dkile
Blue Liner Flows Review | USGS Stream Gauges
All water level data originates from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Surface-Water Data, which monitors over 13,000 stream gauges across the U.S. and more than 350 in Pennsylvania. The USGS has been transitioning to a new online interface over the past five-plus years. The updated look and feel have left some old features behind while adding new ones. I hate it.
So, I’ve been on the hunt for a desktop and mobile app that delivers USGS backend data through a clean, easy-to-use interface. Blue Liner Flows offers a solid solution for iPhone, iPad and Mac users, with apps built for both platforms. Most importantly, favorites and preferences sync across devices. There’s a free version, but I’ll be reviewing the $6.99 annual paid version.
Key features include: favorites, state selection, map view, latest data overview, discharge in CFS, discharge in feet, average annual discharge, various time views, weather forecasts, alerts, temperatures (station-dependent), turbidity (station-dependent), and other data specific to each gauge.
I found the app very easy to set up on my Mac. Once configured, all my favorites and alerts synced automatically to my iPhone. You don’t need both devices—an iPhone alone works just fine. I especially liked navigating between the state, favorites, and map views. It’s fast and intuitive. Most views display the key information I’m looking for, including directional arrows indicating whether water levels are rising or falling.
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Where Can I Fly Fish?
The spectrum of opportunities is pretty remarkable. Generally, you can find streams across the state stocked with millions of trout every year by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PFBC). There are hundreds of miles of fragile backwoods waterways with native wild brook trout. There are magnificent-looking streams teaming with natural reproducing brown trout. To add to the opportunity, the region is blessed with a mix of freestone and limestone streams with a wide variety of aquatic life that trout thrive on. Every part of the state has its own unique waterways.
To help, Paflyfish is chocked full of maps, tips, news, stories, and conversations already at your fingertips. Pennsylvania is a sizable state so starting with the Pennsylvania Trout Streams section under the site menu is a good place to begin. The map identifies all the special regulation streams that are ideal for fly fishing. Other types of streams are explained and linked to their locations.
The best advice I can offer for the site is to take the time to do a little research in the forums. Stream Reports can usually yield a string of information. There are plenty of guides, trout bums, locals, scientists, and enthusiasts who hang out here. Don't jump onto the site and make your first post, Where do I fish in Potter County? This approach does not build a lot of trust with other members. Take some time to participate and then ask some good specific...
Reflections: Paflyfish 25 Years Online (Part 1)
I think the Grateful Dead said it best, “What a long, strange trip it's been.” While it’s only been 25 years, it has been a very strange trip. December 1995 was when I first started up an old desktop Macintosh computer and turned it into a web server running a program called Webstar. The website was only capable of serving up a few pages of HTML code and GIF files for the 67 Pennsylvania county fishing maps that were on the site. The Netscape web browser was the latest thing for anyone that had dial-up access to the World Wide Web. At the time there was no Google, Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PFBC) website or much of anything else for that matter.
I think the first month online in December of 1995 the site was overwhelmed with 200 hits. The fact anyone found the site and looked at a few pages was fascinating in itself.
The concept to create the site was more of a personal desire to share the locations online of many of the streams I had found across the state in my early days of fly fishing. There were many fine books written sharing great detail on the topic, but I wanted to experiment with my own effort of creating something more visual online. The early online maps were very crude with some limited information about roads and streams. Nothing anyone could print off and use as navigation, more of a high-level thing if you wanted to simply explore an area and then you had to get out your Delorme Atlas to plan your trip.
My early fly fishing experiences were spent running around the state with my friends Ron Kolman and Greg Sipos. The two of them took the time to show me where and how to fly fish...
A Fall Day on Big Spring Creek
I made it to Big Spring Creek for a nice day on the stream with Derek Eberly. It was mostly cloudy and we had a high air temperature of about 52 degrees. There was a break in clouds with some sun peeking through at about 1:00 pm. A nice day to be out.The water was gin clear and the trout could see us a mile away as we moved up the stream. A normal day on Big Spring Creek. We did obviously try to be stealthy about it, but it was rather difficult.
We did see some sporadic #22 BWO starting mid-day and then it turn into a pretty good hatch by about 1:00. The trout started rising and we switched over to dry flies to see if we could have any luck. I was able to get close to a few trout by crawling along the bank through the weeds but could get any takers.
The best luck for the day was a dry-dropper setup with a cress bug into the little pools. We did get a few dinks which for Big Spring Creek is a good day.
Open Air Podcast Episode 68 - Paflyfish’s Dave Kile
In this episode, Coty and Steve talk with Dave Kile from Paflyfish. We talk about starting a site, choosing flies, places to fish, and much more.
Open Air Podcast Episode 68 - Paflyfish’s Dave Kile
The Open Air Project is a podcast by Coty Soult and Steve Sunderland. The podcast is about hunting, fishing, and the outdoors. The vision for The Open Air project is to share with people the stories of them and their guests, all while educating everyone in the process. They feel that learning is a never-ending journey, one that they intend to share with their audience.
Where can people find the podcast?
You can find the podcast in the links below. I think one of the coolest things is that if you own an Amazon Echo (Alexa) you can tell her to "play the latest episode of The Open Air Project on Tunein Radio" and it starts to play.
Website: http://theopenairproject.com
iTunes: The Open Air Project Coty Soult & Steve Sunderland
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/The-Open-Air-Project-993749137422734/
Stitcher: The Open Air Project
Tunein Radio: https://tunein.com/radio/The-Open-Air-Project-p1037344/
Twitter: The Open Air Project (@openairproject) | Twitter
Instagram: Coty Soult (@theopenairproject) • Instagram photos and videos
Open Air Podcast Episode 68 - Paflyfish’s Dave Kile
The Open Air Project is a podcast by Coty Soult and Steve Sunderland. The podcast is about hunting, fishing, and the outdoors. The vision for The Open Air project is to share with people the stories of them and their guests, all while educating everyone in the process. They feel that learning is a never-ending journey, one that they intend to share with their audience.
Where can people find the podcast?
You can find the podcast in the links below. I think one of the coolest things is that if you own an Amazon Echo (Alexa) you can tell her to "play the latest episode of The Open Air Project on Tunein Radio" and it starts to play.
Website: http://theopenairproject.com
iTunes: The Open Air Project Coty Soult & Steve Sunderland
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/The-Open-Air-Project-993749137422734/
Stitcher: The Open Air Project
Tunein Radio: https://tunein.com/radio/The-Open-Air-Project-p1037344/
Twitter: The Open Air Project (@openairproject) | Twitter
Instagram: Coty Soult (@theopenairproject) • Instagram photos and videos
The Open Air Project Podcast - Episode 66: Big River Fishing with Andy Ranieri
The Open Air Project is a podcast by Coty Soult and Steve Sunderland. The podcast is about hunting, fishing, and the outdoors. The vision for The Open Air project is to share with people the stories of them and their guests, all while educating everyone in the process. They feel that learning is a never-ending journey, one that they intend to share with their audience. They enjoy we can learn, meet unique people, and make few friends along the way, we feel that we've accomplished our goals.
Website: http://theopenairproject.com
iTunes: The Open Air Project Coty Soult & Steve Sunderland
Stitcher: The Open Air Project
Tunein Radio: https://tunein.com/radio/The-Open-Air-Project-p1037344/
Getting On The Board - Muddy Creek 2020
[size=x-small]The second attempt in the last week to get on the board for 2020 turned out to be an outstanding day of fishing at Muddy Creek. Maurice hit me the night before to get out today to Muddy Creek on Monday. I quickly abandoned my plans for the Gunpowder and started packing up the SUV.
We arrived at about 11:00 with temps in the mid-forties and cloud cover. The clouds stayed with us all day and temps moved up to the upper forties. Water was just a little off-color, running at 180 CFS and at about 46 degrees. It could be considered a normal winter day in SEPA.
Maurice pointed out what really made conditions work is the very warm weather and rain just two days before. On January 11th the water temps reached about 51. January 12th was 65 degrees with about .8 inches of rain after midnight. This raised the water temps and changed the clarity of the water to just a little off-color when we got there. The normally sluggish deep holed trout were moving around more, with a better chance of them feeding.
We started out pretty quickly getting some hits and trout My first fish landed just before noon and Maurice followed right along or vice versa I can't recall. I pretty much stuck to fishing a black Palmer streamer all day.
The best section of the stream for me was a longer deep bending hole. After we caught a couple, I was now drifting my streamer...
We arrived at about 11:00 with temps in the mid-forties and cloud cover. The clouds stayed with us all day and temps moved up to the upper forties. Water was just a little off-color, running at 180 CFS and at about 46 degrees. It could be considered a normal winter day in SEPA.
Maurice pointed out what really made conditions work is the very warm weather and rain just two days before. On January 11th the water temps reached about 51. January 12th was 65 degrees with about .8 inches of rain after midnight. This raised the water temps and changed the clarity of the water to just a little off-color when we got there. The normally sluggish deep holed trout were moving around more, with a better chance of them feeding.
We started out pretty quickly getting some hits and trout My first fish landed just before noon and Maurice followed right along or vice versa I can't recall. I pretty much stuck to fishing a black Palmer streamer all day.
The best section of the stream for me was a longer deep bending hole. After we caught a couple, I was now drifting my streamer...