Christmas Eve 2012 Report

About 30 degrees and a gage height of ~3.00 feet at Oatka today.  Skunked but a start time of 9:15 and fishing big streamers may have had something to do with that.  Still, it was wonderful getting out and having the creek all to myself the whole time.  Can't wait to go again!

Merry christmas everyone!

Heavy rig casting (nymphs, streamers, sink tips, and maybe sinking lines?)

My post this morning got me thinking about all the trouble I had been having trying to cast heavy rigs.  Lefty's pointers in this video really helped me understand what I'm doing wrong.

It seems any slack line through the cast caused my major issues with line tangling and "jerkiness."  Well the jerk at the end of my normal back cast caused that slack line!  It isn't normally an issue with dries because they don't have the weight to jerk the line back and cause slack.

So the lessons learned are

1) make sure as much of the line is at the top of the water as you can with a roll cast

2) constant load on the rod during the back cast via a side-armed, circular motion (sounds like a Belgian style cast now that I think about it)

3) finish with a high overhead cast with a little pull on the end to help straighten out the leader

4) make the rod tip circle, not your hand

Finally some room to breathe...

The summer and fall have been a hectic time for my fiance and I.  I wrote previously that we purchased our first home together, so you can imagine that the last few months have been a whirlwind of activity, especially since we decided to host Thanksgiving this year for both our families.

Needless to say, there hasn't been much free time for some fishing.  What makes it a little better for me (but not for our fishy friends) is that many of our area streams have had such a low flow for the summer.  The last time I went out to Oatka a couple of months ago, I felt so bad that I didn't even feel like fishing again until some extended rain came.  It never did.

Now that Thanksgiving is over, I'm finding myself with a little more time...to not fish hehe.  Every time I procrastinate a little and visit some of the fly fishing blogs/sites I frequent, I'm amazed at how devoted to the sport these writers/authors are as well as how much time they have to devote to it.  It seems this part of my life keeps getting busier and busier, though some of the fault is my own (hobbies like hydroponics, home brewing, fly tying, etc.)  I've also never partaken in the excellent lake run fishing we have in the region though I had hoped to begin this year, hopefully next year will be the ticket.

In anticipation of that I've added some some old/vintage toys to the arsenal to a fill out a spot in my collection.  I had recently found an interest in glass rods after following The Fiberglass Manifesto's blog as well as several glass builds by Jordan of JP Ross Fly Rods.  Both spoke of unique abilities inherent to fiberglass, so I thought what the heck, and found a Fenwick 857 from 1978-79 in great condition on ebay for $62!  I had previously won another auction for a Medalist 1495 from the earlier 1970's (before they moved production overseas) and after a good bit of lawn casting with a Cortland DT7 Sylk line, what a great match it was!  I'll have to test it where it counts and with a few other lines just to be sure, but it loads the rod well and casting is so effortless out to 40-50 feet.  The slower action is, I think, a wonderful thing as well and loads the rod more deeply, contributing to its casting ease I'm sure.  I'll have to remember how heavy a presentation it presents on the water too and judge line choices from that as well.  I meant for it to be a steelhead/streamer rod, but if it needs to be pressed into service as a dry fly rod, I'd like to know if it can.

Lastly, my family's annual snowboarding trip is coming up a bit earlier this year, scheduled for the week between Christmas and New Years.  Whiteface is the destination and I was excited to discover that the AuSable River, Fran Betters' home waters, is right there running through Wilmington and Lake Placid.  Not planning to fish at all, but hopefully I can get some good pictures of that historic water!  Until next time.

I complained a bit in my last post about my clinch knots pulling out and resulting in lost fish and more importantly lost fish WITH hooks in their craws (which I certainly wouldn't want). I had been using a knot called the Davy Knot prior to these past few outings, so I suppose I regressed into something that was familiar (and fast to tie).  With the break-offs I've been having I think I better get back into using a Davy or a "Double Davy" shown below (courtesy of Matt's Bucket Blog) or a non-slip mono loop for looped connections.  Here is also a great article by Tim Romano about what life is like from a fishy point of view.

Report 7/6/2012
Conditions: Sunny 67-91F
Location: Oatka Creek, 2.43'
Time: 7:30A-12:00P
Predominant Bug(s): Tricos to start then Cahills a little while before I left

 It's been an exciting summer for my fiance and I for many reasons.  The weather, cook-outs, parties, weddings and receptions (not ours yet), camping, seeing old friends, soccer, even the purchase of our first house together!  woohoo!  ...And of course, the fishing's been great!!

With the 4th being on a Wednesday this year and couple extra days in the vacation pool, I decided take advantage and make it a nice 5 day weekend.  We're closing on our house next week so I wanted to take a bit of time to clean and start packing things up so that's what I'm concentrating on, but I fortunately found some time to get out to Oatka this morning and see what our little stream had to offer.


Evidently others had the same idea (and I don't blame them because today was beautiful!) as there were 5 cars already there which always leaves me concerned it'll be too crowded.  Alas, this isn't Spring Creek and I had nothing to fear.  Plentiful space abounds at Oatka and there are so many great spots that we didn't have to cast on top of one another to get into some fish.


I mentioned the Tricos were on in spinner form and much to my dismay, I was ill prepared for the occasion.  I'm still very new to fly fishing in general so I'm still feeling out the hatches and specifically when they occur.   I usually glance at WNY Fly Fisher's blog the night before to get an idea of what I should be tying and I did get some Cahills tied to add to the Sulphurs I already had.  I tied some parachute style Rusty Spinners which I tried when I got there, but they weren't having any of those.  I had read some Spinners end up looking like Duns with their wings upright, so that's what I was going for, but at least for today the internet was wrong.


I had about an hour left before I wanted to leave but decided to stop off at one more spot that has produced for me in the past.  I had seen a few more Cahills pop off from the surface, however I had exhausted most of my supply by that point, said what the heck, and tied on a Sulphur Dun.  I guess by pure dumb luck I started fishing that when the Cahills really started coming off and I guess they didn't mind the color because I started hooking them left and right.  Knots were my bane today though, I hooked 6 fish in that last hour and landed just the one pictured.  I had been employing Davy Knots prior to a month ago, but found Clinch Knots easier to tie for me right now.  I lost five flies to undone knots today so I think I'll revisit the Davy or go to an Improved Clinch.


Have a great weekend everyone.

Report 7/1/2012
Oatka Creek 2.45' 8:30AM
84F Air, Various bugs
Just a quick report from my outing a few days ago, no predominant hatch with 1 landed and two others hooked, each on a different fly, a size 16 caddis, size 20 antron spinner, and a size 16 CDC dun.  What a great day to get out!

So it turns out I was dead wrong about the water level/flow up in the 'Dacks.  Many of the mountain streams up there are fed from the surrounding lakes.  The streams I scouted were no exception and were fed from either Sacandaga Lake or Lake Pleasant in Speculator, the location of our normal base camp.  I was a bit overwhelmed trying to discover potential new locations, especially since it's my first time searching specifically for trout streams in Speculator, so I unfortunately didn't get a chance to get down to business and fish for our little friends.


I did learn some invaluable information on where I should try for them next time and hopefully I'll be more prepared than I was with regard to flies next time.


We did get pretty rained out on Saturday with a few thunderstorms rolling in, but all in all, a great weekend to be out and with the family and doing some boating, kayaking, light lake fishing, playing bocce, sitting by the fire, etc.  Enjoy the pictures!

My little brother Chip loves the Reese's Puffs, what a coincidence, I do too!

Big (short) camping weekend coming up at the family's preferred camping area in Speculator, NY in the  heart of ADK.  Usual show is skiing/wakeboarding, spin fishing, drinking, smores, fires, etc.  This year I have some confidence in my casting and my fly tying ability so I'll do some exploring and hopefully hook into some of the famed NY state fish in the area.


It's been hot in my part of the woods lately and a quick glance at Speculator's weather revealed the same.  I'm aware the source for many of the creeks in the area is snow melt, so hot weather means lower flows and higher water temps.  This is more a reminder for myself, but I should bring a thermometer to measure stream temps and couple that with maybe catching a morning hatch rather than an evening spinner fall.  I'm usually diligent about allowing a fish to recover before letting it go, so this is also a reminder to maybe lengthen that amount of time.


Due to the heat, timing wise it looks like it'll be the meat of the Sulphur, BWO, Caddis, and Stonefly season, the beginning of the Golden Drake, and the end of the March Brown, Blue Dun, Grey Fox, Green Drake, and Drake Fly.  I'm sure I'll get some laughs from the family (they think fly fishing is an old man's game) but I'm bringing a limited supply of fly tying stuff so I'll have some leeway to vary patterns to the area if needed.


That's it for now, hopefully I'll report back Sunday with some obligatory fishy photos.

Conditions: Sunny 74-81F
Location: Oatka Creek, 2.67'
Predominant Bug(s): Nymphs, ants


Got to go out for a couple of hours today...and initially saw nothing rising, no dimples, nada!  Which made for an immediate uh oh as I haven't got nymphing down well yet!  Toward the end I threw on a couple small midge patterns to hopefully imitate the ants I think a couple small fish were rising to, but to no avail.


So zilch in the end, but hey, it was a beautiful day to be out and enjoying it.

I suck at this posting thing obviously, just wanted to update that I got out to Oatka Park today and caught my first fishies on my own flies!  Flies of the day were a Cahill inspired 18 and a CDC Dun 16!  Really really sucky picture from my phone that was in a ziplock bag, but oh well!  Have a happy memorial weekend!

Just noticed that I last posted in September, yikes!  Just posting a quick note at work, but some things I'm looking to talk about tonight are:

• The two new to me rods that are now part of the family
• Product notes on other new gear acquired
• Advances in my fly tying endeavours thus far
• The first thing I should say on this topic is, due to it being winter here in Rochester, NY and due to the fact that I haven't made much of an effort to get out and do some fishing when its cold, I've been concentrating my fly tying techniques and trying to produce some flies that'll hopefully catch some fish this coming season
• The wonderful thing I'm finding that tying allows me to do is to get creative with the patterns, the first one here, an emerger style on a size 20 hook, is a combination of the features of the Shipman's Buzzer and a CDC emerger.  Antron yarn was caught in at the head and folded back over and secured to form a loop.  The waste ends were intentionally left long, mimicking the head of a Shipman, the body was a single layer wrap of orange sewing thread (Gutermann) to try and get some segmentation, and that's it.  As with the rest of the patterns below, they're all some of my first attempts so I have no idea how they'll actually perform and I'm sure there will be some tweaking as with any prototype.

• Easy trico recipe:  http://www.charliesflyboxinc.com/flybox/details.cfm?parentID=110
• Detailed fly pattern tutorials, popular patterns:  http://www.troutflies.com/tutorials/index.shtml
• My other new adventure...hydroponics!
• http://www.helpfulgardener.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=32071
• http://www.hydroponics-simplified.com/raft-lettuce.html