Paflyfish
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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YOUTH CAMP FLIES - THANK YOU
To the fly tiers of PAFF, a hearty thank you for your efforts in supporting the Rivers Conservation and Fly Fishing Youth Camp. I had put in a request for fly donations (original thread) and many of you donated your time and materials to produce some excellent flies. The camp director, upon receiving the flies, was very appreciative, calling them a "game changer," as donations were lower this year. The students will be meeting soon on the Yellow Breeches and will put the flies to good use. The youth camp was conceived by Jack Beck of Cumberland Valley Trout Unlimited who pondered why America had all sorts of youth camps for various sports and other activities, but not cold water conservation. Today, the CVTU youth camp sets the standard for a variety of similarly themed youth camps and puts teenagers in hands-on activities including building stream improvement structures, fly tying and macro-invertebrate study. In the mornings and evenings, the students get to apply what they learned by fly fishing on Yellow Breeches.
Thanks,
Dave_W
April Fly Fishing in Northcentral Pennsylvania: Zoom Presentation
Are you getting ready for fly fishing this spring? Join Dave Allbaugh and Dave Kile as they take a look at April fly fishing in the northern tier of Pennsylvania. Dave Allbaugh a Johnstown native, licensed guide, and experienced angler in Northcentral Pennsylvania since the 1970s. Dave is widely known for his unique expertise in wet fly fishing and tying.
With spring just getting started, the April hatches offer up some of the first opportunities to plan for some much-anticipated fly fishing. We will take a look at where, when, and how to make the most of the early spring fly fishing season on streams like Kettle Creek, First Fork and Big Pine.
So grab a beverage, kick back and enjoy a fun presentation on Thursday, March 18, 2021, at 7:00 pm.
Topics will include:
Northern Tier streams
April hatches
Flies and streamers
Your questions and answers
Audience: Beginner and intermediate anglers
Presenter: Dave Allbaugh, Wet Fly Waterguides
Hosted by: Dave Kile, Founder of Paflyfish
There is limited space and registration is required in advance for this Zoom meeting: http://bit.ly/3r2mbHg
This is a free educational program and will be recorded. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Dave Allbaugh at The Fly Fishing Show
First Fork in Potter County
With spring just getting started, the April hatches offer up some of the first opportunities to plan for some much-anticipated fly fishing. We will take a look at where, when, and how to make the most of the early spring fly fishing season on streams like Kettle Creek, First Fork and Big Pine.
So grab a beverage, kick back and enjoy a fun presentation on Thursday, March 18, 2021, at 7:00 pm.
Topics will include:
Northern Tier streams
April hatches
Flies and streamers
Your questions and answers
Audience: Beginner and intermediate anglers
Presenter: Dave Allbaugh, Wet Fly Waterguides
Hosted by: Dave Kile, Founder of Paflyfish
There is limited space and registration is required in advance for this Zoom meeting: http://bit.ly/3r2mbHg
This is a free educational program and will be recorded. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Dave Allbaugh at The Fly Fishing Show
First Fork in Potter County
Great Budget Action Camera - AKASO Brave 7 LE + GIVEAWAY
Fairly often on Paflyfish, a thread starts up in the forum about what’s the best camera to use while fly fishing. Many traditional cameras are often suggested and I have gone through my share of high-end to smartphone cameras while on the water. I even tried an action camera several years ago. Everyone has their requirements, but I recently have had a chance to try out the AKASO Brave 7 LE and offer some ideas on how it may be a fit for anglers. AKASO approached me about a review but did not ask for any conditions on what I could say about the product. Anglers are looking for several things when it comes to using a camera on the stream. Most importantly we need something waterproof, on the small side, convenient, affordable, and fast to capture an image. With all the gear we are lugging around it can be cumbersome to add another item to our vest, bag, or hanging around our neck. All cameras offer challenges to meeting our needs and then providing easy access to capturing a picture of that awesome wild brook trout we want to share with others. I know I feel like a juggler managing the net, trout, rod, camera to capture the image at just the right angle.
I have used many different cameras and failed more than once. Some experiences are better than others. My favorite was taking a picture of a real nice brown on Penns Creek last spring with my iPhone, falling into the water while still holding the fish and dropping the phone. Nice! But I have dropped my phone in a stream before, so I’m getting pretty good at the mistake.
The AKASO Brave 7 LE offers some nice features to consider in lieu of a traditional camera or iPhone. Functionality includes: 4k video, camera, time-lapse, slow motion, still burst, driving mode, 6 axis stabilization, smartphone remote control, and a variety of video resolutions and frame...
Trout Carvings - January 2021 by MathFish
Just sharing my newest fish carvings. Last weekend, I started 3 fish and carved them on and off throughout the week. This weekend, I painted all three. It was a nice way to spend some time inside watching the snow happen out my window.
The first trout was a brookie carving I made as a thank you gift for a friend of mine who really helped me out this past fall. I based it off of a trout I caught a few years ago. I'm happy with how it turned out and I almost wanted to keep it for myself.
The brookie that the carving is based on
Here is the painted carving.
Next, I decided to make a California Golden Trout. This carving is based off of photos I found online of them. I made a pinewood derby car of one of these trout, but this is my first attempt at carving the fish without wheels. This fish took my about 4 hours to paint. I told my wife that I plan to one day get out fish for these.
...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.
Memories of Nelson and Armstrong Creeks
By Matt Hanist
I've met hundreds of guys and gals while fly fishing these past sixty years. Everyone I have met and chatted with has been pleasant and I enjoyed our break from fishing.
The person I remember most was at the time my fly fishing idol, Joe Brooks, author of many of the earlier books about fly fishing and he has had a column in Outdoor Life for many years. Two of my favorite books, that led me to my early adventures in Montana are: Complete Book of Fly Fishing and Trout Fishing.
I first fished the Beaverkill in July of 1965 after reading an article Joe Brooks had written in Outdoor Life. I vividly remember standing in Horseneck Brook riffle, the riffle above Cairns Pool, and tying on a #12 Hares Ear nymph and casting it across into the current and letting it swing below me. I didn’t know very much about the subtleties of a drag free drift then but I had the idea the fly needed to look natural. After a few minutes I was rewarded with a strike and I landed my first Beaverkill brown trout on a fly. That first brown trout got me hooked on fly fishing and Mr. Brooks’ books became my constant evening companions.
I used to live in Clifton, New Jersey and every Saturday morning I would drive up and fish all day until dark and then drive the two hours back to New Jersey. Later on, I started to rent a trailer on the Willowemoc and would drive up after work on Friday and spend the weekend on the Beaverkill and Willowemoc until after 4:30 then drive over to Kellam’s Bridge on the Delaware for the evening rise. I used to dream about Joe Brooks’ adventures in Montana on the Madison and all the Livingston spring creeks and...
I've met hundreds of guys and gals while fly fishing these past sixty years. Everyone I have met and chatted with has been pleasant and I enjoyed our break from fishing.
The person I remember most was at the time my fly fishing idol, Joe Brooks, author of many of the earlier books about fly fishing and he has had a column in Outdoor Life for many years. Two of my favorite books, that led me to my early adventures in Montana are: Complete Book of Fly Fishing and Trout Fishing.
I first fished the Beaverkill in July of 1965 after reading an article Joe Brooks had written in Outdoor Life. I vividly remember standing in Horseneck Brook riffle, the riffle above Cairns Pool, and tying on a #12 Hares Ear nymph and casting it across into the current and letting it swing below me. I didn’t know very much about the subtleties of a drag free drift then but I had the idea the fly needed to look natural. After a few minutes I was rewarded with a strike and I landed my first Beaverkill brown trout on a fly. That first brown trout got me hooked on fly fishing and Mr. Brooks’ books became my constant evening companions.
I used to live in Clifton, New Jersey and every Saturday morning I would drive up and fish all day until dark and then drive the two hours back to New Jersey. Later on, I started to rent a trailer on the Willowemoc and would drive up after work on Friday and spend the weekend on the Beaverkill and Willowemoc until after 4:30 then drive over to Kellam’s Bridge on the Delaware for the evening rise. I used to dream about Joe Brooks’ adventures in Montana on the Madison and all the Livingston spring creeks and...
The Small Warm Water Stream Summer Game
Mid summer into mid autumn is prime time for small stream, warm water fly fishing. While this summer (2018) has, so far, been unseasonably wet and cool here in southcentral Pennsylvania, mid-June has traditionally been the time I start to look to local creeks for bass and panfish. The main game are smallmouth bass, rock bass, and red-breast sunfish. Many of these creeks also have largemouth bass, carp, fallfish, green sunfish, bluegills, hatchery trout, crappies, even pickerel and walleyes. However, red-breasts, rockies, and smallies are prevalent in most of the creeks I fish, with red-breasts ruling the roost. Green sunfish are equally widespread and sometimes are present in numbers best described as swarms, but they’re generally too small to target.
Many fly fishers, if they’re not focused entirely on trout fishing, look forward to the summer bass fishing season. Wading or boating the Susquehanna or other bigger waters is indeed a great experience, but many of these anglers overlook the little local creeks close to home. While the rivers are a motivating place to fish in summer, if you don’t live near one, or otherwise are waiting for levels to drop and clear, something that can take several days after small streams have cleared, don’t overlook warm water creeks close to home. Most of these streams I frequent are typically twenty to fifty feet wide and comparable to what I’d consider medium sized trout creeks that one would fish with a 4WT.
Many of these streams are downstream sections of Approved Trout Waters. Agricultural valley streams can be productive too. Some are tributaries of bigger rivers and may play a role in bass spawning in springtime. One thing to note about access: land owners whose properties these creeks traverse, are often less familiar with anglers on their property as...
Many fly fishers, if they’re not focused entirely on trout fishing, look forward to the summer bass fishing season. Wading or boating the Susquehanna or other bigger waters is indeed a great experience, but many of these anglers overlook the little local creeks close to home. While the rivers are a motivating place to fish in summer, if you don’t live near one, or otherwise are waiting for levels to drop and clear, something that can take several days after small streams have cleared, don’t overlook warm water creeks close to home. Most of these streams I frequent are typically twenty to fifty feet wide and comparable to what I’d consider medium sized trout creeks that one would fish with a 4WT.
Many of these streams are downstream sections of Approved Trout Waters. Agricultural valley streams can be productive too. Some are tributaries of bigger rivers and may play a role in bass spawning in springtime. One thing to note about access: land owners whose properties these creeks traverse, are often less familiar with anglers on their property as...