Cooling down

Tons of rain last night, high winds today, a cold front is pushing through the Susquehanna Valley! That means that I missed the warm days and Saturday's adventures will be in 30 degree weather with high winds. Still, with the rain, our limestoners will be running quite nicely by Saturday AM, and I'm looking forward to getting a trout on the Featherlight...or perhaps I'll take my fourth skunking in a row.

I also wouldn't mind taking my new Martin for a spin. I'd like to hear that reel out on the creeks. Saturday's outing should provide me with the opportunities to get fish on both the new rod and the new reel...if we can find the fish!

Warming up

Well things are warming up, and I am extremely anxious to get out after some trout. Quite frankly, I'm not happy with my brookie numbers this year (one!?), but alas, I am stuck at work while the daylight runs out. Things will have to wait til this weekend, when it'll be around 33 degrees again. Oh well. The plan is to tackle one of my local spring creeks and test out the Martin 61. I want to hear that badboy screaming! I'll be cold, I'll be catching browns and maybe a wild bow or two instead of brookies, but it should be a fun day out, regardless. Any day on the water is a fun day.

I acquired a 8'6" 7wt Wonderrod to accompany my new Eagle Claw Granger reel. The summer SMB fishing is going to be awesome!

Winter....it kind of sucks

One little thing I don't know that I mentioned here is that since last January, I lost 103lbs. Don't get me wrong. I'm still fat, just not as fat. So here I am, going through my first winter w/out an extra 100lbs of insulation, and I gotta say, I'm not a fan. The cold cuts right to the core of me now. I used to love winter, but now I'm far less tolerant of the frigid temps.

The other thing that sucks about winter is the fishing. I spent a significant amount of time on Valley this weekend, a stream that is usually teeming with trout. I fished with a group of four other guys, and we all got the skunk. Hard. In fact, every single person we talked to on the stream was getting the skunk. I even resorted to streamers to try and move some fish (this is a last resort for me!), nothing. I tried midges, scuds, BWOs (there was a healthy amount coming off the water), dry droppers, small nymphs, big nymphs, small streamers, big streamers, even green weenies. I tried up top, down deep and everywhere in the middle. There's gonna be days like this, I guess. Still, it was a really nice January day to be out. It was warmer than most days, the company was great, the scenery was nice, and the deer were on the move.

Monday I found out the answer to the age old question, "How cold is too cold?" I headed out to our local limestoner (Lititz Run) in hopes of a miracle (a trout actually feeding in the C&R FFO section). Midges are the order of the day on a cold winter day on that stream (or so I've been told), so I fished a weighted olive scud with a zebra midge floating above it. The wind chill was pretty brutal, and I couldn't find my fingerless gloves. I lasted 90 minutes, which is a drop in the bucket considering I was planning on being out for at least 3 hours. I covered not even half of the water I planned on fishing. I stopped often just to put my hands inside my fleece pockets. How cold is too cold? Wind chills in the teens is about what I can take, apparently.

On the upside, I fished Valley with the Featherlight 6'6" and I loved it. Going with the heavier line weight, I was able to do some nice casting, even from longer distances. The little graphite they're putting in these rods now to make them less floppy is a benefit. I wasn't sure how I'd like that addition, but its nice. It adds just enough firmness. I also received my Martin 61 (Tuna Can) in the mail on Wed. and got it lined and on the Fenwick. I love a loud reel like that.

I'm ready for spring.

The Great Pflueger Repair of 2013

Last night was an epic night for me. It began with purchasing an Eagle Claw Featherlight, 6'6". I made the mistake of going to the local sportsman's store to find the rod. Its a rod I've seen there all summer. They were out of it, no biggie. The mistake was going into a store that sells firearms right now. What a madhouse! People are gun crazy right now. Everyone, just take a deep breath. As I was leaving, two cop cars pulled up w/ their lights on. Maybe some one's background check turned up something they were hoping would stayed buried!

I ended up getting the rod off Amazon. With my free 2 day shipping (thanks to Amazon Prime), I'll have the rod for this weekend's outings. $26 shipped, can't beat that. Time to see if this rod lives up to its reputation.

The reel I want to use with the rod is currently occupying the reel seat on my Fenwick. I have a Pflueger Medalist for the Fenwick, but the reel foot broke. I haven't been able to find a replacement, and the prices of the Medalist have skyrocketed since the reel was taken out of production. I don't exactly want to pay three times the cost of what I paid originally for the reel. That's ridonkulous. So I decided it was time to Amish Rig the Medalist. Now, I'm not the most crafty, handy person, but I'm not an idiot either. Here's what I did. I had a medal reel foot from another reel that I don't use currently. The contour and curves of this reel foot seemed to fit perfectly the contours of the broken reel seat of the Medalist. I reached for my tubes of J-B Weld, a remarkable product if I may say so, and got to work. I laid the new reel foot underneath the remaining piece of the Medalist reel foot and welded that son of a gun together, stuck it in a C-clamp overnight, and this morning that thing was solid as a rock! I pulled w/ all my might and could not tear that reel foot apart. Repair success. I screwed the seat back into the reel, slapped it on the Fenwick, and it was like a reunion with an old friend! Glad to have my black beauty back.

A great looking weekend

My updates have been slow in coming, and that's because the fishing has been slow in coming. I was able to get out to a local Class A freestoner that I haven't fished much in the past. I only got one brookie (first one of 2013!) but it was a beautiful stream. I look forward to hitting this gem in the Spring.

I'm also watching Ebay right now for a new rod and reel. Probably going to be getting that yellow Eagle Claw and a Martin 61 or some such classic reel. I would like a shorter 4/5wt for these little streams.

This weekend, however, is shaping up quite nicely. I have a 5 day weekend. Saturday I'll be chasing browns in Valley Forge National Park. Monday I'll be going after 'bows in York County. I'll work in a day to go after brookies too. So hopefully come next week, I'll be able to photobomb this site!

The Last of 2012; The First of 2013

I've been meaning to do this post for several days now, but my personal schedule has kept me from sitting down and doing it.

I was fortunate to make one more trek out for 2012 on Saturday, 12/29. It was snowing again, and we had several inches on the ground. Getting to the stream was a bit of an issue as there were accidents everywhere. At one point, the road that leads to my stream was completely closed, and I had to take a 5 mile detour to get around the closure. I left my house around 1:00pm and did not arrive at the stream till after 2pm...the stream is 15 minutes from my house on a normal day.

This picture is of the trail that runs back and parallels the stream I was fishing. The tracks there are from a pair of bow hunters who had just started walking back as I was pulling in. I followed their tracks for about 1/4 miles before they veered off the trail and up the mountain. Small stream fishing on State Game Land this time of year is always tricky. Its a good idea to wear orange so that hunters can see you, but the question is, does it allow the brook trout to see you!? Better to take the skunk than take an arrow in the throat though. The fishing was tough this day. I got into slippery spots on top of boulders and whatnot, and felt very uneasy on my feet. The snow made walking on these boulders incredibly difficult, and as a result, I didn't fish many of the plunges and pools that I would fish other times of the year.

 As you can see, though, the scenery just could not be beat. It was so quiet and peaceful back there. I love being in the woods when its snowing. Its almost as if you can actually hear the snowflakes landing. A few miles back and I saw one other guy, some hiker who had ski polls, but no skis? He was doing some weird hike/cross country ski hybrid I guess. I saw his tracks running beside the stream for several miles, and as I was walking out to my car, he passed. me.

And this is the last fish of 2012, the only fish I caught. Yeah, I had to resort to an "ugly fly" like the green weenie, but my theory is, the only ugly fly is the fly that doesn't work! I really like the colors on brookies this time of year. There's a purple tint to them that you don't see other times.

January 1 was a much more productive day, fish wise! Once again, I decided to fish the Tulpehocken Creek in Myerstown. This time, I went exploring. It was recently reported by our area fish commission biologist that a survey of the stream in certain public stretches actually turned up wild and hold over fish. Either these fish swam downstream during the Hurricane Sandy flooding, or, despite the deteriorating habitat, the wild fish are expanding their range. I hit three stretches of this stream. I was fishing a royal wulff/scud dry dropper, which, despite being winter, seems to produce well for me on this stream. The first stretch was a very short stretch of water. I missed one little brownie on the wulff, and after an hour of fishing this few hundred yard stretch, I decided to drive around and look for more access. Again, this stream is posted like you wouldn't believe, so finding places to get in is tough. Still, I found more public access a down stream a bit, and fished that stretch. Again, I got the skunk. This habitat was in very bad condition. Trash everywhere, silty banks, tires and cement blocks in the stream, I couldn't believe any trout would live in that stretch.

After getting in my car and driving around for a bit, looking for more access, I came across this beautiful stretch of the stream.

The water here was clean, there was a good amount of cress, very little silt, a solid pebble bottom, it just looked like your classic limestone spring creek. Unfortunately the land was posted. Still, this stream is declared a navigable water, so in PA while the land around the stream can be posted, the stream itself is available for the public. Wading in was quite easy. Above the bridge in this picture there was a public lot. I fished the stretch above the bridge first, and caught the first trout of 2013!

Not my biggest fish, but the first one of the year is always something to commemorate! I fished the stretch above the bridge a bit more before deciding to wade downstream. Fortunately the water under the bridge was not deep at all, and getting through was quite easy. I moved some larger trout as I was going under the bridge, which was a promising sign! A few minutes above the bridge, and the trout started flowing!

Exploring can definitely pay off sometimes! After two bust sections, I was getting tired and a bit discouraged, but I'm glad I stuck it through and hit this last stretch. The payout was worth it. 2013 is off to a rippin' start!