Everything But Trout...

[isuckatflyfishing]

Hey everyone, I've lurked this site for a long time but decided to finally commit and get an account. I'm fairly new to fly fishing (been fishing for two years but have only begun to catch trout as of this spring). My area in South Central PA primarily has stocked streams most of which have heavily fished. Earlier in the spring I would be able to catch an occasional trout, but now that summer has rolled around, I'm only catching bluntnose minnows, creek chubs, and suckers on zebra midges, Adams, woolly buggers, hare's ear nymphs, and the like. My question is this: do I keep trying to find trout in these creeks, or do I cut my losses with the local water and look further for more luck? Do I switch my presentations? Use larger flies, different tippet, different approaches? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Jay_H]

There are a lot of factors at play here. With the creeks being low and water temperatures rising fish will be tougher to come by. Time of day fished is going to be important (early morning or early evening being best, IMO).

Additionally, we are starting to enter terrestrial season so changing to ants, green weenies, etc. might be a better path to success. You could try dry dropper.

When dry fly fishing I’m a believer in a longer leader and lighter tippet for small flies (typically 6x).

If you’re fishing the popular south central streams (Yellow Breeches comes to mind), there are still trout in there. Just remember it gets fished heavily so presentation is going to be very important. You could always try different sections of the steam and see what kind of results you get.

If water is high and dirty you could try streamer patterns fished in closer to the bank side as well.

I’d keep at it on the streams you feel comfortable on and keep working at it. The fish will come.

 

[Fish Sticks]

There are redbreast sunfish, fall fish, creek chubs, white suckers, pickerel and plenty of other fish species around you.

My opinion is as fly fishermen we don’t allow ourselves to really dive in and enjoy these native species and value them as catches just because their not trout. We should let ourselves enjoy these species.

And then there are bass species as well which are alot of fun too this time of year.

Get a 9 foot leader and a size 8 mr wiggly and go to where the domesticated stocked trout are going belly up and enjoy the redbreasts, smallies, and fall fish.

 

[jifigz]

Hey everyone, I've lurked this site for a long time but decided to finally commit and get an account. I'm fairly new to fly fishing (been fishing for two years but have only begun to catch trout as of this spring). My area in South Central PA primarily has stocked streams most of which have heavily fished. Earlier in the spring I would be able to catch an occasional trout, but now that summer has rolled around, I'm only catching bluntnose minnows, creek chubs, and suckers on zebra midges, Adams, woolly buggers, hare's ear nymphs, and the like. My question is this: do I keep trying to find trout in these creeks, or do I cut my losses with the local water and look further for more luck? Do I switch my presentations? Use larger flies, different tippet, different approaches? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Do what you want. If you want trout, then find good trout water that stays cold and be willing to travel to it. If you just want to fish, then fish. Any place that has fish in relatively shallow water can be fly fished with success for basically any species you want.

Bass, redbreasts, and bluegills are some of my favorite alternate species.

 

[6xAdams(Jones)]

Whenever you go to new water (or familiar water) sit on the bank near a promising hole or run and just watch for 5-15 minutes. Don't tie on a fly until you watch for how water breaks around obstructions (not forgetting the cushion upstream of rocks), how/where/when a fish rises, shadows of fish (viewed through polarized lenses), bugs on or above the water, little green worms and spiders hanging from streamside foliage, minnows and shiners flashing and jumping to get away, presence of herons/mink/kingfishers... I could go on but there's a lot to learn by watching, before you're rigged up - including the presence of trout in water that you would have waded through. Generally, dry flies on small water requires an upstream/across cast since fish are facing upstream - after a low and slow approach from the shade.
As for finding water, every valley up and down the Susquehanna was formed by a creek of some kind. If you have time, go exploring. If time is limited, look on the approved trout water map on PFBC and explore from there.
Good luck and have fun.

 

[isuckatflyfishing]

Whenever you go to new water (or familiar water) sit on the bank near a promising hole or run and just watch for 5-15 minutes. Don't tie on a fly until you watch for how water breaks around obstructions (not forgetting the cushion upstream of rocks), how/where/when a fish rises, shadows of fish (viewed through polarized lenses), bugs on or above the water, little green worms and spiders hanging from streamside foliage, minnows and shiners flashing and jumping to get away, presence of herons/mink/kingfishers... I could go on but there's a lot to learn by watching, before you're rigged up - including the presence of trout in water that you would have waded through. Generally, dry flies on small water requires an upstream/across cast since fish are facing upstream - after a low and slow approach from the shade.
As for finding water, every valley up and down the Susquehanna was formed by a creek of some kind. If you have time, go exploring. If time is limited, look on the approved trout water map on PFBC and explore from there.
Good luck and have fun.

I guess I need to start doing this more, I sometimes feel rushed and just too ready to get a fly in the water I ignore the opportunity to gather important info like this. Also, I'm trying to make more time to explore new places, but in most cases I just get skunked.

 

[isuckatflyfishing]

Get a 9 foot leader and a size 8 mr wiggly and go to where the domesticated stocked trout are going belly up and enjoy the redbreasts, smallies, and fall fish.

Do smallies and redbreasts live in the same environments? I've always figured the streams I fish were too narrow for smallies and too cold for redbreasts

 

[Fish Sticks]

Do smallies and redbreasts live in the same environments? I've always figured the streams I fish were too narrow for smallies and too cold for redbreasts

They most often do, look for transitional zones where stocked trout waters meet lower sections. Redbreasts actually do better in colder water than most sunfish I think

 

[Fish Sticks]

Tie size 8 “Mr. Wiggly” type flies they catch everything this time of year. Let them dead drift with twitches separated by LONG pauses

 

[Silent Ocelot]

I'm only catching bluntnose minnows, creek chubs, and suckers

I fail to see the problem here.

 

[Silent Ocelot]

Bass, redbreasts, and bluegills are my favorite species.

 

[Silent Ocelot]

View attachment 1641231267

You need to straighten your leader dawg. I know it's pride month but d***.

 

[Mike]

You need to straighten your leader dawg. I know it's pride month but d***.

I never straighten my leader. Just like ice jigging light taking panfish, the curls function as strike indicators when nymphing.

 

[Silent Ocelot]

The curls are slack that can result in delayed hooksets. I'm no ice fishermen, so I have no comment on that particular style of fishing, but I fail to see how coils in a leader in fly fishing has any benefit. Straightening out the leader also helps to make it more supple and have a more direction connection to the fly or indicator.

 

[silverfox]

The curls are slack that can result in delayed hooksets. I'm no ice fishermen, so I have no comment on that particular style of fishing, but I fail to see how coils in a leader in fly fishing has any benefit. Straightening out the leader also helps to make it more supple and have a more direction connection to the fly or indicator.

There's a whole "method" of wrapping indicator mono around a nail in tight loops and boiling it to set the curls and using it as an indicator. Not any different than any other slack in the line IMO. Especially if you Jimmy Houston™ set.

 

[Silent Ocelot]

But that's not the leader in of itself, but a section of leader made into a sighter, and that is also a nymph-specific thing. It sounds like Mike just leaves all of his leaders coiled and never maintains them, something I find confusing. I can't see the benefit of having an overall un-straightened leader. I got lazy on a previous trip and left some coils in the upper section of my leader. That certainly didn't help me set the hook and keep fish pinned. I swapped that leader entirely. I also have one of the weakest hooksets out there, I let the fish decide if it wants to strike hard enough to stay on the fly.

 

[isuckatflyfishing]

Tie size 8 “Mr. Wiggly” type flies they catch everything this time of year. Let them dead drift with twitches separated by LONG pauses

I'll have to pick some of these up. I live fairly close to the lower Susquehanna and I could see these things absolutely murdering the smallies in the shallows. Thank you for the help!

 

[isuckatflyfishing]

I fail to see the problem here.

Not a problem at all, .when I'm not catching any trout I'll sometimes throw a size 14 Adams on and catch dozens of those guys. I was only wondering if only catching these species meant there were no trout in the waters.

 

[Troutmeister]

" Jimmy Houston hookset " LOL that's how I donate a lot of flies to overhanging branches.

 

[PatchezMDM]

I'm also from the York area and these streams down here get a lot of pressure. The stockies get smart and picky pretty quick. Like you I*'m also about 2 years in and just now have started catching trout on a fly. It's a steep learning curve and challenging. However if it was easy every jack hole would be out there doing it.