Fly of the Week: Ant's Retriever

A very popular fly right now, at least here in PA, is the Golden Retriever, which is the same as the fly below, except it uses only tan and/or gold colored material. The pattern below is a little more flashier and is a great attractor pattern.

The secret to this fly is that it is essentially a Wooly Bugger, but with different materials. Fish it the same way as you would a bugger.

Erie Trip Day 2: the saga continues

Saturday started early for me. About 1:30am to be exact.

That's the time that I woke up and noticed that the air mattress that I was on was flat. I woke up because my back was freezing from being on the ground. It was low 40's that night, so it was cold!

To cold for me to crawl out from my sleeping bag (rated to -20, thank God) and mess around with the mattress, so I roughed it until morning.

Lake Erie Steelhead trip Pt1

Here is the report of my weekend trip to Elk Creek for my inaugural search for some steelhead. I have to apologize for some of the photos; I don't have a waterprood digital camera, so I had bought a waterproof disposable one. Lets just say, big mistake.  So if your looking at getting the Kodak waterproof disposable, keep looking. Half the photos taken didn't turn out and of the one's that did, a third looked horrible. Luckily I took my digital with, just not when I was wading.

But anyway.....

I'm Back!

The trip was excellent, but it's good to be back at the homestead. now I have some lies... I mean reports to type, some pics to sort through, and will begin to bring everything together tomorrow and start posting here.

Stay tuned!

Off to the races

In less than 12 hours I will be on my way to be up to my neck in steelhead (hopefully. ) I hope everyone has a great weekend. Pics and report to start Monday.

Fly of the Week: Grey Comparadun

The Comparadun is relatively modern fly (given the age of fly fishing, that is.) This fly made it's first appearance in the book Hatches by Bob Nastasi and Al Caucci in 1975 as a "no hackle dry fly"(my quotes, not theirs.) It is a mayfly imitation and can be tied in sizes 10-20.

We're gonna need a bigger box.

Gather everything together for my Lake Erie trip in a few days and I put together my fly boxes. If I don't have something in here that will work, I'm hanging up my waders for good.

The great part is that these boxes have compartments on the other side and one is of the boxes is stuffed full of egg patterns in various colors. Fish on!

New Addition to the Famliy

I won a Sila Flex fiberglass rod off of eBay the other day, and much to my surprise it showed up on my doorstep today. I figured that I wouldn't see this baby until after I got back from my trip this weekend at least.

My skunking is over!

After having a really productive spring and summer, my luck had sort of fizzled out the past month or two.

But with one glass rod that I already had and another one on the way from ebay, I bought an a new Medalist 1492 because I heard that a 6-7 wt line will really give a glass rod it's feel.

And like a kid with a dollar in his pocket, I was twitching like a goat with an itch to get out and use it.

So I set out today with the new reel, the old rod, and two kids in tow.

Don't you just love the system

It appears that the the PA Senate has adjured for the year without agreeing on a compromise for the Marcellus Shale Gas Extraction severance tax, even though PA Senate Leaders had a written commitment from earlier this year that a tax would be passed by October 1st.

But instead of sticking around and doing the jobs that my fellow PA'ers elected them to do, they are leaving Harrisburg (our capital) to go back to their constituents and campaign so that they can keep the jobs that they failed to do.

You see, there was a lot more than just the Marcellus Shale tax on the books that was supposed o be finished this year, but they didn't get to it. And since they didn't get to it, and this is an election year, and they decided to call it an early.... year (how many of us have that option?) all of the un-passed legislation is now dead and must wait until after the beginning of next year for the new PA Congress to begin the process again.

Let's just say I can't wait until the incumbent PA Senators come through here asking for my vote. I look forward to looking them in the eye and asking why I should vote them back into a job that they never finished.

But on a lighter note, less than one week until my Steelhead trip to Erie. I'm already starting to drool.......

Gearing up

With just over a week to go until the weekend Steelie trip, I'm already getting things together. Got the 6wt and 8wt stowed, the tent ready, flys tied, vest is decked out. And a list for everything else.

It seems like right now the only thing I don't have is my license..... In PA, to fish Lake Erie or any of it's tribs you needs a special license. And if you want to fish for trout you need another special license, this includes steelhead and salmon. I have my trout license from earlier this year, but no Erie yet.

I keep saying I have plenty of time, but I have a funny feeling that on next Friday I will be making a frantic stop at some Walmart halfway across the state.

Fly of the Week: Bead-head Rainbow Prince

In continuing with my "purple is better" theology, here is a twist on a traditional Prince pattern. This is another attractor pattern. Tell me if you can guess why! Ha ha....

At first glance it looks similar to last weeks pattern, but that is only when looking at these pics(I really need to get a proper fly pic set-up.) The Lite Brite dubbing gives this fly a distinct sparkle, and the rubber "wings" and hackle give it a very different action in the water.

Use it, abuse it, I just hope you don't lose it. Cheers!

Senate to Pass Vote on Tax for Drilling Companies

Here in PA the big news for the past year or two has been the large natural gas reserve discovered underneath parts of PA and the surrounding states, call the Marcellus Shale. This week the PA Senate is to vote on a bill that passed in the House earlier that will create a severance tax on the drilling companies that are set to dip into the reserves.  The funds will then be set aside to help offset the environmental impact that this gas extraction will take.

This vote is expected Wednesday.

If the bill is not passed it will be dead. It should be noted that PA is the only state left to pass such a tax.

Below is a link to the online form that will send an email to your Senator encouraging them to vote. I encourage everyone from PA to contact their Senator and show your support for this tax. Without it, many of this states great waters will be severely impacted, if not outright destroyed.

Contact PA Senate Here

Scouting Ahead

Decided to be nice to my daughters today and instead of dragging them on another "boring" fishing trip(at least as the older one says, I still have hope for the youngest), I would drag them on a scouting trip looking for fishing spots.

I picked a spot on the Tulpehocken right below the dam at Blue Marsh Lake. I have fished the Tulley many times, but never this close to the lake.

Mis-matching the Hatch

Decided to hit the water today near sundown in an impromptu expedition. I wanted to check the fly charts before I left, but in my rush to get everything ready I plum forgot.

Got to the stream at 5pm and geared up. Walked down to the stream and looked and I was right in the middle of a hatch! Fish were rising all across the water. At in point during the trip I saw a 12-15" rainbow launch itself clear out of the water after a morsel. It was quite a site.

The Way of the Dodo

Article: Fly Fishing on the downcast?

Here is some bad news. This article explores if fly fishing is a dying sport. It states that most participants are older and that fewer and fewer younger people are picking the sport up.

How do you snag a net?

That's a serious question, because apparently I have no idea.

I've been in the market for a new net for a while now; ever since mine had the misfortune of snagging too many of my flies and it felt my wrath.

Fly of the Week: Purple Nurple

I was thinking the other day and decided that there are not enough fly recipe resources online (FYI this is a very tongue in cheek statement.) So I decided to start my own.

Every Wednesday I will post a fly recipe; either a recipe that I've created or one that might be lesser known but gets good results. I'm working on setting these up for video tutorials, but for right now the recipe and the photo is all I can do. Who would have thought that a dank, dark basement would have lighting issues......

This proves that PETA is full of morons.

I stumbled upon this. It is a test from PETA UK that allows men to determine their "security" in their "manliness" by answering 3 questions. This first is if you fish. The second is if you own a sports car. The last is if you own more then 2 power tools.

BUT..... if you answer that you are an angler, it doesn't matter what you answer to the others. Your results say that you have a wee wittle one, if you take my meaning. And the opposite is true. Check no to fishing and your manliness can be seen from space.

God said to Noah, there's gonna be a floody floody......

Hurricane Nicole just left our area, so out of morbid curiousity I checked the USGS website to check the water levels, between this today and a week ago when we were still mid-drought.

I live near the Schuylkill River, so I used this as my test. As of 6am today the water level was at 8.73 feet and discharging at 10,900 cfs. On September 25th we were at just under 3 feet and discharging at 400 cfs.

That's a lot of water! With that much water I think I will have to wait a week or two for all of our fish to swim back here from Jersey. I just hope they don't pick up their accent too.