Schuylkill River mixed with Salmon River

Five days, two states, and I'm still tired. The week started off with a couple awesome bass trips, and ended with two days in New York on the Salmon River. It is fall, and the smallmouth are putting their feed bags on, with the water low and clear, this is the perfect time to sight fish to monster bass. The only problem with watching a big fish eat your fly, is when you jump the gun and pull the fly right back out of its mouth. This happens all the time, but nothing gets me more jacked up then, watching a 16 inch plus smallmouth suck down your fly sitting on the bottom. So when you connect and that fish goes ballistic, you may find me dancing in the middle of the boat.  

So, its the end of September, and the Salmon River should be filled with fresh King Salmon, and the added bonus, steelhead. After two days of pounding the water, and teaching four new fly anglers the art of casting a switch rod. All we had to show for it was two baby steelhead, a broken leader (from a salmon), and a bunch of empty beer cans. The one good thing about all that, it equals four smiling clients that just had the time of their life floating down the river, fishing for salmon and steelhead.

Guiding and Exploring

This past weekend I had the pleasure of fishing in a blizzard with a great Bryn Mawr customer Mark Johnson and his buddy straight from Texas Tony. We looked at the forecast and it said 4 to 6 inches of snow, perfect steelhead weather. Well after the fist 6 inches came down, we just laughed and kept of fishing. The fishing was pretty good considering. we ended the day with 3 hook ups in about 40 minutes. Only one of those fish made it to hand, but like the others from earlier in the day, they all jumped and we got eyes on every one. It was awesome!

More pictures to come.

Chip was up for a few days, trying some new stuff, finding it very successful. Kyle and his brother were also up this weekend, they fished with Chip on Saturday and Kyle got is first ever steelhead, on the swing at that. Way to go Buddy.

After driving through the blizzard Monday morning, I found myself at Chris's house with my eight weight and my sinking line. We were off to Jersey to try to find a couple stripers. We were only successful in finding a couple new spots for the spring. The water was still super muddy from Sandy, remanence of her furry littered the sidewalks and street corners. So no fish pictures from Jersey, but it was fun none the less.

Thank you Chris and Kyle for your photos!!!

Salmon River Weekend

This past weekend I had the pleasure of fishing with Bart and Mark, two fishing buddies that met in college. Bart and Mark, are both very good TCO customers, who have been making the trip north to the Salmon River for over 15 years, despite all those years of fishing between the two of them they have only floated the river once. Thats where I come in, I floated them from Altmar to Pineville for a half day float. The fishing was spotty, but we managed to get into a 5 fish, only landing 1, but either way it was an awesome morning. The fish took a wide variety of flies, from eggs to stoneflies.

Down river in the DSR, Tony and Chris were wading around looking for a couple fresh steelhead, so after my trip was over I dropped the boat off and meet up with them for lunch and stories of the morning. Tony landed a nice chromer just before I got there, the fishing pressure was high, but after lunch we managed to find some open space down below. For the rest of the evening we had awesome action, including a fish that took Tony about 150 yards down stream to land. Same program as up river, the fish were eating lots of different stuff; Thumpin Jack Flash Stones, Hot Beadhead Prince and PTs, Sucker Spawn, and, eggs.

Thank you Tony and Chris for your awesome photos!!!

Guest Tyer

Frank "Chip" Swarner, a good friend, and even better fly tyer will be showing off his amazing skills this Saturday the 22nd at the shop. Stop in and pick his brain about traditional salmon flies, and his vast knowledge of the New York Steelhead runs.

Check out his Blog for a preview: Chip's Blog

Steelhead and Browns

Joey, Leland and I decided the best way to celebrate St. Patty's day would be go fishing. We headed north after work on Saturday, arriving in Pulaski just in time to pop a top and deal some cards. We took Joey's boat, decided the flows were right and head down with the current. The fishing was slow, fishing pressure wasn’t too bad, but fishing for steelhead in a T-shirt just can’t be beat.

Sunday, after spending half the day getting my boat ready for the fast approaching season, I headed to a small wild brown trout stream. The fishing was awesome, fish were very active on the surface, keying in on Midges and BWOs. I spent most of the time exploring pockets I hadn’t fished before, and flipping rocks over to survey the bug life. I found all kinds of bugs; caddis, BWOs, Sulphurs, but the best discovery was the Golden Stone!

Hot Flies: Pheasant Tails, Zebra Midge, Midge Pop, Sugar Daddy