4-30-11 (McMichael's Creek)

Michael's Creek Delay Harvest Area

Rainbow Trout

BH Hares Ear & BH Pheasant Tail

Fished the delayed harvest area of McMichael's Creek this morning. I fished from 0800-1130. I landed 9 trout, all which were Rainbows. I hooked into roughly 14 trout. Two spin fisherman near me hooked into some nice 16+ inch Brookies but apparently they were not interested in my nymphs. I used a BH hares ear and BH phesant tail, both size 16 today. All Bows were caught on BHPT. The creek was running fast as we received more rain the past few days. The levels are much higher than normal this time of year. I had a trout surface to my indicator today but I never witnessed any surface to flies, most likely due to the lack of mayflies. I quit fishing right when a "probable hatch" should occur but I thought I'd see a few hatches in the morning hours. Most every riff produced fish today. I  would catch a couple and then move on as the action slowed immensely after taking one to two fish out of a hole. Above is the stream section where Imostly fished today, 1 nicely colored rainbow, and my dual nymph combo setup. Next time I go out fishing, I'm going to try to fish the afternoon or atleast the evening for a better chance of catching a hatch.

4-26-11 (Windy but the BHC current has slowed)

Fished BHC, ball park section, from about 3-6 pm today. I introduced JL to nymph fishing. I hooked 6 but landed only 2 Rainbows today. JL hooked into one right at the end but didn't land it. Not bad for his first time nymphing! We fished the same dual nymph combo as I have been fishing the past week. My normal spot did not produce much today. It was windy and the wind was blowing against the current, which caused some tough casting, drifting, etc...I saw only a couple of mayflies floating around and only 1-2 rises. I still haven't come across a very good hatch this year where I could regularly take fish from the surface. The last trout I took on top was on the McMichaels back in early March when the early stoneflies were fluttering around the water top. I'm hoping to hit up the McMichaels this week. I remember last year about this time, there were numerous rises towards the later part of the day.

Fishing after more rain (4-23-11)

I fished again today from roughly 330-600 pm. I fished the same section of the Brodhead as yesterday. It rained last night and into this morning and we probably received 1/2 inch to 1 inch of rain. The water was screaming even faster today and the clarity was worse. A bright note was that there was a nice BWO hatch going on this afternoon. The first picture below shows one of the several BWO's sitting on the rocks. There were numerous BWO sailboats floating atop the water as well. I saw some fish surface but not as many as you would think with the amount of sailboats floating. I'm guessing the water was a little dirty where they couldn't see the surface very well.

I tried some BWO dries with no avail but since I left my weighters in the car, I couldn't cast real smooth. I was planning on simply nymphing along the banks from shore as I did yesterday. After about 10 minutes of casting the dry BWO, I put on a hares ear and a BH pheasant tail below it. Because of the recent rain, I had to add extra weight and place my indicator higher so I could get my nymphs closer to the bottom. I had roughly 8 hook-ups from 430-6 pm. I landed 3 and lost the rest including a couple flies that a nice Brown broke off. I hooked all the Rainbows on the BH and the 2 Browns on the hares ear. The browns were very nice sized.

 



4-22-11 (Brodhead Creek)

I fished the Brodhead Creek (BHC) section by the new ball field today. This was the first time I've fished the BHC since the huge rains we received last fall and again this spring. The creek has changed immensely! The channels are different. The deep holes are in different locations. Alot of my previous fishing hot spots are washed away. This year will be a year of me re-discovering new fishing grounds. I surveyed the stream for about an hour today (0930-1030) until I finally found a good stretch prime for nymphing. This stretch had current but it wasn't screaming like the rest of the creek. Today was overcast and cold (40-45degrees) so I wasn't anticipating much dry fly action. I kicked some rocks over and found plenty of bugs hugging the bottoms. After examing the bugs, I tied on a hares ear ( maybe size 14) and a beadhead pheasant tail (18) under it. Once I properly placed my indicator at the correct depth, I started popping rainbows. The current was pretty strong so every bow took drag and felt like a monster! I landed 7 bows from 1030-1145, all on the bh pheasant tail. I plan to get out again on Saturday and next week's weather looks beautiful (70's) so my newly tied dry flies may get some action!