Couple of firsts

Went fishing yesterday afternoon with my younger brother again. Started out at the shitty hole since there were a few guys at the hole I liked. Saw a few fish rising and I thought I would just randomly throw a dry and see if I could get one. A few different flies later and I had my first fish on the dry fly. It was about a 12 inch brown. Pretty cool to see it come up and take it. Walked up to my favorite spot and didn't even get a hit there. Water was real low and clear, probably the reason. Walked down to the spot we caught three at the day before and had another on. Thought I had the bottom and twitched my rod and watched the trout open its mouth and spit it out. We then heard an owl across the creek in the woods hooting. We were searching for it when my brother saw it jump out of the tree and pointed it out. It was pretty big, and really cool looking. Also saw a bat fall into the water and climb out on a rock ledge nearby. All in all it was a cool after noon even without a large amount of fish. I will be out again tomorrow after they stock to see if I can fight the crowds and catch a few with my friend and brother.

College

Scheduled my classes for my freshman fall semester at CalU. Managed to get Thursday's free which is awesome, I will try to be hunting or fishing every Thursday during school. After I got home my brother and I went out to Mingo for some trout fishing. Started at my favorite hole with no success. There was a nice 16 to 17 inch fish but he wouldn't take anything, might try for him again tomorrow. Then we walked down to probably my least favorite hole. Didn't catch a single thing, had a few rise at my dry fly though. Walked down to my second favorite hole that sadly they didn't stock this time around. Saw a few swimming around and casted my dry towards one. It came up and grabbed it, but I believe I set the hook to fast and pulled it out instantly, you live and learn I guess. I then went on to drop my phone in the creek and decided it was best if we moved. The next spot I asked a guy to use his phone and called home, told them to give us an hour and come get us. We then managed 3 fish, my brother got two, I got 1, before we left. I wasn't to happy that my little brother out fished me, but whatever, it obviously wasn't my day. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

A Little Laugh

Or something to piss you off, who knows. But my principal an his kids were recently fishing out at Mingo, a stocked water were I lived. They kept twelve trout and then complained about how there was barely any fish left. What do expect to happen when you keep them? They don't just appear back in there. I could never understand why people complain about the lack of fish but keep their limit every time they go out, honestly what do you expect to happen. I would have never ranted about this if he had gone to the scholarship dinner that he was supposed to attend for me and my friend. Our school had no adult representatives because one was one a future is mine field trip and the other blew it off for fishing. I see how important the kids in your school are.

Well whatever, tomorrow I am going out to Calu to schedule classes for my upcoming freshman year, it is a little nerve wrecking thinking about it. After that though I will be fishing for the rest of the afternoon, hopefully I can manage to find a few fish that haven't been kept.


Just to clarify, I don't have a problem with people who keep fish, I kept one this year. I just think its stupid to keep them and then complain how there isn't any fish

Broken rod

Not mine, thank god, but my friend broke his new fly rod somehow. Taking it back to cabela's before our trip up to Clear Shade creek to help stock and then fish. I was out fishing from around 3:30 to 7:30, only caught 5 trout. My favorite hole was packed and the only hole with some room sucked. Caught three on the fly rod and 2 on my spinning gear. Won't be able to get back out until at least friday, hopefully there are still some fish left. Planning to do a decent amount of fishing this upcoming month, hopefully I will get some pics while I am out.

I have Clear shade to help stock and then fish, possibly trying a few wild trout streams that flow into it, then I will be going out to Slate and Cedar run for a weekend, then down to West Virginia for a day or to and then to pigeon to hopefully get a few carp or smallmouth on the fly. Its going to be a crazy month.

An easy fix

Or so I thought. My Daiwa reel had recently broken when landing a big fish. The next cast my bail spring broke so I needed it fixed. I emailed Daiwa the day after about it and waited a few days without any email back. So I checked and saw that Tackle Unlimited was a certified Daiwa repair shop. A couple emails later and they said they had the part I went out to go and get it fixed. I waited around for 15 minutes or so and bam they were done, actually 15 minutes is a very long time because it was such an easy task, but I just blew it off and looked around for some new fishing stuff. The whole repair cost me around 8 to 10 bucks which really isn't bad. But today I decided to pick my reel up for some odd reason and reel it a few times. The bail felt like it was moving and when the bail would set, it would click twice. I decided I would open it up and see whats going on. Unscrewed everything to take a look and realized the bail spring wasn't the right size. They had cut and jammed a spring that was to large for the reel into it. They had also bent my bail and now it is wider than it should be. The only good thing was that Daiwa emailed me today and said that they were sorry about the late reply and that the part was on back order and that they would be sending me a few when they come in. So I am happy about the fact that Daiwa is sending me a few free of charge but pissed that I just spent money on people to break my reel even further. Lesson learned, fix your own damn reels, just buy the part and do it yourself, they really are not that complicated if you have a diagram on the computer.

Fishing in the Snow in April

P.A. weather forecast for where I live is 4 to 6 inches of snow. Looks like tennis will be cancelled and I will be out fishing in it on Monday and Tuesday. Last time I fished in the snow was early March, who would've guessed I would be doing it again in April. Whatever though, freezing temperatures will keep people of the water and will bring down the water temps to their normal for the spring. Hopefully my friend and I are the few diehards that will be out fishing in it.

Not bad

Most of the holes are fished out now, 3 days after opening day what can you expect? Water was low, fish were spooky, I was tired from tennis, but hey I figured I would go out with my younger brother and see if we could catch anything. We went around 6 o'clock to the only decent hole in the creek due to the water being low. It has a small waterfall and keeps the water more oxygenated than most of the other stocked parts. Had two on, both on salmon eggs, and they both got off, size 14 hooks are a pain to use. Did catch one on a salmon egg shortly after, and then my brother caught another on a trout magnet. I then tried a pheasant tail nymph and caught another slightly larger one. Tried for another half an hour and decided to move. I figured I would try and catch one on the dry fly. At our new spot I casted out and watched a sip on the surface and bam set the hook and made a poor little chub go flying. Didn't catch anything after this, but I did have a trout take a look at my dry, maybe next time.

Round 2

So I went out today to see if I could catch some trout again. The day after opening day may be one of the hardest to catch trout on. They tend to be quit lock jawed and don't take anything. I decided to try out the spot I did so well yesterday, caught 2 fish fairly quickly and didn't have another hit after that. Decided to walk down the creek, giant mistake, my hip waders are slightly insulated, I though I was going to die, not fun at all. It really wasn't fun when I decided I would have probably done better were I started and decided to walk all the way back. Now a mile or a mile and a half walk isnt bad in what felt like 70 degrees weather when you have shorts and a t-shirt on, but put on jeans, hip waders, a long sleeve shirt and a vest, its terrible. But I lived, got back to the whole and managed 7 more on various different things from a scud I tied to salmon eggs, but not a bad day for they day after opening day.

Opening Weekend Round 1

4:45 in the morning my alarm goes of telling me to get my but up and wake my friend. 5:30 my one friend arrives at my house when we were initially planning on leaving. 5:50 my other two friends call and said they don't feel like coming so save them a spot for when they get there. 5:51 already can tell it's going to be a bad day. We get to the creek around 6:10 to the spot we wanted to fish when some a**hole told us to leave because he was there since midnight and was waiting for his friends. So down to a less appealing hole to wait for an hour and thirty minutes pissed off. My two friends arrive around 7:30 and come over to meet us, we didn't save them a spot it was just lucky for them that no one came on our side.

8 o'clock comes and bam, caught the first fish out of the 5 of us, an hour or 2 later I had 15 and my friend will had 7. We decided to walk down the creek and see if we could catch a few in a different hole. I ended up catching 2 at the next hole, but that was it. So we walked some more when I noticed a lone single fish. I knew no one had fished for this guy and I knew he was hungry so I through my trout magnet out and had him on the first cast. So further down we went and we ended up at the last hole they stocked. Caught 2 out of there and then more people came so we got out of there quickly.

We decided to make the long hike back to the hole we had originally planned on fishing. When we got there, there was several guys but we really had a good feeling about the hole. So we went below the creek and stayed out of the their way. A few minutes later and 4 people gone we were fishing. Stayed at this hole for the majority of the day and ended up getting my total to 51 and my friend got his to 45. I also ended up catching a 23 inch, 5 pound trout out of it to. I will tell the story later in the post, but anyways we did quite good here, this is also when we brought the fly rods out. Stocked trout are really fun on a 3 weight. About 6:50 we decided to go to a different hole and try our luck, the fishing had slowed here and we thought we might get a few more downstream. I ended up catching one trout that made the biggest knot between mine and my friend's line that we just gave up and called it a day. So I ended with 52 trout that day and he ended with 45. My total for this year is now 59.


Now to the story about the big rainbow. I had originally hooked the rainbow with the crawdad trout magnet when we got to the hole, but when my friend tried to land it he did a terrible job and caused my line to be snapped. I was pissed beyond all belief until I realized it was just a fish. So 20 or 30 minutes later he has the beast on, with an amazing net job a capture the fish, and trust me it was an awesome net job. I looked though and he had foul hooked it, so away it went back into the hole after we took my trout magnet out. We decided to go and get some food and when we came back on the first cast I had him on again. The man across the water who was the a**hole from the morning let us use his net to get it. It was my biggest trout to date and had my adrenaline going crazy.


Also that guy become pretty cool after talking with him the majority of the day.

Dry fly or Nymph

I was on a fishing forum recently and read how several guys wont fish anything other than dries because of the initial take from the trout, or the sipping of the fly. I really don't understand this though, I honestly would rather fish with a type of nymph. I like trying to read water and guess if a trout will be in their or not, I also like fishing faster water were it seams like trout are more willing to take the fly. So I think getting a trout in a piece of water that I picked out and was clueless to wether it held fish or not is better than watching a fish take my dry.

Now I should mention that I have yet to catch a trout on a dry fly, this could be the reason, not sure though. I will hopefully find out later on this year. Also I do understand that you could catch a trout on a dry when they aren't rising, but its uncommon and nymphs are a lot more effective in this case. Anyways ya, just throwing that out there, not dissing on anyone for what type of fly they use, I could care less, just saying my thoughts. And good luck to anyone fishing the P.A. opener, ill be out with a couple of my good friends at 5 in the morning. I doubt I'll get pics, I'll be trying to race and beat them in number and can't take time for pictures unless its a big one.

Feel free to add your opinions on dries and nymphs*

Yesterday

After school my friend and I went out to the DHALO sections of Dutch Forks to hopefully catch a few trout. We get there and notice that the water was probably a foot or 2 below normal flow and see absolutely no fish where we normally would. So we decided to start at the bottom of the section and walk upstream and see if we could catch any. Fished a couple of holes without any success until we get to a nice deep hole. My friend casts out and ends up hooking an average sized stocked rainbow, first fish of the day and his second this year. A little while later we walked up the creek to find a few holes still flowing nice and started fishing them. He soon had a brown trout and was now up by two trout that day. (I specify trout because I out fished him at this point with around 10 to 15 creek chubs, it only got worse as the day went on) I decided to get the hell away from him because he kept pissing me off, so I walked up the creek until he was out of eye sight. Casted out and bam, caught another creek chub. Then one hit my indicator and I thought about changing to a dry fly just to catch some chubs. Good thing I didn't because not even a minute later I caught my first trout. After almost falling in a few minutes later I figured I should move.

Walked a little further upstream until I got to another nice spot. At this point my friend caught up with me and was fishing with me. After floating my nymph down this hole I went to cast again and bam, a fish grabbed it right when I went to pull it, 2nd fish of the day. We noticed that bugs were starting to go crazy around us and then we realized we were watching a hatch. I had no idea what they were but it was pretty cool, they were pretty small, pretty cool to see, until the fish started jumping about thirty yards up the creek in posted property. Ya not cool, went and talked to the landowner and asked if we could fish there. They said no because some idiot went and cut their horses fences letting them out on to the highway. We understood and went back to fishing and watching as all these trout were jumping.

Well when the hatch ended it started to get cold and we headed back, we tried one more spot where I managed to catch another trout, it was a lot smaller but it still counted. Ended up out fishing him 3 to 2, not a bad day. I felt good about being able to catch fish that were stocked about a month ago and spread out a lot. Sorry no pictures, to busy fishing. We will be going to hopefully catch some wild trout Monday so maybe I will have some pictures then.

Some trout

Fished earlier, sleep now, post tomorrow.... hopefully