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| Making things happen. |
Despite mediocre personal experiences and reliable bad reports
since the last stocking, I took my dad over to the Pickering DHALO for a few
hours today. We were not alone on a
Tuesday, but we found some space and some fish.
Like Monday, it was still breezy, but unlike Monday it was a full 5 or 6
degrees cooler. Most of the snow is
gone, and the creek was still high-ish since the last rainstorm, so the water
was both stained and cold. Things are
looking up, though, as bugs are starting to show again, as are the holdover
fish from both this fall and last spring’s stockings, both mostly absent after
the new kids were stocked last month. I
landed two browns with good fins, and my dad’s only fish was also a brown in
good shape.
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| The Prince and the Porker |
It was a tough day for a novice fly angler, but I can see
my dad getting better. He learned to
roll cast today and, from watching me cherry pick a couple fish with his rod, how
to read the water in cold weather and just how subtle the takes are at this
time of year. I was behind him a couple
times doing the old, There’s one! I
could sense he wasn’t buying it totally, so I caught a couple that hit just as
lightly as the ones he doubted just to demonstrate that they were in fact fish…. Or did I just need to catch a couple after a
tough start!? I will never tell. Seriously,
though, he is a quick study and that short demonstration lead him to hooking a
fish not long after I walked away to give him some space.
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| More Prince. |
With my self-imposed no indicator rule (holding my OWN
rod, that is!), I had to work hard for 5 additional fish. Besides catching a few fish with my dad, it
was cool to show him around the creek.
This is an easy one to access and wade, plus there are many fish from
various stockings (therefore the Tuesday crowds), so I wanted him to add it as
an option this spring if he needs to get out somewhere besides the Penny or the
Wissy. It is a pretty little creek and one
that is healthier than the aforementioned “cricks,” so I was glad he liked what
he saw even if the fishing was challenging.
It will not be this way for long if the warm-up continues. Of what little bug activity I did witness, I
saw olives and midges but no stoneflies today.
Besides one on an sj worm (a trend this week, sorry) the other fish took
a prince or other more natural-looking bug.
I said I was going to leave the place alone for a while, but I was glad
my dad and I got outdoors on a nice March day and had some success close to
home. I am making the long solo drive to
Central PA tomorrow, so a couple more good posts to come this week, I hope.
Good to see Dad out there with you! You used to use the Green Weenie for stockies a lot. Is that a good early fly or better later?
ReplyDeleteRR
The weeenie works a few different times each year, but for stockies I tend to use it where there are not a lot of bugs, like the Wissy. Pickering has some hatches, so I think they eat naturals pretty quickly. That said, the weenies look like the larva a few different flies when they roll through riffles in May, mostly caddis.
ReplyDeleteNot bad. Spring Break of my senior year (last May) I came home to three snow/ice/wind storms hitting Philly within the week. Looks like you lucked out on weather!
ReplyDeleteAlso, the weenie used to catch even some of the most educated browns on the most fertile streams in central PA.
pete from work
DeleteNot surprised. Caddis are the most prevalent fly in a lot of those streams, just not glamorous, hence the effectiveness of the weenie, Pete. They are also an attractor, like a glow bug, so they may get bit just for that sometimes.
ReplyDelete