I truly missed my fly rod

I went back out to Canonsburg today, caught one and missed another and decided after about 45 minutes of no fish that I had had enough of the cold for one day. On my trip home after I had started to warm up, I had a change of heart and went to Pike Run DHALO. I landed 2 here on trout magnet and 1 on a spinner. I really felt out of place without my fly rod though, I feel like I may have been able to manage a few more if I had it, oh well. I will probably head there Saturday evening or sometime Sunday, depends on when I can get the car.

Picture This

Rod gets a hit, fish is about to pull it over the edge, I make a mad dash for it, slip, slide with my face inches from a concrete wall, my hands go perfectly on to the rod, set the hook, and then I catch my fish. 

Did you picture it? Well if you didn't it was awesome. I had forgotten to loosen my drag and I guess the fish they stocked in Canonsburg where a little bigger than normal. My buddy Steve and I went out today for about 2 hours until the cold got to us and we went home. He landed 4 and I landed 6, so ten and all and a few more we missed, not bad for a freezing cold day, temps didn't even break 25 while we were out. I might head out tomorrow, not sure if I want to deal with the cold weather again or not.

Last week I did go up to Meadow Run, water was pretty high, had one fish on that I lost to a tree, my buddy had another two on that he also lost. The water was strong enough we were using 6 weights to chuck the proper weight to get the nymphs to sink fast enough, I normally would use my 3 weight on this creek. It was crazy.

We also ended up not going to Erie, friend cancelled last minute, a few words were exchanged and then we went and ate breakfast the following morning before he left back to school. You just can't hate your bro forever.

It has begun

I helped the PFBC stock trout in a local creek last Wednesday, and then fished for a few hours after in the DHALO section of the creek. I managed 5, 4 on a stonefly nymph and 1 on a conehead woolly bugger I had tied. I took my brother out the next day and managed six, I did use my spinning rod this time and landed 6 on trout magnet. I haven't fished creeks with my spinning rod in a while, I thoroughly enjoyed using it again, brought me back to when I first started fishing.

This past Saturday I went out with a few friends who are home for spring break. We went out to Laurel Hill Creek and helped stock that also, then fished it too. I managed 21 trout on a variety of different patterns and between the two of them they got 16. I felt pretty good about my fishing abilities to say the least. They were pretty stacked up seeing as they were just recently thrown in and drifting nymphs or twitching woolly bugger in front of their faces tended to set them off. I will probably be making my next trip up to Meadow run alone, my buddies "forgot" they were going to Gettysburg with their family. Hopefully I will get a few up their to add to my trout count. So far I have 38 trout, almost at my opening day score from last year.

A few flies I tied up

A very cold fish

Went out today, not to canonsburg though, nor trout fishing, I actually went down to the river after whatever hit my bait. It was one of those days. We only managed 1 fish in about 4 hours of 20 degree weather, it was quite a long 4 hours let me tell you. It was a white bass, not to big but still a fish. I had a few more hits but nothing else brought in. Hopefully it will start to warm up here shortly and I will be able to get a few more of them and maybe some freaking pictures.

Little Powerbait action if you know what I mean

I mean I used powerbait, I think that is the only thing that title could mean. Went out to a local lake that was stocked with trout a few days before hand. I managed 3 in total, not to many but seeing as everyone else I talked to caught none, I feel like I did pretty good. Nothing to brag about or anything, just your averaged stocked trout, I will probably go out again this Thursday to see if I can catch a few more. I am just waiting till March gets here, spring break=tons of fishing. Plus my friends are coming home so I will have some buddy to do my fishing with for a little. More than likely going to make a trip to Laurel Hill creek to help stock, then to Meadow Run a different day, and then up to Erie one last time.

Oops

Sorry about the pictures, I don't have many, my old computer died with most of them on it,I completely forgot about that, I will have to pull the hard drive out and see if I can get them off of it.

School Tomorrow

After a very nice 6 weeks break I will be at it again. This time though I got to make my own schedule, I made sure it was jam packed Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with 5 classes. What does this mean, that I only have one class on Tuesday, and none on Thursday. Now you are saying who cares, I do, I go to a school that has a trout stream right by it, stocked yes, but still fishable. This means on my Tuesday when I arrive 2 hours early I can go do a little fishing, and on Thursday, well I can go wherever I want.

As for my goals for this year, never posted them or really thought about them until now.

1. I want to try and get to the 150 mark again, I made 105 last year, 45 short, but I now have a drivers license so it allows for me to fish more

2.Carp, I caught my bass this summer, but not my carp, so he is still on the list.

3.More fly tying, didn't do enough this year, it is as simple as that.

4. 20 inch trout on the fly. I caught one last year, but it was on a spinning rod, awesome fish so I figured I would try to improve.

5. On my way down to Austin this summer for RTX I would like to fish on state for trout, not sure what one, but I would like to get at least on out of the way and get the ball rolling. We had some problems this year, every time we planned to go to another state something happened and we couldn't go.

I think tomorrow or sometime this week I will put up some pictures of 2012 just like I did last year, I won't lie, reading is never as fun as pictures.