Lititz Run 5/19/2013

On Sunday morning a friend and I decided to hit the little stream of Lititz Run to celebrate the day our kids were born :).  We decided to meet at 5am.  I was going to fish until 7:00.  This would give me enough time to get back to the house to feed horses and be ready for church.  The way the sun has been lighting up the morning, it would be a nice start to the morning.  Well, this day was different. 

 

When I got to the stream at 5, it was still pitch dark.  There was a lot of cloud cover and small showers that moved in and made it impossible to see your indicator at this time.  So we talked a little before we hit the stream.  I decided to work this stream using the Chain Gang Caddis as my point fly and putting a new design, scud missile, as a dropper off of this.  It turned out to be a winning combination for today for me. 

 

 

I was super happy with how the fish liked the scud missile!! 

 

 

 

 I also picked a couple up on the  Chain Gang Caddis. 

 

 

Today was not a day for large fish, but I had my best numbers day ever.  It was a fishing time filled with fiesty fighters though.  Most of the fish were rainbows but I also picked up a couple nice looking brookies. 

This is a stream that has had a lot of work done on it.  It is a spring creek that is one of the local success stories of what can happen to a creek when you put work and effort into it.  There was several occasions that killed all the bugs that could have lived in this water.  Now, there are several bugs returning to this stream.  While we were there, I was observing what looked like a pale morning dun hatch.  There were not any fish rising to these mayflies but it was absolutely thrilling to watch this hatch as it progressed.  It wasn't prolific but it was a thrill to see.

These last couple photos show some of the rainbows we were catching.  Oh wait, only one photo shows.  The other photo shows how fiesty they were as just before the pic was taken it figured a way to be released out of my hands before proof could be had of being caught.  :)  Well, I was having such a great morning that I lost track of time.  I didn't leave the stream until 7:30 and almost was late getting my chores done.  But it was an exceptional morning as I was enjoying God's creation and also got home to celebrate my son's 12th birthday.

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