Holiday in the Keys

Here are just a few photos from the Keys. I am completely unorganized for fishing as I was planning on sitting by the pool, but after seeing some fish I might have to grab a rod and go out to the rocks where I am staying. So far it looks to be too windy for fly fishing and the beach where we are at has been covered in seaweed and rubbish as the sea is pushing inland. Still, we have seen some fish around the place so it might be a goer if I get my a into g.



If you look hard enough you will see a Tarpon that was about 4-5 feet long cursing the docks in Key West. There must have been about half a dozen of these guys lurking around waiting for feeding time.

2011 - Holiday Fly Swap

Finally got all these guys done. I have been stuck at 20 for a few weeks due to other commitments. The theme of the swap was soft hackles, so I did a holographic wet fly.

Thread - 0/8 red
Ribbing - Crystal flash
Collar - Peacock herl and partridge

Spring Creek

It has been almost a month since I was able to get some fishing in. Well today this was going to change and I headed to spring creek for a six hour session. What worked, basically anything I tied on; royal wulff, pheasant tail nymph, eggs and Griffiths gnats. The day ended with over ten fish in the net.

Recent flies

First course of the day was to go tailgating before the Penn State game. Nice big fluffy snow flakes meant for a cold event.



So here is the range of flies that I have been tying.

1. Black bugger

2. Another black bugger

3. Black and Red rabbit strip

4. BWO with a turkey quill body

5. Traditional pheasant tail (pheasant tail + copper wire)

I could not find the fine gauge copper wire I wanted in the fly shop so this wire is actually from an RF tag that I got when running a 5K fun run at Penn State. There is still some varnish on the wire, but it is very thin and just what the pattern asked for.

6. Wulff with holographic mid body (was bored so I changed it up)

7. Royal Wulff - not a good tie as I left too much space at the head

8. My typical Royal Wulff

Preparing for winter

Well the fishing kind of stopped for me due to work, however I have been preparing for winter and tying up piles of pheasant tails (pheasant tail + copper wire = easy, fast and traditional), royal wulffs, and some buggers.


Just looked out my window to snow in October, looks like winter fishing has come early for some.

Sunday Fishing

We went out to this stream last weekend and spotted a few fish around the place so we decided to head back this Sunday. The plan was to get a brook trout in the net. We walked down from the parking lot along the stream to some really nice pools, all very yellow in colour due to the autumn leaves. All the nice pools did not produce a fish and it was not until we got back to the bridge next to the car did we hook a 2-3" trout, however it got off before getting it in hand. This was repeated another time before successfully getting one in the net. From what I could tell the trout looked to be a juvenile brown, not the planned brook trout. However, from the internet the juvenile trout all look very similar.

The fishing started out in a nice wide stream and at the end was on a very small stream overgrown with rododendras.

PA fishing

The weather has been up and down over the last few weeks. However, we have been getting out for both warm water and trout fishing. With the spring creek canyon open now we decided to head in and see what we could find and that was nothing. Well we did get some brownies before the canyon, but only had a few splashy rises that did not hook up in the canyon. It would be worth another go once the novelty wears off.

PA warm water fishing

Might be abit late in the season for this, but this link is pretty helpful

http://www.fish.state.pa.us/wwcw.htm

New popper

This a bit of a stage by stage tying of a popper.

1. This is after I had made the tail and the main body of the popper. There meant to be four sections of white under body, black top body with orange spots (was meant to be green top body with black spots, but the green I had was too oily and there was so much fuzzy I just tossed it in the bin, all the hair I have been using I got from a $5 grab bag). Each section should be about 3 stacks of hair as my hair stacker is so small.
2. There was a very small section left at the front so I put a small white face on the popper.

3. Started to carve up the popper with a double sided razor blade (I finally found them at CVS), I did not really realize now blunt a blade gets just after one popper until today.4. Side profile of the popper after the trimming5. Front of the popper after adding eyes
6. Side profile of the complete popper
7. The popper in all it's glory

To buy:

You might not believe this, but I am still only using 0/6 to tie my deer hair poppers and I should really go out and get some GSP thread. Also, I should look at getting more hair in a bigger range as natural, yellow, black and orange is all I have right now and most of it is too oily and fuzzy to use. Need to get more hooks and a range of them, I think this was on a 2/0.

Part 3 Lake Colyer

Finally I got into some bass on lake Colyer and not just one. The first one was a decent size and then the next two were on the small size. Also, I wanted to try out the poppers that I have been tying. It was not a bass, but a really nice pickerel tried to take the whole popper down it's throat. To round out a pretty nice day fishing, in overcast and rain weather, was a decent size panfish

My first bass
Just measuring it up for later comparsions
The second bass
The third bass, all were caught on a rabbit strip smelt fly
The greedy pickerel

Changed back to the rabbit strip and got a panfish before deciding it was getting too wet

Lake Colyer Part 2

Back to Lake Colyer to see if we could get some bass...short answer No. Instead we got into some Pickerel straight away. These guys are great fish and they have teeth and lots of them. We both ended up getting 3-4 each and I was also able to get a perch and big panfish.


The perch.
The Panfish.
The biggest pickerel that I did not catch, but had to get the fly out of.
There is the fly and all the teeth protecting it.
One of the first pickerels.
My first pickerel.
Pickerel

Another popper

This fly will never get wet, but looks good.