Pennsylvania Fly Fishing - Blog, News, Forum for Trout & Bass

2013 Fly Fishing Jamboree and Meetup

Published by Dave Kile [dkile] on 2013/5/13 (2843 reads)

Over the past 18 years one of the best things to come out of the site are meetups and the annual Paflyfish Spring Jamboree. The Spring Jamboree is our annual get together to fish, camp, tie flies and discuss the one that got away. Over the years we have found an accommodating campground in Central Pennsylvania for us all to meet and camp for the weekend. I wouldn't even call it an exclusive Pennsylvania event with folks coming from Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Florida. Some photo's over the years are here.

We have a lot of fun fishing over some of Pennsylvania's finest streams. If the Green Drakes often hatching and many head over to Penns Creek. Other streams the Little J, Spruce, Fishing and Spring Creek all offer some of the best in class fishing in the region. In some years it has rained, well every year, and there are many alternatives to the bigger named streams as well.

This year is no exception and members on the forum are making plans to meet the weekend of May 17-19, 2013 at Seven Mountains Campground in Spring Mills, Pennsylvania. Please contact them if you would like to stay there that weekend. They have a limited number of cabins and campsites.

We are working on more details but often we will have guest speakers, casting lessons, fly tying lessons, gear swaps and cool gear to check out.

flyfishing knots

Friday, May 17th
Jam attendees often start arriving throughout the day if they haven't arrived earlier in the week. We don't have use of the pavilion until 3:00 PM on Friday. Stop by after 3:00PM to help or meet others trying to get back out on the water.

Saturday, May 18th
Coffee 6-9am available at the pavilion

Fire Ring at the pavilion around dark with Live Entertainment! - The PAFF Band gets going about 10:00 pm out some great tunes for all to enjoy. Hoping that Shaky and the rest of the band can get back together for more tour! If you'd like to join the band or just put in a solo performance, just bring your instrument and/or voice and let 'er rip. Quiet hours may be a factor. If we get all the sites booked for Seven Mountains, perhaps they'll extend them for us.

Sunday, May 19th
Coffee 6-9am available at the pavilion.

Streams like Penns Creek, Spring Creek, Spruce Creek, Little Juanita and Fishing Creek are all within an hour of the campground.

flyfishing knots

In addition to the expected fly fishing opportunities authors, fly shop owners, and other experts are usually in attendance and provide a lot of great knowledge at the evening gathers. Follow the latest details in the forum here.

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Cicada Fly Fishing Coming Soon!

Published by Dave Kile [dkile] on 2013/5/7 (573 reads)

So you probably have already heard about the onslaught of cicadas coming our way on the nightly news and just about every other media source. Cicada's are just weeks away from inundating much of the east coast and more annoying news coverage to follow. Mainstream media will pull out the playbook and ultimately take it to a stupid level like encouraging some Honey Boo Boo wannabes into eating some of these Cicadoidea [latin]. By the end of the coverage, some clever reporter will talk about cicada soup or grilling them or better yet some dumb sauce to put on them.

Sorry I digress and back to trout eating cicada.

Cicada Fly Fishing trout

So will this be a big deal for fly fishing? For some of parts of the region it may be. It has been 17 years since the Brood II has emerged. Generally they will be covering North Carolina thru New York. But heavily in Eastern Pennsylvania* and New Jersey.

Generally, we will not see much activity until the ground temperature reaches 64 degrees. Most records seem to indicate that this late May to early June.

"Thermal soil temperature is one of the things that trigger their emergence, along with a gentle to moderate rainfall," Greg Hoover, Senior Extension Associate Ornamental Entomologist at The Pennsylvania State University, said.

These insects emerge, mate and die all within about two to three weeks. They have no mouths and do real no damage during this final stage. Remembering former cicada brood fests, it is really just a big pain in the ass having millions of these bugs all over the place. They get into your house, car and just about anything you leave open.

For fly fishing anglers what does this mean? Well these things are insects high in protein and will likely fall in the water. No fear trout and other fish will be eating them.

Will cicadas be the only thing in their diet, probably not. Being prepared with a few tied up cicadas is probably a pretty good idea. As Tom (Afishnado) posted, "I'd have to say the cicada hatch in Central PA a few years ago was one of the best kept secrets of all time." So no doubt this year cicada fly fishing for trout, carp and bass will be important.

Cicada Fly Fishing trout

Like any fish food it will always be shape, size and coloring that will be important for imitations. This things are pretty darn big at about 1 1/2 inches long. Dwight Landis (Troutbert) suggests starting with size 6 hook. Generally they are black bodied with orange accents in this Brood II. Deer hair ties similar to what you might use for bass flies are good. But as Ed Maurer (Heritage Angler) offers, "All my cicada patterns are now made with a foam body. Foam is your friend - embrace it." There is a lot of conversation on options, but I would go with Dave Weaver's (Fishidiot) tie he shares here. But it is anyone's bet!

I would be targeting bigger trout later in the day. Kind of normal trout feeding patterns. But this is a bit of crap shoot and older reports share tales of carp going crazy for these things too. If your next question is how do you cast and present this beast? Well firstly don't slam the darn thing into the pool you want to target. These things are pretty big and if done improperly you will likely scare out all the fish, herons and beavers for a 1/4 of mile, so go easy cowboy and have fun.

This is going to be interesting in a few weeks and love to hear if it is a bust or a boom?

* Additional notes on Pennsylvania cicada locations: Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Chester, Dauphin, Delaware, Lancaster, Lebanon, Lehigh, Luzerne, Monroe, Montgomery, Northampton, Philadelphia, Pike, Potter, Schuylkill, and Wyoming Counties

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Team Paflyfish Brings it Home!!

Published by Dave Kile [dkile] on 2013/5/4 (370 reads)

Well I just received an email from Shane on the latest from the Harman Invitational. Phil ended the day on Friday having caught the biggest trout of the day. This put them into a good spot to start the day on Saturday. The day ended with Shane sharing the following line: "We brought it home!"

Click to see original Image in a new window

Here is Shane and Phil during their interview with Curtis Fleming from the Outdoor Channel

Congratulation to Shane "SBecker" Becker and Phil "PhilC" Chadbourn for their efforts this weekend and representing Paflyfish. More details when the guys get back home and to some cell coverage!!

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Team Paflyfish at the Harman's Invitational 2013

Published by Dave Kile [dkile] on 2013/4/30 (420 reads)

Todd Harman, Owner of Harman's Luxury Log Cabins, approached me this past winter about making sure Paflyfish was represented at this years Harman's Invitational. The Harman's Invitational is a fly fishing competition with two-man teams hitting the North Fork of the South Branch River in West Virginia the weekend of May 3-5, 2013. Typically there are about seven to nine teams represented from the East Coast.

Plenty of big bows and avid anglers in a great setting!

Harman's Invitational 2012 on Fly Rod Chronicles

I received quite a bit of interest about this opportunity from several folks on the site. Not to miss out of the fun, Paflyfish rallied Shane "SBecker" Becker and Phil "PhilC" Chadbourn to represent us in West Virginia for the weekend. Shane and Phil will be heading down Thursday to get settled in and prepare for the tournament.

"I think it will be an amazing opportunity to represent the members of the site," shared Shane. "Hoping we can do well for Paflyfish while we are at Harman's this weekend."

Maurice helped make sure we sent the guys off with some new Paflyfish hats and shirts. I just asked them that they have fun and do their best.

We look forward to hearing about the weekend. The event will be covered by Fly Rod Chronicles with Curtis Fleming from the Outdoor Channel and aired at a future date.

Harman's Luxury Log Cabins is a sponsor of Paflyfish. The North Fork does not support naturally reproducing trout and is stocked by Harman's along 1 3/4 miles of water providing anglers with the opportunity to fish for rainbows, browns, brookies, tiger and golden trout. Everyone who has stayed has had rave reviews of their trip to Harman's.

Fly Rod Chronicles with Curtis Fleming airs weekly on the Outdoor Channel. Tuesdays at 11:30 a.m., Fridays at 1:00 p.m., & 6:30 p.m. EST every Saturday.

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The Pennsylvania Fly Fishing Museum Grand Opening 2013

Published by David Weaver [Fishidiot] on 2013/4/25 (192 reads)

By Dave Weaver

Earlier this month, the Pennsylvania Fly Fishing Museum celebrated its grand opening and many from our PAFF community were in attendance. This museum, as many of you know, has been an accumulating collection of our state’s legacy anglers’ equipment, papers, and flies etc for many years. Some of the collection has been on temporary loan to various communities around the state including here in Gettysburg. However, some of the best interpretive displays that many of you no doubt are familiar with have been displayed in a small museum located in a hallway in Fairfield Hall on the grounds of the Allenberry Playhouse. These displays are still there although the topic material has been rotated.

In recent years, as the museum’s collection has grown, there has been an effort to secure a larger space with the capacity for better displays showing the full fly tying desks or rod building shops of men like Vince Marinaro or George Harvey. These displays are similar to the ones that can be seen celebrating the Darbies or Wulffs in the Catskill Museum of Fly Fishing. In addition to Marinaro and Harvey, who have larger “rooms,” there are display booths for Joe Humphys, Jim Bashline, Ed Koch, Ed Shenk and several others. Speaking just for myself, when I gaze at the gear collections of so many great and innovative fly fishermen, I’m often struck at how basic and well worn their equipment was. These guys don’t often look as if they were kitted out with the latest high end stuff from the latest trendy catalog. In any event, if you’d like to check out the Pennsylvania Fly Fishing Museum’s website where you can see more pics of the museum, please hit: http://www.paflyfishing.org/.
You can also join or support the museum association.

It’s a wonderful museum - kudos to the volunteers from the museum association who have worked so hard for so long to bring this new museum wing to fruition for us to enjoy. If you’re joining me for the 8 June Gettysburg/Cumberland Valley mini jam, we’ll be making a brief detour to see this museum. Also, the following weekend is the museum’s annual Heritage Day on June 15th. Hope to see you there.

The main room with exhibitors
(Photo Courtesy Skybay)

“Skybay” and “Fishidiot”
(Photo courtesy Skybay)

Mark Susinno at work.
I consider Mark to be the best painter of game fish in the world. Check him out at: http://www.natureartists.com/mark_susinno.asp
(Photo by Fishidiot)

George Harvey’s display booth
(Photo by Fishidiot)

Among the top notch tiers present for the event were our own
Paffers “Wetfly01” and “Frequent Tier” (Dave and Mike).

Check out Dave’s flies and methods at:
http://www.wetflywaterguides.com/

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