****NOTICE****

Our limited allotment of full- and half-day Prime Time dates for the Lehigh is filling-up quickly.

We also have Evening Float opportunies. Open dates are listed below.

May 23, 25; June 3, 17, 20, 24, 27; July 1, 3

If interested in a trip - email now!





May 2008 Report

2008 Reports
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2003-2007 Reports
^^Please check out our archives^^


May 15, 2008 - LR

As of writing - the Corps has posted a 350cfs release from FE Walter for the weekend. Only if there is heavy precipitation in the headwaters of the Lehigh should there be an update to the release web page. Look for the update sometime on Friday. For a frame of reference, the Lehigh doubles in size (GENERALLY SPEAKING) - - due to trib influence - - by the time it hits the Lehighton gage. At this level the Lehigh does push, but yes, there is still plenty of places to get out, wade, flail, and find rising fish. Be sure though to wear your studs, and don't forget that wading staff. Look for march browns, olives, tan caddis and maybe even the start of the sulphurs. Swing some large wets as well as those always productive buggers. Simple, but effective patterns - - just the way we like it!

We still have dates available for Lehigh Floats.

Email us at info@flyfishpa.net.


Big trout water!


May 12, 2008 - The Tully

We had out Rick again on the Tully over the weekend. Rick fished the Tully last year as a first timer, and did very well. This year we looked to build upon the foundation of information he retained from last year - - which we did -- but the fish did not really want to cooperate all that much. Feeding activity was slow for the most oart, while angler pressure was heavy. For instance in one stretch of very nice water which we worked over big-time, with tried-n-tru imitations, we did not get a hit.

Final tally was about a half-dozen fish stuck or rolled - - none of which came to hand. Best patterns for the day were caddis pupa, nitros, and a #16 green caddis elk hair imitation.

FYI: Word is the sulphurs have begun to pop here in SE PA. See you on the water!


May 9, 2008 - SE PA Sulphur Watch

SE PA fly waters like Ridley and Valley have yet to see the yellowish mayfly poke through the surface. And with the impending weather forecast, who knows when we might begin to see them. What will be interesting is if the latter of the two waters mentioned above will even have a hatch this year. Recent rock rolling over at Valley revealed no sulphur nymphs at all - - at least in the tiny piece of water sampled. Even is there are some left, look for a short and sporatic at best appearence.

Weather/water levels pending we hope to hit it in the coming days.


May 6, 2008 - Lehigh - Lehighton Area Report

Quick report for ya...the bugs still have not got going quite yet - - nor are the fish really looking up. We need the water to hit the 60F mark - - once we get there - - watch out! The Lehigh should light up big time. We've been finding lots of fish in all the likely looking spots, but they have all been underneath on either brown buggers or our maddie wet. A few maddie wets have even been retired due to compromised hooks, ie., bent! With the wet fly taking top trout-getter honors, you can pretty much assume the large march browns are about to get going. Decent releases and subsequent flows, and good weather should only prolong the good fishing.


Bow caught on a bugger.


Another bugger caught bow.


Working a quality looking run.

May 3, 2008 - Lehigh Update

This weekend should provide another great opportunity to get out on the Lehigh. With good angling friendly flows from the dam, down thru the gorge and into the lower river below Palmerton we plan to be on the water. The weather appears to be looking good as well.

Look for the march browns to be popping, along with tan caddis, and maybe even a few leftover hendricksons. The fish should be looking up, especially in the softer water areas - - the tailouts, pools, and bank eddies. Underneath try a big march brown numph, and/or a stone fly imitation. Look for a report toward the beginning of next week. Don't forget, if you are interested in a Lehigh float - - don't hesitate to email us.


May 1, 2008 - Penns Creek Report

Sorry for the late report, but our site got so many hits in April we blew thru our bandwidth quota for the month. Going forward we are going to most likely have to cut back on the number and quality of the images posted in order to lessen the bandwidth usage each time the site gets a hit.

 

Anyway, enough of the tech garbage - - lets get onto the Penns report.

For the nymph fisher, the Penns-Zee is the place to be. Most fly anglers out there really look forward to dry fly, but if you really want to get down to it - nymphs flat-out catch fish and Penns is exhibit A for this technique. This past weekend was no different.

By far the hot fly for us was our march brown nymph. We have written extensively about this pattern in our Reports and you can check it out on our patterns page. Our intention of the pattern is to imitate a shore/soft-water bound migrating march brown nymph becuase that is what they do about this time of year - - but the pattern can also imitate stones, or any other large steno nymph. So we are killing many birds with this nymph. Other subsurface patterns that produced were a lafontaine style caddis pupa, varigated stone and a wired stone. The overall key was to get the fly down deep, and quick. We weight our ties with quite a bit of lead when we tie them, however we regularly added a couple of nice-sized split shot to get it down even more.

As for surface action - - with the high-sun there was not any during the day, but in the eve there was a little bit. The hendrickson spinners should be around for the immediate future, so stock-up on your red-browns.


A trio of quality subsurface caught browns.

As of now, look for Penns to be in great condition come this weekend barring anymore significant rain.