Sipping ?

[yea-who]

Last year when i was fishing the susky, i noticed breaks in the surface. It wasn't the typical smallmouth flying out of the water though. I kept pay attention to where these sips where occuring. And i did see a couple more.
Now, my question is what was doing the sipping ?
I didn't think smallmouth sipped nor any fish found in the susky.
I was just below the mouth of a stocked stream, but it was August.
And no i didn't have my fly pole (i regret that every time i think about this evening) I would imagine also I wouldn't be asking this either if i had it. I would have most likly caught the mystery sippers.

 

[MKern]

My guess would be fallfish or chubs.

 

[tomgamber]

I have seen smallies sip, blue gills and even crappies sip...carp sip, fall fish and chubs sip as Mkern said.

 

[Fishidiot]

I agree with MKern. I'd bet money you were seeing fallfish. In my experience, fallfish feed on the surface in big rivers much more than bass. While big bass will "sip" small insects, I think this is rarer than folks think. Most bass that sip little stuff are YOY fish under about 8" in length.
On the bright sided, fallfish are a ton of fun on a fly rod (very underrated fish). A sipping 10" fallfish will take a well presented fly and will fight very hard - better on average than a similar sized trout.

 

[tomgamber]

Fishidiot wrote:
. Most bass that sip little stuff are YOY fish under about 8" in length.

He never said they were big...and yes, fall fish can be fun..especially if they are the only thing biting.

 

[yea-who]

I have never heard of fallfish.

 

[yea-who]

Fallfish winkipedia


Maybe, i hope i see that again when i have my "tippet tosser" in my hand.

Ya learn something new everyday.

Thanks guys.

 

[bam]

you'd be surprised at what a grown bass would feed on. I was last year. I caught several one afternoon on the Schuylkill on spinners last year. All of them had literally hundreds of bugs stuck to their gills in inside of their mouths. Caddis and small mayflies mostly, many in the dry/emerger stage. These fish were in the 2-3 lb range.... suprised to say the least.

I noted the date and plan on swinging some small wets for them in a couple months.

 

[tomgamber]

I hear ya Bam..some rules were made to be broke and every rule has its exception. I was always told (even though I knew it was crap) that crappies only eat minnows in the 1 1/2 to 2 inch range. I spent a morning in a snow fall picking a dozen or so off one by one on dry flies. I don;t rule anything out. Jay will tell you..you can catch trout on an Adams in a sulfur hatch...anything can happen if you play it out right and throw in a little luck. I love it when some people say this is the way you do things and any other way is incorrect and yada, yada, yada...yeah, except when it isn't! Shut up and fish.

 

[afishinado]

Yea-who, in Da Valley they are called "chubs". Because I'm originally from there, I still call them chubs.

The standard joke was, before all the waste treatment plants were put in, was "watch out for the brown chubs!"

I would guess the risers were chubs, but could have been panfish such as sunnies or rock bass. Also, many times the YOY bass feed in the shallows on insects.

If it were in the evening during the white fly hatch, larger bass could have been feeding on them. My experience has been that it usually takes a pretty dense hatch of white flies to interest the bigger smallies. As a matter of fact Fishidiot and I fished the NB of the Susky right at the beginning of the white fly hatch. There were a few bugs here and there at dark, but very few risers. If we fished a few days later I would bet we would have had a ball fishing on top.

FYI. Here is a videos on fishing the white fly hatch on the Susky:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4iZ-H4PSsA

Here is a video on tying the flies:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt5AgbawTk8

 

[Fishidiot]

Yea-who,
Here's a thread on fallfish from awhile back. You can link from this thread to another one that has photos that will allow you to recognize fallfish.

http://www.paflyfish.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=8279&forum=16

 

[yea-who]

I have seen that video on the white fly hatch in the past. I haven't been able too take advantage of it yet.
Joe Ackourey is the guide that taught the fly tying class i took. He is a great person and awsome teacher. I would like to take more tying classes and also a day of fishing with him that he teaches entomology/casting/presentation/wade tech./etc.. His class really shortened the learning curve in my tying. He showed us about 15 different patterns that included comparadun wings, spin deer hair and a couple of his own techniques.
[color=CC0000]If anyone from the northeast PA is interested in the tying class or Fishing class, or if your not from the area and want too fish the Area i highly recommend Joe.[/color]

Ackourey and Sons

Between Joe, Afishando, and [color=FF0000]most[/color] of the PAFF member picking up this habit has been very zimple.

Afishando's advise has not steered me wrong yet either. I have noticed "afish" make many refrences to Mr. LaFontaine, so i have been reading his work. One thing that Gary says that strikes me is "give the fish something to key on."

I think i just highjacked my own thread. Is that okay ?
I noticed that happen quite alot around here. After about 4 or 5 posts in a thread it kinda drifts off topic.

I know i'm guilty of it too.

Anywho, the sun is blazing and i have no Greenie Weenies fur the "tourist trout". I got to go and ty some of them up, but first i have to wash my hands with [color=339900]"Hunter Specialties, Scent-A-Way"[/color] soap. Then I'm gunna ty some with Chennille and some with pipe cleaner. They don't get a chance too rust because they are
bouncing on the bottom and hopefully hooking fish, that I'm counting to measure myself against other anglers and becoming "etarded". So i have to sharpen the hooks and Retie.

 

[osprey]

I've seen smallmouth bass sipping in the Susquehannah many times , big ones too , the whitefly hatch provided a few of these incidents and i also remember seeing them when there wasn't a visible hatch going on , what it looked like to me was midging.

 

[troutbert]

Everybody knows about the white fly hatch on the warmwater rivers, but what other major hatches are there? How early in the year do you see both insects and surface feeding fish? Has anyone ever created a warmwater river hatch chart? I've never seen one.

On Bald Eagle Creek, above Milesburg, smallmouth bass come right up and take size 16 sulphurs. I've seen only rather small bass doing this.

But a friend of mine caught a 21 inch smallmouth on a #14 Light Cahill on Loyalsock Creek during a Cahill hatch. I'm very jealous.

 

[Fredrick]

troutbert wrote:
Everybody knows about the white fly hatch on the warmwater rivers, but what other major hatches are there? How early in the year do you see both insects and surface feeding fish? Has anyone ever created a warmwater river hatch chart? I've never seen one.

On Bald Eagle Creek, above Milesburg, smallmouth bass come right up and take size 16 sulphurs. I've seen only rather small bass doing this.

But a friend of mine caught a 21 inch smallmouth on a #14 Light Cahill on Loyalsock Creek during a Cahill hatch. I'm very jealous.

Hit the Skuke in late April and May and you would think your on a central Pa limestoner with all the rises and hatches :-D

 

[jayL]

I did well on SMB on penns, during the green drakes. Every piece of bumpy water for 5 miles had a dozen anglers on it. I saw rising bass in the frog water, and figured it was good enough. I caught about ten of them from 8 to 15 inches. Long casts and tough drifts. They refused me once or twice, too.

It wasn't bad.

I worked at a gas station next to the river when I was a kid. Granted, it was close to hay creek, as well. There were tons of sulphurs all spring, and into summer. I am positive that some of them came from the river, as I had seen them hatching there.

 

[troutbert]

Fredrick wrote:

troutbert wrote:
Everybody knows about the white fly hatch on the warmwater rivers, but what other major hatches are there? How early in the year do you see both insects and surface feeding fish? Has anyone ever created a warmwater river hatch chart? I've never seen one.

On Bald Eagle Creek, above Milesburg, smallmouth bass come right up and take size 16 sulphurs. I've seen only rather small bass doing this.

But a friend of mine caught a 21 inch smallmouth on a #14 Light Cahill on Loyalsock Creek during a Cahill hatch. I'm very jealous.

Hit the Skuke in late April and May and you would think your on a central Pa limestoner with all the rises and hatches :-D

What's hatching that early in the year? Caddis? Mayflies? I generally get on the warmwater rivers much later in the season.

 

[Fredrick]

It has a nice Cahill hatch around that time and good caddis hatches all year . I think documenting warmwater hatches would be something a lot of fly fisherman would be intrested in. Or a book on warwater fly fishing for the area :-D

 

[yea-who]

I live pretty close to da susky, what ever is hatching there is usually flying around my yard and landing on my door screen and such. I have not seen may flies yet but i have seen black stoneflies for a week or so. I took a picture of one, but it landed on something grey, so it not that great.

 

[gfen]

jayL wrote:
I saw rising bass in the frog water,.

Alright, I admit it. I have no clue what "frog water" means, but I've seen it in reference to more than one stream.

Edumacate me!