Lehigh River, Carbon County PA - March 24 2012

I fished the Lehigh River near Mud Run this past Saturday. I biked in from Leslie Run DCNR parking area. I fished near the Mud Run trib down for about 2 miles. Outside air temp was about the same as the water, mid to high 50's. The Lehigh is very low right now so it is very wadeable. This was my first time fishing it so I can't compare the current but I can't imagine wading it over 500 cfs. I didn't know what to expect from the river. I started off with a BH Wooly Bugger and had a hit and a miss on the first cast. I fished approximately from 9 am to 2 pm. I ended up landing 2 brown trout. The one was quite nice, 16-17 inches. Both were caught on the bugger. I found various slow pools where I anticipated some rises but the only rise I got on the day was to a big bright pink indicator. Why would a trout hit it but not the real fly imitations I threw at it? Crazy. All in all, I enjoyed the Lehigh a lot. It makes me want to buy a drift boat and start fishing it more often. The colors on the trout were beautiful as well. I would assume that they are holdover or wild.

 Leslie Run

Bike with gear

Lehigh River

 1st Brown

2nd Brown



McMichael's Creek Delayed Harvest, March 15-16 2012

I fished March 15 and 16 on the McMichaels Creek DHALO section again as it is the only nearby stream open to fishing until the mid April opener. Weather has still been crazy. High's in the 60's. Water temp is mid 40's. I fished both days in the mid afternoon to late afternoon. Fishing is still excellent. I'm not sure if this excellent March fishing is going to make the season go by fast but at the moment, I can't imagine the pocono's have had a better March for fly fishing in years.

I landed over 20 fish in the 2 day period. Hot fly was a bh green wolly bugger. They kept hammering it like it was a roostertail every 2-3 casts. Also caught trout on sucker spawn, bhpt, black caddis, gg, and adams parachute. Fish were rising fairly consistently and even if they were concentrating on emergers, they still would take a dry if drifted properly. Like always, I had a lot of fish put their noses right on the fly and then reject it  but I'll take rejection over no interest at all. Most of the trout were bows with some browns but I finally caught a couple of the brookies. I hope this great fishing continues all the way through June at the least. We definately need some rain.

McMichael's Creek Delayed Harvest - MAR 7-10 2012

7 Mar - Fished BHPT (bead head pheasant tail) and BHHE (bead head hares ear) in slower runs. Creek level is down but still easily fishable. Only landed 1 trout and missed a couple of others. Trout hit the fly when I lifted the rod to recast (emerging). Outside air temp was nice. 50-60 degrees. I fished from 3-530 pm.

8 Mar - Fished further downstream from previous day. I found a nice fast run that held multiple trout. Landed 4-5, mostly rainbows. Missed 1/2 dozen as well. Fished BHPT and BHHE again. Most were caught on BHPT, size 16-18. Fished from 3-5 pm. Air temp was warmer with 60 + temps. Water measured 58 degrees but that was the top of the water where the sun was beating. I'm sure the bottom of the creek was still in the 40's. I used my laser temp meter.

10 Mar - Fished the same ten foot section for 3 hours, 3-6 pm. Landed over 12 trout. Most trout were pretty small with majority bows. Missed another 20 +. I started fishing a BHPT. Switched to an orange micro egg with no luck but I didn't add weight to it. The section I was fishing was around 3 feet deep with a swift current. I switched to a sucker spawn with a small split shot and my day got fun! After about 1 1/2 hours of educating the fish, I switched to a griffiths gnat because I kept seeing fish work the bank eating midges. Repeatedly taking trout on a dry fly in early March is a real treat! Early black stoneflies have been around in abundance during the afternoon the past week as well. Trout were rising to them occasionally but not with any consistency.

 Trout taken on BHPT - 8 March

Larger brown taken on griffiths gnat - 10 March

Winter Pocono fishing update - FEB 2012

I've been fishing a lot this winter due to the higher than normal temperatures. If it's sunny and 40 degrees or higher, I've been on the water. I've been out roughly a dozen times so far in 2012. I've mostly been fishing small mountain streams for brookies and browns. I've seen decent insect activity on the mountain streams when the temp's are above 40. I'm not the best at identifying but they were size 16-18 black stoneflies or caddis. Most of the wild trout caught this winter have been taken on a small #18 BWO parachute dry fly.

I tried the McMichael's Creek once on a nice day in January but did not get any action. The larger stream's water level has been average the past several weeks so it's easy to locate slow deep pools to drift a nymph.

I fished the BHC today. Water temperature was approximately 38-42 degrees. Insect activity was plentiful. Most of the bugs were sunning themselves on rocks but there were a fair amount fluttering above or on the water. There was enough bug activity that if the trout were looking up, they would have taken the easy meal. I caught one sucker today on a #16 black stonefly nymph. I added a #18 BHPT below it. I'm not sure if there were any trout where I fished today or if I was fishing with the wrong flies. There should be holdover trout because this section of the BHC was stocked last Oct and we've had a mild winter. Hopefully the water temp's start rising soon!

Bugs a plenty!

Black stonefly?

Small mountain stream trout

Small mountain stream

Sucker on the fly

Bug and a fly

Pocono Fall fly fishing - Nov 2011

Although I haven't posted much lately, I have been regularly fishing. I have been fishing small native streams the past 2 months. Devil's Hole has been the main stream I've been fishing along with some unnamed streams. At DH, I averaged 5 trout per 2 hour outing. The water temperature was 55 degrees in Oct but today DH was only 44 degrees. I didn't notice any insect activity while fishing DH the past 2 months but all trout were caught on dry flies. I used some rather ugly, size 16, flies that I didn't care if I lost in a high hanging tree. The quality didn't seem to matter nor did the presentation. The most important fact is that the trout don't see you first because the water is crystal clear. The size of trout weren't large but that is what you expect from a small native stream. Below is a pic of one of my catches today. I caught a couple others with even more color but my camera died after taking this pic. Outside air was in the high 30's but my fingers didn't stay cold once the fish started hitting!

Native Pocono Brook Trout - SEP 30 2011

I haven't done much trout fishing the past month due to recent traveling, family vacations, and the annoying high water we've been having. My core 3 Pocono streams have been running at much higher than normal levels since Hurricane Irene hammered us towards the end of August.


I did manage to do some trout fishing in the Black Hills of South Dakota on one of my recent vacations. I fished Castle Creek, near Deerfield Lake. August is prime time for hopper fishing Black Hills streams. The first fish I ever caught on a fly rod was in a Black Hills' stream with a regular hook and a live hopper I caught in the grass. Unfortunately, the eastern side of South Dakota, where I grew up, did not offer much for fly fishing so my fly rod pretty much lay untouched until my move to Pennsylvania. Fortunately for me, my few Black Hills’ hopper fishing experiences in my teenage years stayed with me and helped me look into fly fishing PA streams. I would describe Blacks Hills fly fishing as a mix between big western streams and rivers and small eastern streams. The Black Hills is a mountainous region with elevations up to 7,000 feet but it also has a lot of open prairies. I fished Castle Creek for a couple of hours and hooked into 2 Bows, both on hopper patterns. I "probably" would have landed one of the Bows but my line got caught around a sunken log and I ended up breaking the line. I missed a few other trout that rose to my fly. Castle Creek is very narrow (3-5 ft) with a lot of tall grass along its banks. I was unable to do much casting there other than flip upstream - drift - and then flip again.


Yesterday, I checked my trail camera for deer, bear, turkey's, etc.. Below are a couple of the pictures. No big bucks or bears caught on camera yet but I finally took the time to fish a stream that runs through the property I hunt. My father in law, who owns the property, told me 4-5 years ago that there were native brook trout on the stream but my obsession with fly fishing only started this year so I never bothered. I had seen some "fish" in the stream during previous surveys but I couldn't tell if they were trout or a "chub" like fish. The only rod I had in my trunk yesterday was a 9' 5 weight which is very large for this extremely wooded property. I think a small weight 7’ rod or maybe even a Tenkara rod would work great for this stream. I tied on a #18 royal wulf, snuck close to the stream, hid behind a tree, and started making a couple of casts. On my third cast, I saw a rise so I set the hook. Fish on! I had a smile on my face for at least the next 20 minutes. I didn’t take long to land the small brookie but for their size, they do fight well. As you can see, the colors on it are beautiful! I’m excited to fish this stream again. When the big streams are too high to fish, go find that little mountain stream and start exploring. Now that I know my father in law was right, I’ll be carrying both my bow and fly rod into the woods next time I go hunting.

Native Brook Trout Stream 

Brook Trout

Smaller Bear

2 more years and he'll be ready

Arctic Grayling - Alaska fly fishing on Delta Clearwater River

I just returned from my annual work/fishing trip to Alaska. I spent 3 days fly fishing the Delta Clearwater River outside of Delta Junction, AK.  This is a crystal clear, spring fed river in the Alaska Interior about 90 miles south of Fairbanks. The water temperaure is 34 degrees year round.  Silver Salmon make their run to the river at the beginning of October each year as the Delta is their spawning grounds.

The hatches were plentiful and consistent each day. The first set of sailboats started covering the water surface at around 2 pm and then the rises became consistent until dark. The 3-6 pm timeframe was the most exciting for me. The competition with naturals was strong but there were so many grayling. I took a charter boat up river one day with 2 co-workers. I caught fewer fish up river but the size of the catch was much larger. Each grayling up river measured at least 20 inches whereas I only caught one that close when I fished from shore the other 2 days. I don't know the fly species that hatched each day but they were size 16-18 with a light tan color. I used various dry flies such as a royal wulf, mosquito, adams, tan caddis, BWO, march brown, etc... Each of those flies caught fish with the royal wulf probably being the most successful. The last day I found a hand tied, no name fly, that looked identical to the naturals when I dead drifted it. It worked like a charm. I caught probably 8 grayling on the single fly before its condition became so deterioated that it was no longer usable.


All in all, I estimate that I landed 50-60 grayling from 11 inches to 22 inches. I missed atleast 3 times that many. I fished 3 days for a total of about 20 hours. The action was consistent and fun. Pound for pound, grayling are one of the best fighting fish out there and they take dry flies very well. I highly recommend this fish species to any fly angler that visits Alaska. Grayling can be found near most areas in Alaska.

Shore fishing location - Delta Clearwater River

Local Scenery

Fish On!

One of many Grayling