The Bass and Flies are COMING!

Centre County has been a swarm of activity. Sulphers have been hatching for weeks and it appears to me that we also have a hendrickson hatch on the Bald Eagle. They seem a little late but with the weather who knows whats going to happen. It was expected the cicada would have been here by now but the have only been seen a few here and there at times. The streams are starting to drop in level, although... last night it rained pretty hard. This is the time of year when bass start running into the creek along with a few crappies and rock bass. Virtually no one fishes for these guys and having a good time is easliy achieved. Sometimes I think its actually more exciting then trout fishing in the Bald Eagle because in the upper reaches the streams are loaded! Two nights ago while walking with my family we found a hellgramite walking across the road, what he was doing the whole way up there I dont know. Usually they have wings around this time and fly but this guy didnt. Im hoping to see some of you and my pro staff coming to enjoy these untouched treasures. Bring your bassn arms, you may just catch multiple species in the same day!

Trout Opener

As a special offer for the trout opener if you book a trip between March 31 - April 7(2008) I will give you a 25% discount on the trip. This DOES NOT include Lake Erie steelhead trips. Trip must be scheduled to fish between April 1,2008 - Oct 1,2008. Full day trips and half day trips both qualify for the discount. Half day trips during the week will start at 6pm and go until dark. Weekend half days are available morning or evening.

The Bugs Are HERE!

This week we hit a warm patch in the spring. During the days we saw almost 50. I left work and stopped out at my mothers on Spring Creek to give it a whirl. After going in to visit I came back out to the bed of my truck swarming with midges. I have a feeling that they thought the black bed liner was the creek. I couldn't hardly contain myself, I was shaking with the thought of how good the fishing would be while I was setting my rig up. I finally got my composure and rod setup and headed to the creek. The second drift and WHAMO... fish on. I knew the fish was a hog... literally, a hog nose sucker! I made my way upstream and couldn't find the fish in the deep runs. Am I doing something wrong? Surely not, I know from previous trips that sometimes in this cool water the fish can move up really shallow. Oxygen levels are so high they dont have to be tucked right up to the riffles or in the deep runs. Sure enough I spun myself around the opposite direction and started fishing water that was inches deep. Lets just say, I made the right decision. In the next half hour I picked up twenty fish or more, there were times when cast after consecutive cast brought a fish to hand.

Season is rocking and I did see some olives. They have to be hatching mid day which I haven't been fortunate enough to hit yet. Light tippet didn't seem to matter, the fish took 4x no problem.

April 12th brings the official start of Trout Season in PA. There's a lot of nice stocked streams to fish in the area. Streams that only fish in the Spring. Give me a call, lets spend a day on the water!

Brook Trout, Cold Waters, Easter With ZeroG

The call of the brookies was rocking this weekend. Greg had called me months ago and asked me to spend Saturday at the Brook Trout Retreat. We woke saturday morning to it snowing, 3" on the road! It was 52degrees when we went to bed... what happened? After a long drive through the snow we arrived. We met Greg Sr, Greg and Joel. After a small bs session we headed out to fish. The water was COLD and it showed. The fish just didnt wanna move for anything. A ten feather streamer brought two into my hands. With that, we called it a day and drove back home.

This morning I woke up and for some reason decided I was going back to bed. Must have been the cold. I've had a brand new Orvis ZeroG setting here in the house for a week that needed fished. Well, regardless that it was easter I had to go cast this rod. I didnt get to spend much time with it but it had no problem throwing a nymph rig out forty feet in the wind. I cant even imagine what it will be like on a nice day. The rod itself is simply beautiful. I matched it with a LA Battenkill and Scientific Anglers Trout WF line. I must say, that line is impressive too, very smooth, time will tell how it holds up but for now I definitely like it.

I plan to head out a day or more this week, the stream is coming down but its still moving pretty good. Hopefully this cold will go away soon.

The Madness of High Waters

Tuesday began with me waking up and realizing the day was going to get ugly fast, the rain had already started and I knew we were going to be in trouble with the foot of snow we had. I mentioned to Kelsea before going to bed that we were going to wake up to flood waters. Sure enough early in the morning I was awoken to water rushing into the basement. A solid two feet. In a panic of why the pump wasnt keeping the water out I had to cut a bad section out and tie it back into the sump.

While i did this, the water kept coming. The previous owner of my house made the mistake of also not installing a check valve on the pump hose, half the water would go out, half would run back in. It was really a losing situation. At 8am I drove to the hardware store to get a check valve and ended up buying a second pump. Both have been running since 10am Wednesday to keep the basement as dry as possible. When i went to get the stuff I took the camera's, video and still. Whole trees were coming down the creek and I thought that we were going to see it spill. In some places it did spill.

As of this morning, the creeks are not even close to fishable and they are calling for more rain tonight. Cross your fingers in hopes we didnt have another washout of the nymphs or were in for bad hatches again this year.

If you want to see more images please visit: http://www.outdoorintegration.com/images/Flood_3_5_08/

An 18 fly Assortment

My pro team has asked that I make a 36 fly 18 pattern assortment for fishing the local streams. I told them I would have them out to them this week so that people could start buying them before season. The list looks like this:

No Hackle BWO & Sulphur
Traditional Catskill Sulphur
Traditional Catskill BWO
BWO Wet Fly
Sow Bug
Elk Hair Caddis
Foam Cricket
Foam Ant
Scud
Glass Bead Midge Pupa
Green Drake Wiggle Nymph
Green Drake Spinner
Sulphur Nymph
BWO Nymph
Pheasant Tail
Walts Worm
Hares Ear Nymph
Jeremys - Spring Creek Shiner

They will come ONLY as a boxed set.

I also plan to have them offer for this year a Cicada in anticipation of the 17yr Cicada(2008) for our area. These will not be cheap as they are spun hair or lots of foam.

The box will be available soon.

The Local Streams In Febuary

I bailed out of working Friday afternoon. I had a lunch to attend with my new group from PSU. Upon leaving I decided I wanted to fish. Arriving home I packed my gear into the truck. It has been raining and melting for days and the stream is an absolute mud pit. There are however a few little tribs to the big streams which hold fish. One I discovered from I-80 and I figured I would give that a look. I could not however find the stream from the Eastbound side. Running low on time I headed to another local trib of Spring Creek. Its not very large, you could almost jump across it in spots but it holds fish. It also, does not see the volumes of water as the main stream. After I got suited up I headed to the first hole, three casts later I landed a nice 15" wild brown on a blue winged olive emerger. I thought I had made the right choice but as I continued to work upstream I went fishless. I dropped back down with a streamer this time and missed several more fish. Next thing I knew it was time to hang it up and go home for dinner. While I did a lot of driving for one fish I'm sure many people never even dreamed about fishing with the conditions the big streams were in. Just goes to show, you can always catch a fish somewhere.