Lee checked in with a nice American Shad. Shad trips are available. Now is the time. This is great opportunity to put a big bend in your two hander or learn some new techniques. Give the shop a call or swing in to learn more.
Ryan checked in with a great Musky. He used a Sage Motive 9ft 8 wt with a Rio floating line, a rio striped bass tapered leader and 20 lb tippet. He used a fly tied by Lee using materials from the shop and designed for the conditions where this fish was caught. The big ones are out there. You need to do your homework and put in some time on the water. As always hit us up in the shop if you would like more info on how to catch a wonderful fish like this. Check out this strong report from Henlopen! Some big blues were caught on the Flats, plus a couple of stripers. The blues were taking deceivers and Clousers in white or pink and white. Ryan checked in with s few pictures of a successful morning at the jersey shore. He used a Sage Motive and a Lamson Guru. His fly of choice that day was a puglisi style fly tied by Lee. Keep up the great work Ryan! If you have any questions so hesitate to swing into the shop, give us s call or hit us up on facebook. We can get you outfitted and give you the detailed info so you can find success on the water. Last weekend Chris and Lee fished at the Indian River Inlet. They arrived in the afternoon and fished into the night. The tide set up just right as the light changes started and they were able to stick some fish. Chris is a very experienced caster and tier but most of his fishing is from the beach. We worked on adapting his game to the currents and seams of the Inlet.
We are strong proponents of circle hooks in the shop. They help when blues are int he water since they tend to hook the fish in the corner of the mouth, they do not get stuck in the rocks as often and since the points are turned under they do not dull when back casts hit the rocks or the beach. Our trips are not just for catching. they are learning opportunities. Chris wanted to expand his game and we helped fill some gaps. If you are new and just looking to get a head start or are an experienced angler that wants to branch out into an aspect of fly fishing that you have not mastered yet give us a call and we can construct a trip to match your needs. Shawn Rakes checked in with this great report Dave & Kyle Johnson and I blew up my raft at Concord pond this afternoon for a couple hours to chase pickerel. We fished from around 2-4PM. It was cold and windy but we maneuvered the raft in some sheltered areas of the pond as best we could. Dave caught a nice pickerel about 19.5" it weighed right at 3lbs on the boca grip (see attached picture). It was a great fish, deep bodied green and healthy. It was caught on a 5/0 - 8.5" pike style hollow fly that I tied (see attached photo). That seems like a big fly but the fish had the entire fly in his mouth, incredible. Dave also lost one at the boat that he had hooked and was cut off on another strike right before we left. I had a really nice violent hit and a follow but did not manage to hook up. Kyle got a lot good casting practice and worked on his back cast a lot. Also, I must credit Kyle for taking some nice pictures with his phone.
We had a great time and I think we may have started our own tradition called "Chain Pickerel Friday". It was way better than shopping that is for sure! Terry and Rick hit the GP and checked in with this report. "Rick hit a solid BWO hatch and had good action on top. I missed it and never saw one BWO, just midges and they never left the banks. I fished a Sage 9' 3 wt Rod on 6x tippet behind a #14 stimulator as an indicator. I trailed a zebra midge and other midge larva on a dropper . They hit the stimi too. Saw a few micro caddis and midges and BWOs." Drop by the shop to hear more about it. If you would like to catch the wild fish in the GP and other area streams we can set you up. Late fall and winter is time for Trouting. Remember there is no such thing as bad weather. There is just bad clothing. If you need to stay warm, dry and comfortable while iushing in the cold we can help with that too. With all of the prep for our "Customer Appreciation Weekend" I must apologize that I missed last weeks report. With both the Pennsylvania and Delaware Trout openers behind us all of our local Trout rivers are fishing well. The White Clay in DE. and PA, the East Branch of the Brandywine and the West Branch of the Octoraro all are receiving weekly or Bi-weekly stockings. Fresh stockers are suckers for attractor patterns. Green Weenies, San Juan worms in pink or maroon and bright colored Buggers should all bring fish to hand. If you prefer to stick to the "hatch" side of things Midges still seem to be the preferred choice. The Red Zebra Midge, especially on the White Clay, seems to be the ticket. I personally fished the White Clay two times this past weekend and can report good numbers of fish throughout the entire river. Saturday I met my buddy Mark at the meeting house at 6:00 am. I figured I could get a few hours of "stockie chasing" before I had to go open the shop. Mark is not a fly fisherman (I know, I know, I am working on him also) so we decided to fish the main stem above the Delaware line. He was throwing his favorite Rooster Tail and I tied up a triple Nymph rig and drifted my three offerings under an indicator. The top fly was a #18 Red Zebra, the middle fly was a #14 Pheasant Tail I have been working on with a bright orange thorax, and the bottom fly was a #20 Olive Al's Rat. I guess I got lucky because of the first 4 fish I landed all three flies had been eaten. Mark and I had a great morning with several fish landed between the two of us. As we were walking out we met up with my buddy "One Boot Ed." Ed was swinging his new favorite fly, the Clouser Swimming Nymph and picked up a few fish above the London Tract Bridge. Sunday evening I was back on the White Clay, this time on the Middle branch. I fished the same rig all evening and had similar results. Several fish landed on all three flies on the rig. I also got a chance to fish my new Waterworks / Lamson Black Guru. This is the second time they have done a limited run of black in this reel and we have them in stock now. Stop by and check them out, you will be glad you did! That black is just plain sexy! Four hours and several fish landed including these two brutes. Believe it or not both of these fish took the smallest fly on the rig, the #20 Olive Al's Rat. Ok, ok now the report everybody has been waiting for. Things at Deer Creek seem to be picking up. A few good reports from last weekend were followed by the shutdown caused by Wednesday's rain and several cold nights in a row. I had planned on giving it a try one day this weekend, but started to re think my plan. All the reports we received on Friday and Saturday morning were not favorable. With the Brandywine running well over 800 CFS and Deer Creek shutdown I was planing a Trout day on Sunday. Around 3:00 in the afternoon on Saturday we started receiving reports that Deer Creek was "on" again. Just about that time "One Boot Ed" sent me a text asking if I had heard anything about the Shad in Deer Creek. I told him we have gotten several good reports in the last 2 hours. I think he was out the door before he responded "on my way". Ed said the action was steady and the fish were eating flies and fighting hard. That sealed the deal, I was heading to Conowingo early Sunday morning and Ed and I were gonna lay the smack down on some Shad! Well, I was not ready for that, but the anticipation of hard fighting fish had me up and getting ready well before the sun came up. On my way down I got a call from Ed... On your Way? Just passed Nottingham Ok, I am about 3 minutes ahead of you Cool, see you in the parking lot. I actually stopped on the side of the road and snapped this picture. I love these colors when the sun comes up in the morning. We rigged up and headed to our spot. I guess because it was Easter morning many people did not come out. The river was not crowded at all. The water was 52 degrees and the fish were full on into their spawning ritual. I started with my favorite Shad fly, one of my micro Clouser Minnows in black and chartreuse. I am surprised to say I received no love with my old standby. I switched to my second favorite color, pink, and was into fish on the first cast. We fished for about 3 hours and had a medium pick of fish until the sun got high above then they shut down. It was not every cast, buy there was no time to get bored either. With the warming weather these next two weeks are full of opportunities. Get out and fish!
Tight lines..Tim As we prepare for our "Customer Appreciation" weekend I was in the shop on Saturday having a discussion with one of the "regulars" about the open house. Specifically, we were talking about the articulated flies and which patterns I would be tying. At some point during the conversation I said something to the effect that you can basically articulated almost any fly. A little later one of our good friends, Craig came in with his son Matty. I got to thinking about my earlier statement about articulating any fly, I was already tying Green Weenies for the shop so I called Matty over to the vise. With his help (Matty rotated the vise as I fed the chenille up the hook) I tied the very first (that I know of) articulated Green Weenie. The first one was done purely as a joke, but the more I looked at it the more I realized that it might actually work. I knew I was fishing Sunday afternoon on the White Clay so I decided to tie a few and give them a try. After some thought I decided to name the new creation the "Fractured Weenie". I had a Sunday afternoon appointment that ran longer than expected, so I didn't make it to the water until about 4:45. I was excited to get there because I knew my brother was there and we were going to fish together. Pat is not a fly fisherman ( I know, I know, I am trying...) and we don't get to fish together as much as we used to so I was really looking forward to the afternoon. He called me from the river to tell me he was already into a few fish the conversation went something like this; "where did you start" "the blow-down" "you fish the hole you got the big Brown" "yep" "how far down are you" "just above the big hole" "OK, be down in a bit" I love how fishing buddies can have a conversation between each other that seems like total gibberish to anyone else, but makes perfect sense to them. Trust me, I knew EXACTLY where he was and more importantly what river he had already fished. My brother is not the kind of guy you want to spend a lot of time fishing behind, unless a nice leisurely, fishless, walk down the river is your goal. I caught up to him and stood behind him for a few minutes without him knowing i was there. I watched him fish a small run for about 3 or 4 minutes and said to myself "damn, he is good". He is typically throwing spinners or ultra light crankbaits, so when fishing with him I usually throw a Streamer or Wet fly. This way I can somewhat keep up with his "run and gun" style. I had decided to fish my new pattern the entire night and it didn't take long for me to gain conformation that it would work. Now, I am not usually a Green Weenie guy, I rarely fish it. I must say, this thing looked pretty darn cool in the water. I can see a few of these being added to my Streamer box. A couple of hours and a few fish later I realized you actually can articulate just about any fly. As for Pat... Water temps on the Clay were 46 degrees at 5:00 in the evening. The water level was great and the clarity was just about perfect, not gin clear, but not too dirty ether. I did see a bunch of Midges coming off at around 6:00 and was hopeful for some Caddis, but didn't see any. I also received a few strong reports from the East branch of the Brandywine from the weekend. With Delaware opening this past Saturday we have multiple fishing opportunities available to us right now. With warmer weather and longer days now is the time to get out and fish.
Tight Lines... Tim Well, as promised I was going to try my new favorite streamer, the River Minnie, on a wild Trout river this past Sunday. We made the plans and Rick and I pulled up stakes at around 10:00 and headed to our favorite spot. The drive up was filled with stories of past trips, flies, fly tying, and many other things. These driving discussions are something I have really come to enjoy, it is part of the whole fishing experience for me. A little cooler than we thought, but an overcast day is usually a good thing and the anticipation of a good day was high. As if we needed any more excitement on the way up we saw this on the side of the road. It is funny that just the other day a customer was in the shop and we were talking about this very thing. I cant remember the last time I have seen one of these, but I bet it has been at least 20 years ago. We arrived at our spot and hatched the plan that I would walk up river a good ways and fish back down. Rick would fish the lower section, fish up and we would meet in the middle. (this isn't really a plan, we do this just about every time we fish here. It just sounds better when I say we "planned it out"). On my walk up I was taking note of the water, It had that green look of Winter water, running high and a little turbid. Perfect streamer water I thought to myself. I did come across an interesting sight on my walk up. At first I thought it was a Turkey, as I got closer I realized it was not. The bottom picture is a little crappy, but it is the skull a mature Red Tail Hawk. With the exception of an Owl I am not sure what could kill a mature Red Tail. Rick seems to think it succumbed to the cold, another indication of the Winter we have had this year. At any rate I don't think I have ever found a dead one before.
Well boys, this is the point in each report where I start to put up fish pictures, talk about the fishing and say what a great day we had. Not this time! I fished the Minnie for almost 4 hours. I had one fish on for about 3 seconds and saw another flash at the streamer, and that was it. I was sure things were going to change any minute so I stuck with the streamer. I swung it, twitched it, stripped it and even dead drifted it and NOTHING! I knew Rick would be nymphing and was confident he was "tearing it up" When we met up he was sitting on the bank taking pictures. After our debriefing it turns out I had the banner day with one take and one flash. It is not too many times I am forced to report a double skunk, especially when fishing with Rick, It was just one of those days. Oh well, we did what any good fishermen would do. We admitted defeat, tipped our hats to the fish and and drug our cold, shivering beaten bodies back to the truck. "That's ok" we said. we'll get em next time! Until then... Loose Lines...Tim |
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