Showing posts with label Caddis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Caddis. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Caddis pupae patterns
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Fly on the run
I was invited to participate in the Fly On The Run annual fund raiser event again this year. This event is a fund raiser for Lancaster County Career & Technology Center (LCCTC). This is a great school for kids to learn a specific trade. This is a two day event. The evening before the fishing day, there is an awesome meal that is made by the student and hosted by the student. This event allows the students real life experience in the specialties of hosting, pastries, restaurant planning, and lots of other positions. Tonight they served Lobster tail, prime rib,and lots of other great food. The desserts were out of this world! Here was one of the cake pieces. The fish image on top was all hand done with white and regular chocolate. It was on each piece. And it was very delicious.
There is an auction that is of all kinds of donated items. one of the items was a cake made by the students. Everything on the cake is edible. Here is the item I donated. It is a wooden 4"x6" wooden fly box. I put in some of the chain gang nymphs (Hares Ear, Copper John, Stonefly, and two new patterns: Prince and Royal Prince) and my favorite caddis dry fly which works great on the Lititz Run, the Opal Caddis. I also put in a Stoned Claw Crazy, a new sculpin pattern, and the Wooly Skull. This box raised $150 for future scholarships given to some of the students.
There are browns, brookies, and rainbows in this Lititz Run. This creek is a stream restoration success. It is a spring creek that was a really warm water because of thermal pollution and also suffered a lot of chemical pollution. Donegal Trout Unlimited and others put a lot of time and effort into cleaning it up and is now a first rate stream. The bug life had disappeared but in the last couple years have seen lots of bug life return. There are now several caddis varieties, a cahill hatch, and tricos.
This event is a one fly tournament. It is setup as a competition of teams of four. There are four session times to fish. Two rods are allowed during each session. We had a lot of rain on Monday and Tuesday. This allowed the stream to have a nice amount of water, which was nice because before this there was very little water in the Lititz Run.
I tried a new streamer design (Ice Magic) and did well with it. The wooly skull also did well and brought fish to hand. The new design of chain gang prince nymph also caught fish. I was really happy with how some of these new designs worked today. We had really good fishing for about forty five minutes and then the sun hit the water and it definitely slowed things down. It was bright blue bird skies. The weather was wonderful to be outside and enjoy the friendships of the guys on my team. The lunker award went to a 23.5" brown. There were a couple teams that just knocked em dead. They must have had some beats that had a ton of fish.
The event was well worth attending and was enjoyed by all. Last year they raised over $50,000 for the school and to provide kids with scholarships to further their education.
There is an auction that is of all kinds of donated items. one of the items was a cake made by the students. Everything on the cake is edible. Here is the item I donated. It is a wooden 4"x6" wooden fly box. I put in some of the chain gang nymphs (Hares Ear, Copper John, Stonefly, and two new patterns: Prince and Royal Prince) and my favorite caddis dry fly which works great on the Lititz Run, the Opal Caddis. I also put in a Stoned Claw Crazy, a new sculpin pattern, and the Wooly Skull. This box raised $150 for future scholarships given to some of the students.
There are browns, brookies, and rainbows in this Lititz Run. This creek is a stream restoration success. It is a spring creek that was a really warm water because of thermal pollution and also suffered a lot of chemical pollution. Donegal Trout Unlimited and others put a lot of time and effort into cleaning it up and is now a first rate stream. The bug life had disappeared but in the last couple years have seen lots of bug life return. There are now several caddis varieties, a cahill hatch, and tricos.
This event is a one fly tournament. It is setup as a competition of teams of four. There are four session times to fish. Two rods are allowed during each session. We had a lot of rain on Monday and Tuesday. This allowed the stream to have a nice amount of water, which was nice because before this there was very little water in the Lititz Run.
I tried a new streamer design (Ice Magic) and did well with it. The wooly skull also did well and brought fish to hand. The new design of chain gang prince nymph also caught fish. I was really happy with how some of these new designs worked today. We had really good fishing for about forty five minutes and then the sun hit the water and it definitely slowed things down. It was bright blue bird skies. The weather was wonderful to be outside and enjoy the friendships of the guys on my team. The lunker award went to a 23.5" brown. There were a couple teams that just knocked em dead. They must have had some beats that had a ton of fish. The event was well worth attending and was enjoyed by all. Last year they raised over $50,000 for the school and to provide kids with scholarships to further their education.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Memorial Day 2012
This weekend I am really looking forward to. We always go to a friend's cabin. There are a bunch of kids and they have a blast hanging out and playing together. There is nothing like creating your own games and fun times in the mountains. They will also get some of the older kids to take them on golf cart rides. They take the carts out on the groomed paths around the cabin. This always seems to be one of the highlights from the weekend.
While the kids are doing their thing my friend and I head out to do some fishing. We often take his boat out on the Susquehanna river and do some bass fishing. I am always fly fishing and he spin casts. Last year we had an epic day bass of fishing. The water was rising. I don't think we ever caught so many smallies in the 15-18" range as we did that day. I would love to experience another day like that one! I will also head to Big Fishing Creek or Spring Creek to try and hit some of the mayfly hatches. This year my son said he would like to join me. So I hope to get him on his first trout on the fly rod. We may see the sulphurs and caddis on Spring or if the water comes down we may hit Fishing Creek. The green drakes are soon to arrive. They are also seeing some slate drakes, sulphurs, and tan caddis right now. This could lead to some exciting dry fly action.
If the water is still high on these creeks I may be doing some testing on some of my newer streamers that have done well in other locations. I am also anxious to try out some of my bass patterns.
Here is one of my newest ideas. I haven't decided on an official name for this fly yet but I am thinking of "Ice Minnow", "Polar Express", or if you have a suggestion let me know. I want to see if I get as good a response from some trout and would like to also test it on the bass to see if they like the looks of it.
While the kids are doing their thing my friend and I head out to do some fishing. We often take his boat out on the Susquehanna river and do some bass fishing. I am always fly fishing and he spin casts. Last year we had an epic day bass of fishing. The water was rising. I don't think we ever caught so many smallies in the 15-18" range as we did that day. I would love to experience another day like that one! I will also head to Big Fishing Creek or Spring Creek to try and hit some of the mayfly hatches. This year my son said he would like to join me. So I hope to get him on his first trout on the fly rod. We may see the sulphurs and caddis on Spring or if the water comes down we may hit Fishing Creek. The green drakes are soon to arrive. They are also seeing some slate drakes, sulphurs, and tan caddis right now. This could lead to some exciting dry fly action.
If the water is still high on these creeks I may be doing some testing on some of my newer streamers that have done well in other locations. I am also anxious to try out some of my bass patterns.
Here is one of my newest ideas. I haven't decided on an official name for this fly yet but I am thinking of "Ice Minnow", "Polar Express", or if you have a suggestion let me know. I want to see if I get as good a response from some trout and would like to also test it on the bass to see if they like the looks of it.
I also have some sculpin patterns I want to try. I have fished these a little but haven't received any feedback on them yet. Others that have fished them have like them though.
I have a couple newer chain gang nymphs I would like to test. Below are the prince and royal prince. They have brought some to hand but need to continue testing these. Also is a bead head chain gang stonefly pattern. May have to see if I get any response from it as well.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
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.
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.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
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.
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.
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