clarion

[wilson24]

im going camping w family this weekend to cooksburg and will get to the clarion between belltown and cooksburg any suggestion on where and with what and how to fish it i never fished a large river like that before any help would be great i only have a couple of hours to fish wt\ith the kids and all thanks

 

[Bruno]

Here is an article from last weeks trib that might help.

It is big water. When your get to the river do not look at the whole thing. Chop it up into a buch of little streams and fish each little one. Hope that makes sense. Get out early as the raft hatch will start mid morning.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/outdoors/s_517284.html

 

[RLeeP]

Bruon's link is good infor on the TT section up river from where you intend to be. The section of river you mentioned, while it has some trout that this time of year will be around the trib mouths and cold water seeps, is probably much better smallmouth water than trout water.

There should be a bass anywhere there is a combination of moderate current and some sort of obstruction or shelter, which in the Clarion means rocks. If you're fishing in high daylight, like between say 9AM and 6PM, a good size wooly bugger or fur leech dead drifted through the runs will catch fish. Make sure you get it down some in the flow. If the kids are fishing with spin or spin cast gear, have them flip a spinner or small crankbait like a rebel crayfish or little Rat-L-Trap a little upstream from the rocks and then retrieve it right through the pocket of slack water behind the rock. Or they can do the same thing with a live crayfish or nightcrawler.

The bass in the Clarion aren't hard to catch if you put a lure or fly fairly close to the places they hang out and get it down some.

 

[wilson24]

what pound tippet and leader for smallies also what is a good length leader i have only trout and steelhead flyfished thanks for the replys

 

[JackM]

wilson24 wrote:
what pound tippet and leader for smallies also what is a good length leader i have only trout and steelhead flyfished thanks for the replys

I would use 3X or 4X, with consideration to the size and wind-resistency of the flies you are throwing. You can land smallmouth to and above 12" on 5X tippet, but why bother as they aren't particularly leader shy.

 

[RLeeP]

Unless the water is uncommonly clear, you don't need to tip out at anything smaller than 2X. And that about matches the size of flies I'd use, in the size 6-8 range, with maybe an occasional 4 or 10. And even the notion that you *might* need 3X in very clear water is probably more religion than demonstrable fact.

You can fish a short leader and do just as well as if you fished one that was 20 feet long. So long as you have enough leader to turn the fly over and get some sink, that's good enough.

So, if you have an old trout leader that's say 9 feet long, you could cut it back to about 0X and then tie in 20 inches or so of 2X. This would probably make a leader that was about 7 feet long.

That would be good.