patterns are just a little over 2".  I am hoping the bass find them tasty. 

There are a lot of frogs around in the summer.  One of my son's friends was fishing with a little rubber frog last summer and did really well on the bass on our pond.  I thought I need to have my own imitation that we can fish.  I am excited to try this one out. 

I got some professional photos taken of my new crayfish pattern "Stoned Claw Crazy".  I have been having a lot of fun with this pattern.  The fish have given me some good feedback on it.  :)

4/15/2012 fishing report.

I decided to head out to the Conestoga River for the last couple hours of daylight last night. The section I was fishing is more like an average size stream. The water level for this time of year is extremely low. We haven't had a sizable rainfall in a while. I believe we are about two inches of rainfall behind our normal amount. The Conestoga is currently at 200 CFS and is usually about 500 CFS this time of year. We need rain badly here in PA. 

I went to do some exploring. I looked on the map and found some spots I wanted to fish. Well unfortunately, when I got to these spots I found out that they were posted. What a bummer, cause the water looked promising.

I finally got to a spot that wasn't posted. I was fishing with my new crayfish pattern. I have to say, this new pattern didn't disappoint me. It did well and the fish I did catch, hammered the pattern. There were no subtle takes! Look for this pattern on MyFlies.com as soon as i can get photos of it. It is called the "Stoned Claw Crazy".

The only thing that did disappoint me was the fishing location. There was a LOT of dead water, water with no holding spots or it was covered from bank to bank with green moss. I covered a ton of ground between fishable spots. I guess that is one of the things with exploring, you can get find places you will go back again and others that you won't waste your time on again. Each time you go out exploring you hope you hit the jackpot on an excellent fishing spot. Sometimes you win and sometimes you don't.

PA Opening trout weekend

This weekend was the opening of Pennsylvania trout season. The weather held out and I was able to  take my son out for a chance at his first fly rod trout. Unfortunately he didn't connect with any trout but he had fun catching sunnies. At one point both of our rods didn't have any flies on so while I was getting one of the rods ready he was doing what kids like to do, play in water. This is not a big stream as I am sure you can tell by the photos but it still has its muddy sections. He got into this one spot and started loosing his balance. I was lucky and had my camera out and ready as he some how got lucky and did not fall in. Then gave me the face of "I cannot believe you were taking pictures of me" look.

What a great time we had. If you have the opportunity, take a kid fishing!

I did end up catching two stocked brookies. The one came on the Chain Gang Hares Ear. The other on a pheasant tail. There were a handful of caddis flying around.  Occasionally, I was seeing a few risers.  The only other thing I was seeing was extremely small midges.  I didn't have those small flies with me so we just continued with what I had brought along.  I tried some new streamer patterns I have been playing with but wasn't successful with any of those patterns.  The one I have to go back to the drawing board.  So it was a good time in all aspects.

Normally the the local sportsman club stocks really nice size rainbows. Unfortunately there was a problem last summer. The hatchery is located in the area that had an extreme flash flood. We had 7" of rain fall in about 45 minutes. The rain only fell in about a three mile circle. It wiped out the fish they had started. There was that much water that came down through that up stream from them, there is a tractor dealership.  The stripThey needed to cleanup and restart so the second batch must have been brookies. They are beautiful fish but they are small.

Chain Gang Hares Ear

Successful Clients

I received a couple emails recently of some of their success on recent trips to the streams. The first pic is of Kevin Smith who was using the Chain Gang Copper John on his trip to Chile. It is a really beautiful brown with some nice size. He highly recommends this trip to anyone. The Andes mountains are gorgeous and the fishing was great.

The second photo is from Michael Byers who has been a client of mine since I started. He lives in MI and was enjoying time on his water when he hooked into a nice brown using an Opal Caddis dry fly I had tied for him. This brown was his first dry fly fish of this year.

Congrats to both these guys in successful times on the water.

Orders

I didn't have much time to do anything but fish lately.  There have been a few orders I have worked on.  A couple of fly shops have needed to restock and here are a few of those that went out in the mail.  Out the door goes a bunch of Zebra midges, some purple soft hackles, and a batch of Y2K's.

Contest Flies

I am not even sure anymore how I heard about a new fly tying contest but the deadline is March 15 to be post marked. So I put a package in the mail for the Baxter Bulletin fly tying contest.

There are seven categories. I am sending in flies for five of them. The categories I have flies for are trout nymph, trout soft hackle, trout streamer, small mouth bass, and bass. Any of the below patterns are available through MyFlies.com Custom Order. 

For the Bass category, this is a pattern that I had a lot of success with in the fall of 2011.  It is called "Movin & Groovin".  It got its name when my daughter came home from kindergarden and said she had fun at Movin & Groovin time at school.  Well, I found out it was the teacher's way of getting some of the excess energy out of these young energetic kids.  This pattern just made me think of the kids movin and dancin around the room.  The tail is made of bead chain and allows me to attach shorter materials to make a longer pattern.  The tail is made of artic fox and ostrich herl.  This pattern swings and dances in the water that the fish find irresistable!  It is always moving even when at rest.  When you strip it and then give a pause, the water just makes this thing pulsate. 

"Movin & Groovin"

 The second pattern I submitted was for the trout streamer group.  It is a newer concept but utilizes the same mechanics as the Movin & Groovin by using the bead chain to lengthen the body and have extreme motion. 

Sculpin 

The third pattern was for the small mouth group.  This is a new pattern too but has a lot of trigger points to it that should get the fish's attention.  A little bit of flash for the antenna, tons of movement with the marabou and the rabbit strip back, and lead dumbbell eyes placed close to the bend of the hook to allow this pattern to drop level, as most crayfish do.  I am currently fishing with this pattern in black, brown and olive. 

Crazy Craw

The fourth pattern is for the trout wetfly group.  This is a new idea as well.  I am using UV Chewee Skin on the body and pheasant tail feathers for the hackle.  The Chewee skin gives a nice reflective quality about the body and is a nice attractor.



Chewee Soft Hackle

The fifth and final pattern is similar to the soft hackle in that it is using the same body material, UV Chewee Skin.  I am tying this pattern in caddis green and tan, with or without a bead head. 

Chewee Caddis