Fishidiot

The Cumberland Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited will be hosting its Annual Mid Atlantic Fly Casting Championships on June 20th, 2015 at Allenberry Resort in Boiling Springs, PA. The competition will be conducted in conjunction with The Pennsylvania Fly Fishing Museum 13th Annual Heritage Day Celebration. The Heritage Day event is a full day of celebrating the fly fishing heritage in Pennsylvania with over 60 vendors and exhibitors, hands on demonstrations, special seminars, instruction, raffles, auctions and the always popular Fish Swim Race on the Yellow Breeches for a chance to win $500! More information on Heritage Day is available on the Museum website: www.paflyfishing.org.

Article by Dave Weaver
Photo courtesy tomitrout

I like it! Nice job Gaeron.

This article is another in Dave Weaver’s on going “Casting through History” series. His previous article in this series was John Brown’s Bass.

Over the years many of you, if you’ve visited Yellow Breeches Anglers in Boiling Springs, have probably gazed at one particular dusty old mounted brown trout. When I was a kid, I’d look at this fish and think that it wasn’t the best taxidermy job. If you’re a Cumberland Valley regular or otherwise familiar with the writings of Charlie Fox and others, you’re probably aware of the story behind this fish. If not, we’ll re-tell the story behind this dusty old trophy…..a veritable sacred relic of Pennsylvania fishing history.

Ed Koch is part of Pennsylvania’s unique fly fishing heritage. His book Fishing the Midge is a classic and, like many of the writings of his generation, is always worth a re-read. Ed was also the long time owner of the Yellow Breeches fly shop. Many of you may remember chatting with Ed in the shop. This was Ed’s great trophy, caught from Letort Spring Run in August 1962. Charlie Fox recollects the story in his classic, This Wonderful World of Trout: Ed had hooked the fish three times previously. Finally, he saw the giant again and, after several casts, the big brown rose and ate a Letort Cricket, a popular deer hair dry fly. After a tough, twenty five minute fight in the weeds, the fish came to the net: 27 and a half inches and over nine pounds. Fox describes Koch’s trembling hands when the fish was weighed and photographed. Shortly later, the Fish Commission announced that this was the largest brown trout ever caught in Pennsylvania on a dry fly. Does this fish still hold this distinction today? I don’t know - perhaps. I think every fly fisherman dreams of that fish of a lifetime; a fish that takes perseverance and...

Fly Fishing for Striped Bass
Rich Murphy
Wild River Press, 2007
457pp

The claim that any book is “definitive” has always caused me to dismiss the reviewers glowing claims that inevitably follow – and I’ll not use the term in this review – but Fly Fishing for Striped Bass by Rich Murphy comes close to meeting this ideal. I’ve had the pleasure of chatting with Rich at the Somerset show in the past and marveling at his beautiful and innovative fly patterns. When I asked him if he’d ever caught a tautog on a fly (something I’ve tried to do for years, without any luck) he responded with a tone suggesting that it was downright easy.

Looking at his crab patterns, it doesn’t surprise me that ole Mr Tog would fall for ‘em. Anyway, this book, is simply put, a pleasure to read or just peruse. Replete with color photos on every page, it’s a coffee table book that reads just as well. In its 9 chapters, FFfSB starts with an intriguing chapter that follows the migration of “Sax,” a fictional, fifty pound cow bass on her migration up the coast.

Other chapters describe the various techniques for flats, rocks, bays, etc as well as Rich’s excellent flies and other gear. Murphy, a driven, rail thin runner and type A angler is highly intelligent and you can sense his intense focus on every page. The book can be difficult to read in a bit too many sections and sometimes it seems that Murphy tries a bit too hard by half to find a sophisticated voice, writing too many passages like this:

We know from Chapter 2 that a major physiological change happens in her eyes at sundown – the color receptors or cones on the surface of her eye’s retina retract and contrast detecting receptors, or rods are deployed in their place. This enhances her capacity to detect subtle changes in the contrast gradient of the water column around her caused by the movement of her prey or predators…My surface night patterns are configured to...

There is a common view among old Letort regulars that the stream is considerably more thick with weeds than in the past. In recent years, it's not uncommon to see the entire stream channel choked to within a few inches of the surface with elodea and chara. With weeds this thick, holding habitat for trout is diminished and some folks feel that it's negatively impacting mayfly populations. Worse still, these heavy weed sections are displacing the water flow up out of the creek's banks and into nearby meadows. With a chronic sinkhole problem in the upper Letort, water pushing up into the meadows is worsening the situation. Obviously, weeds in a spring creek are a natural characteristic and beneficial. Too much of a good thing becomes problematic.

This week, CVTU members went to work on a continuing process of cutting back some of these weeds. Using a cutter called a "weedrazor," channels were cut into the weeds and the cuttings were pulled out with rakes. An 80 yard section of the middle heritage section now has a much better channel. Since this process started, water levels appear to have dropped as much as a few inches. This meadow is still weedy (as it should be) but much improved. Just upstream of where we were working, an 18" wild brown could be seen in a clear section between weedbeds.

If you're interested in supporting, joining, or learning more about Cumberland Valley TU, please visit: http://cvtu.homestead.com/

Thanks,
Dave W

Photos courtesy G Giza

By Dave Weaver (“Fishidiot”)
October 6, 2010

For many of us in the Pennsylvania smallmouth bass fly fishing community, the decline of the bass fishery in the lower Susquehanna River, and to a lesser degree, the lower Juniata River, has been a source of sadness, concern, and hoped for recovery. While the cause of this decline has been intensely studied by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PFBC) and other agencies - and these studies continue, no clear cause can yet be identified. The current studies suggest low dissolved oxygen and low, warm water may be at least partially the culprit in the failure of young bass to survive. Many frustrated anglers continue to debate different theories and possible causes among themselves (quite evident on the forums here on PaFlyFish). Another topic for debate revolves around what measures to implement to limit the decline and perhaps expedite the recovery of bass in these sections of river. Among the most common suggestions has long been implementation of catch and release regulations.

This week the PFBC led by their new Executive Director, John Arway, has announced this new catch and release policy will be put into effect at the beginning of 2011. At that point, all smallmouth bass in the Juniata River downstream of Port Royal, and in the Susquehanna downriver from Sunbury, will have to be released. Undoubtedly, this will be welcome news to many in the angling community. These sections of river have been managed under Big Bass regulations for a decade or so. Although these regulations have been embraced by many, in my opinion they may do greater damage by requiring anglers to release smaller bass and kill bigger fish. In particular, the 18” minimum size limit on smallmouths in effect during the colder months of the year is particularly worrisome to me. It’s not uncommon, especially during the pre-spawn, to see a boat at a ramp with a pair of...