Beggining of the Clarion River season

    It has been a not so bad start to the season so far.  Water temps are still pretty cold but on the good cloudy days with stable flow conditions decent fish have been caught.  The first couple trips found that most of the fish were grouped up in their prime wintering spots.  Slower currents, deep water, and lots of structure.  As of late, the fish have been spreading out.  More are being caught in the faster current and shallower water.   A few bugs have been present.  Black stone flies and midges mostly.  Not enough for consistent rising but enough to make a trout attack once in a while.  

    We have been fishing mostly streamers so far.  Big and ugly has was the ticket early but a slimmer, shorter profile has been working best as of late.  We have stopped and ran some nymphs in some of the primary riffles with moderate success.  I am sure that a little more time and effort would produce more fish on nymphs, but I must admit that when they are chasing streamers and you get to see the entire follow and take, that I would much rather cast the big stuff. 
    

Warmer temps this week should help get the fish a little more active.  Hendricksons are right around the corner.  As much as I love streamers, I can not wait to cast a dry fly to a big rising brown trout.  More clients are starting to book trips now that the weather is breaking and I can not wait to spend more days on the water.  Hopefully this will be the start to a great season.

Warm water heating up!!

     Some early morning smallies followed by carp on dry flies.  A nice change of pace after fishing for trout all spring.  Looking forward to getting into some pike and musky action next week.

Living The Dream

          I do not really know what to say other than.... does it get any better that this?  Two beautiful days on two different rivers.  Thank you to Jim from the Dudewater Blog and Orvis Cleveland and also Alex, who guides out of Ohio for coming over to fish.  Great weather, great fishing, and spending time with other FISHAHOLICS.  Like the title of this post says...Living The Dream

Clarion Browns On The Surface

                                                                                            

     What started as a cold slow morning took a major turn after lunch.  In the heat of this cold day the hendricksons came off heavy for about an hour in the afternoon.  We took advantage of every minute.  My clients Mike and Dave caught some great fish on dry flies.  Looking forward to this week.  Should be some good fishing.

Clarion River Scouting Mission...Success!

They do not get any more colorful than this.

Had my tripod attached to a tree branch over the water.  It's tough taking pics when you are by yourself.

Pretty brown with a nice copper john stuck to his nose!  Right were we like it.

Nice male with a good hook. 

   

   

      A good day of scouting on the Clarion River.  Caught a good number of fish on various beaded nymphs today.  The water is still cold but the fish seemed to be pretty active.  I have some guide trips coming up soon and can not wait to put some clients on these beautiful fish. 
     Finally it looks like we are going to have a normal spring.  Last year at this time it was 80 degrees, water was getting low, and we were already through the hendrickson hatch and starting into caddis.  Hopefully this makes for a longer season on the Clarion this year.

It's that time of the year again!

I 

     Decided to be selfish today and just go by myself down to the Clarion River.  I took a rod, my backpack, most importantly a camera, and just walked the train tracks along the river to some of my favorite spots.  I started off the day with nymphs.  Managed to land one brown really quick and then hit a dry spell.  I noticed that there was some caddis flies coming off and I saw a fish come up for one but that was it.  I switched to some caddis nymphs and started really doing well.  I landed a few browns and one rainbow.  Being happy with my success I started walking back towards my truck.  To my surprise the Hendricksons started to hatch and the fish started rising.  Needless to say an hour walk downstream turned into four hours on the way back.  Caught some nice fish and lost some bigger ones all on a parachute adams.  What a great day to be on the water!

More Tiger Trout Pics

     This is just an addition from the previous post.  Here are a few more pics now that you know what you are looking at.

What do you see in this picture?

     If you did not know that I was a fisherman and what you would assume to see in this picture, would you notice?  This is a Tiger Trout that a client caught on the Allegheny River today.  I can't explain how pretty the markings were on it.  You can see it for yourself!

Weekend Catch

     Despite the tough fishing conditions with the warm sun and a million canoes and kayaks, we still managed to catch some nice fish over the weekend on both the Clarion and Allegheny rivers.  Hoppers with nymph droppers on the Clarion and caddis emergers on the Allegheny.  Congratulations to John and Linda on some nice fish caught the last couple days and some even nicer ones that got away.  One giant jumping rainbow in particular on the Allegheny.

Last Chance Riffle

After a good day of fishing on the Allegheny River, we managed to catch this nice rainbow out of the last riffle before the takeout.  We had a good day with some quality browns landed and some nice fish that got away.  This best fish of the day came after drifting the same small pocket for 20 minutes before finally getting a strike.  I guess persistence really does pay off!  Nice fish Phil.

Allegheny Bows

Just a couple more fish pics from our day off on the water.  A couple of nice rainbows

Hook, Land, Pose, and Celebrate!

 Shane with a nice rainbow and the whole story captured in a series of pictures.  It was a good day to be off and fishing the Allegheny with Dave acting as our guide.

Better Late Than Never

Finally the Allegheny river is fishable.  We got down there on the first day that the river was down and it felt great to get the Helios Switch Rod back out.  The fish are pounding caddis larva as usual.  Every fish caught had a mouth full of bugs.