Tulpehocken - 4/17/2013

 

 

I planned a morning of fishing with Bill M., a good friend of mine.  We met in Ephrata and traveled together to the Tulpehocken to fish the special regs area of this stream.  We got there a little after daylight and got suited up.  It was a couple weeks since I last hit the water and I was really looking forward to it.  The water level was just perfect.  We knew there were fish in the water because when we got there the Blue Herons were trying to take claim to certain spots along the water. 

 

The water temps were perfect at about 51 degrees.  The water flows were about 140 cfs which turned out to be an awesome level.  As soon as we were on the water, it didn't take long till I had my first fish of the day.  It was a nice rainbow that took a pink and white Y2K egg.  I have to admit, I am not the best fisherman around.  I am a better tier than I am a fisherman.  I would have had double the numbers brought to hand if I would have done better at giving good hook sets.  There were several flies that brought fish to hand for me today.  Anything from the Y2K (yellow/orange and pink/white), Chain Gang Pheasant Tail, Chain Gang Hares Ear, Double Duty, and even a #24 stripper midge.  The two that did the best were the stripper midge and the Y2K, and actually the stripper midge brought the biggest fish of the day for me. 

There were spent midges on the water everywhere.  And actually the fish were rising to them all over the place.  Although, I couldn't break off my rust and connect with any of the rises.  I did a great job of missing every rise that came to my small BWO Foam Biot Emerger, which happened to be the smallest dry fly I had with me.  I wasn't expecting any surface action today.  I used my ice magic and managed some short hookups but nothing to hand.  Like I had said earlier, there are some things I need to work on so that I can have more fish come to hand. 

Well, I hope everyone gets the chance to be out on the water soon.  It was a great morning for being outside and especially to be out fishing.

 

 

 

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