The Southeastern Pennsylvania Region was dealt another major snowstorm this past weekend. This leaves many just a little anxious to get outside even more than normal. It looks like the Greater Philadelphia Outdoor Sportshow in Oaks, PA on February 25-28 is going to offer us some much needed fun. There are plenty of great fishing, hunting and outdoor programs announced for the show. A little closer look revealed a very good line up for fly fishing anglers.

I am a big fan of Bob Clouser and I am excited to see he has seminars scheduled for Friday of the show. Bob is from Harrisburg and is best known for creating the world famous Clouser Minnow fly pattern used for catching numerous types of fish. Among his other notoriety, Bob is also highly respected for his smallmouth fly-fishing prowess on the Susquehanna. He will be holding seminars on how to tie is famous his Clouser Minnow and casting weighted lines and flies.

Other fly-fishing seminars throughout the weekend will be delivered at various times by Lefty Kreh and Ryan Sansoucy.

A variety of fly-fishing vendors will be on the exhibit floor including Temple Fork Outfitters, St. Croix Rods, Main Line Fly-Tyers, and Delaware River Shad Fishermen's Association.

Kype Magazine will be sharing a short film in the Fly Fishing theater.

Tony from TCO Fly Shop shared with me they will have a “huge” booth with Simms, Sage, RIO and other cool products.

Bryan Kelly from Kelly's White Fly Shop is setup to have a booth and I am sure able to share a lot of exciting knowledge about smallmouth fly-fishing on the Potomac River.

The show will be host to a variety of other outdoor sports activities, which should prove to very entertaining. There seems like all types opportunities for those interested fresh water and saltwater fishing by the world Fishing Network (WFN). There will be plenty of hunting seminars and a special program by the Outdoor Channel’s Deer City Team USA. Event organizers arranged for plenty of entertainment for the family too.

You can find out more about the Greater Philadelphia Outdoor Sportshow website here.

How do you throw a feather?

You don’t.

You tie the feather to something heavy and then a toss the two of them together. This is the principle behind casting with a fly rod. See how easy fly fishing is!

I wish my friends Ron and Greg would have explained this to me when I first started fly fishing. I think it would have saved me some early embarrassing moments of fly fishing.

The principle purpose of a fly rod is to deliver the fly line out towards a trout with a fly somehow attached to the situation. More about bad delivery and stupid fly imitations later on. The principle of spin casting is just the opposite as the weight of the lure carries the line to the fish.

There is a lot of kinetic energy and physics that is involved, but don’t worry we will get to that later when we cover casting. The good news is that we will cover that before we get to the entomology and biology if you were asking.

To do all this line tossing you need gear that will support that kind of physics. Before we start picking our rod let’s look at the whole fly delivery engine thing one more time. We discussed our rod, but as you can imagine there are many different sizes and types of rods. They are most often differentiated by length and weight. Since we are just getting started most common trout fly rods are between 7’ and 9’ here out East. The most common weight is between 4wt and 6wt. Don’t send me hate mail yet remember I said common.

Most popular modern rods are made of graphite. The very early fly rods were made of bamboo and these handcrafted rods are still highly regarded by many anglers. We are not going to talk about bamboo now because I would then have to go deep and talking about kilts. I think they are silly unless you are drinking scotch then who really cares anyway.

In principle the smaller the fish the smaller and less weight you need in your rod. For bigger fish the converse holds true. So fishing for sunfish an 8’ 4wt rod will do just fine. For trout you won’t go wrong with a 9’ 5wt rod. I like the 9’ because it helps when you are nymph fishing and need some extra reach. It doesn’t you’re your 8’ 4wt rod isn’t good for trout it is. I have a great Orvis 4wt rod and I still enjoy using it under that right conditions. Best suited for wild trout in small streams or when I am dry fly-fishing over smaller trout and fish.

Part two & three of this post we will look at reels, fly lines and a few modestly priced set-ups to get you started. Your assignment this week is to throw a feather and please don’t put on a kilt unless you are drinking scotch.

Calling the Susquehanna River “increasingly impaired,” the board of commissioners of the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PFBC) today called on state and federal environmental agencies to expand efforts to determine the sources of pollution which are contributing to the demise of the river’s smallmouth bass fishery.

The board’s resolution, passed at its quarterly meeting, urges the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to step up their investigations, saying recent data confirms a serious problem exists. Commissioners cited evidence from a two-year water quality study coordinated by the U.S. Geological Survey and partially funded by the PFBC which found stress factors such as elevated water temperature and low dissolved oxygen concentrations during the critical May through July development period for smallmouth bass. The Commission contributed $400,000 to the study in an effort to discover the causes behind the fishery’s decline.

Problems were first detected in the middle reaches of the river in 2005, when PFBC biologists found unusually high numbers of dead or distressed smallmouth bass. They later determined that the affected fish were suffering from infections related to a common soil and water bacteria Flavobacterium columnare, or Columnaris. The disease is considered a secondary infection brought on by environmental or nutritional factors that stress fish, weakening their ability to cope with the bacterial agent. The same bacterium was discovered again in 2007 and 2008.
In other action, Commissioners:

• Approved a long-term lease agreement with Erie County’s Lawrence Park Golf Club to install fish passage structures at two impediments in Fourmile Creek to facilitate the movement of steelhead upstream. The structures will be funded with grants from DEP’s Coastal Zone Management Program and the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources’ Community Conservation Partnership Program.

• Authorized staff to pursue the acquisition of a public fishing access and conservation easement on the Little Juniata River that includes approximately 1,020 linear feet on one side of the river. The site is located along Barree Road in Porter Township, Huntingdon County, and the Commission stocks this portion of the river at a location on an adjoining property.

A complete copy of the meeting schedule and the full agenda for the meeting can be found on the Commission’s web site at www.fishandboat.com/minutes.htm. The mission of the Fish and Boat Commission is to protect, conserve, and enhance the Commonwealth’s aquatic resources and provide fishing and boating opportunities.

The off season is a great time to look at old books and to explore new ones as well. Some of the early books I read when I was getting started with fly fishing are still good reads and should not be overlooked. The more recent ones hold fresh insight to many of the locations and changes to many of streams in Pennsylvania.

Before you start striping any line or emptying your wallet you might want to take a look at The L.L. Bean Ultimate Book of Fly Fishing by Macauley Lord, Dick Talleur and Dave Whitlock. It is one of the best all around general fly fishing books there is for any new angler to the sport. Their book provides essential information about flies, bugs, gear, concepts, traditions and everything from Atlantic Salmon to the zug bug.

A lot of good first hand information can be found in Flyfisher's Guide to Pennsylvania (Flyfisher's Guide Series) by Dave Wolf and Trout Streams and Hatches of Pennsylvania; A Complete Fly-Fishing Guide to 140 Rivers and Streams by Charles Meck. Both books are carried by seasoned anglers. They not only help in the where, but try to make sense of the what before you get into a stream.

Reading some of the Pennsylvania fly water type books is how I got started early on. Both these books I am about to mention will probably require a trip to a library. There are over 645 public libraries in Pennsylvania so be brave and track one down. When there check out Dwight Landis's book Trout Streams of Pennsylvania published by Hempstead-Lyndell and Mike Sajna's book Pennsylvania Trout & Salmon Fishing Guide published by Frank Amato Publications. Dwight's book provides a lot of hatch information and detailed maps about where to find many streams. Mike shares a lot of similar information, but adds some unique historic accounts of most of these locations. Both these books are what inspired me to start Paflyfish many years ago.

Also in the library look for An Angler's Guide to Aquatic Insects and Their Imitations for All North America by Rick Hafele. Rick's book is more of a 200 level or great read about insects and can get you going in the world of entomology. A more recent and popular bug book is Hatches II: A Complete Guide to the Hatches of North American Trout Streamsby Al Caucci and Bob Nastasi.

There are many more books to explore and even more dynamic information on the Internet. Please feel to share and comment on some of your favorites as well.

Our next post will be taking a look at getting you going with rods, reels and line.

Saturday was a fun day spent at The Fly Fishing Show in Somerset NJ. I met up with a lot of friends, sat in on some interesting seminars and enjoyed an awesome vendor trade floor. There was so much stuff going on it reminded me of being on Penns Creek on a late May evening with about three different hatches happening all at the same time.

The trip started at the Letort in Carlisle early Saturday morning. No we were not actually fishing, but caught up with some forum members I really admire Dave “Fishidiot” and Josh “3wt7x”. I enjoyed and appreciated a leisurely bus ride setup by the guys from the Cumberland Valley TU.

Once there we scouted the trade show floor. It was a great set-up with over 250 vendors, a couple of casting areas and a small casting pond. As you can imagine the usual suspects were there with Sage, Scott, St. Croix and many other traditional product vendors throughout the trade show floor.

More pictures on the Paflyfish Facebook Fan Page found here.

A variety of fly shops from the region had booths offering what seemed to be a lot of very good deals. I enjoyed catching up with a Chris and Tony at TCO Fly Shop. They had a rather large well-stocked setup. Jonas from The Feathered Hook was good to see and had me laughing.

Jumped over to the hotel side of the event where all the seminars were being held. I stopped in on Jim and Ernie from Laurel Highlands Guide Services where they shared a very good seminar on the Yough. Bryan Kelly from Kelly's White Fly Shop started the afternoon with a knock out presentation about smallmouth fishing on the Potomac. Both seminars have me ready to hit some bigger water this year.

I had a chance to spin through the floor one more time and caught up with Mike Heck as he was tying flies and talking it up with a bunch of fans about his awesome book Spring Creek Strategies: Hatches, Patterns, and Techniques. Would have loved to have caught up with Dave Rothrock, but he was a man on the move making presentations. Next time Dave!

There was a good crew of PaFlyFish members including: Fishidiot, Gfen, Pcray1234, 3wt7x, Heritage Angler, Tim Murphy, Rolf and Wetfly. Plenty of other events and seminars that were too numerous to see in the one day I was there.

We had nice trip back with on the bus with the CVTU crew that included a dinner stop at Cabela’s with just one more chance to drain any cash that was left in my wallet.

Great show put on by Chuck Furimsky and staff. Definitely one fly-fishing event you should not miss.