Years ago it was pretty common to find streamer flies in smaller sizes in most shops and fly boxes. They took many forms, from bucktails like the Mickey Finn and Black Nose Dace to the beautiful Lew Oatman and Carrie Stevens feather wing patterns. Pennsylvania’s Sam Slaymaker tied a series of baby trout patterns to imitate brook, brown and rainbow trout. Somewhere along the way the lid blew off and my streamer boxes these days have some pretty nasty and big articulated flies.

We can all trace our paths back to the beginning of something, back to the roots. I was an 11 year-old kid that was always drawn to the water and inquisitive about what happens in that mysterious world below the waterline. I decided at that ripe age that I wanted to be a fly tyer and set off on a journey that continues to this day. The first flies I attempted to learn back then were traditional wet flies and “The Knoll Guide to Trout Flies”, Helen Shaw’s “Fly Tying” and Ray B

There hasn’t been much fishing of late with the low water conditions we are experiencing here, but hopefully the streams get some rain this week. Many of them badly need it. There are still plenty of things to do and I’ve been busy writing and working on a few fly orders, and also have a few events coming up. I’ll be presenting “A Walk on the Wild Side, Fly Fishing Pennsylvania’s Headwater Streams at the October 10 meeting of Hacklebarney Trout Unlimited in Whippany, New Jers

I’m ever amazed by the combinations of coloration found in nature, and holding one of these speckled works of art never grows old for me. A male eastern brook trout puts on an incredible display of color as they get ready for the big dance of the fall spawning season. The fire belly male pictured here was from a small stream in Potter County that will hopefully pass on his genetics. The low water conditions we are experiencing here in the east are worrisome going into the spa

I’ve never felt that the fish I catch validate me as an angler. I’ve had the fortune of catching my share of larger fish over the years; and while some of them were caught in very challenging situations that made me work my best game, many others were honestly just a matter of the right place, the right time and the right drift. Catching a big trout doesn’t validate you as an accomplished angler, and not catching a big trout doesn’t mean you aren’t already one. Many anglers c

We are only a few days from the middle of August; and while this time of the season is usually the thick of the “dog days of summer”, Indian Summer seems to have started here more than a week ago. The trees are already showing the first golden tones of the next season and the nights here have been refreshingly cool. While the passing of a short summer season brings a certain sadness; there is the knowledge and anticipation that cooler water is coming, and our trout will soon

A few weeks ago I wrote that blue lining was a combination of exploration, exhilaration and outright exhaustion in varying measure. The process for me starts with studying maps, looking for likely places to explore with little certainty of what might be at the end of a hike. Topo maps never tell you about the rhododendron thickets you may need to crawl through, the rocks or the rattlers you might encounter along the way. Many times there is no road or trail to get to these pl

The first pitch is always the most important one you make, and it’s the one that deserves the best combined efforts of your experience, powers of observation and planning. The fish in some streams are wild veterans that have survived a lifetime of predation by having sharpened instincts and have a keen sense of danger and the shapes that it can take. On some technical waters an angler may only get a pitch or two at a good fish. Throw a bad pitch and the game is often over. I

I’ve always enjoyed that first moment when I arrive to the edge of the water and the feeling that comes with standing close to it. After all these years, I’m still just a kid that enjoys playing in the water. I always a few minutes spent just watching, listening and disconnecting from the concerns of the busy life I live and connecting with the stream. It’s time I don’t want to hurry through in my rush to get away from that busy life to getting busy engaging in the act of fis

It’s the time of the season when water temperatures in the bigger water start to rise above safe levels for trout fishing, and both the trout and those that pursue them are moving their game into the colder water of the headwater streams. I see posts on some of the Facebook groups that make me smile and others that make me cringe. There’s nothing more upsetting than seeing a trout laid out on a rock or on the ground, held in a dry hand or covered with dirt and leaves. In some

Hiking into headwater streams can be a combination of exploration, exhilaration and outright exhaustion in varying measure. I spent Independence Day feeling independent of a normal day of chasing a paycheck, to chase wild trout in some wilder areas instead. Those that really know me well know how low my tolerance for picnics can be when I would much rather be standing in a cold stream. A few streams were on the bucket list for the day, and in usual fashion my favorite cane ro

I spent this past Saturday hiking and fishing a few small Class A Wild headwater streams in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania with my friend Bob Romano. For those of you that don’t know Bob or aren’t familiar with his work; he is a very talented writer, angler and all-around good spirit that enjoys the small stream experience and pens wonderful stories about them in his books. Bob is the author of a number of fly fishing books including “The River King”, “Shadows in the St

On last week’s post I extolled the virtues of the USGS Quadrangle Topo map as a planning tool. My exploration of a blue line is always planned by studying the maps that I have available to develop my hike to find and explore those streams. I did not have a topo map for the first stream on this past weekend’s radar, but the review of a GIS map looked simple enough. Park here, hike a little over three fourths of a mile along a stream, come to the mouth of a Class A Wild tributa

Exploring the small streams that hold wild trout is an obvious passion of mine. In spite of advancement in technology, I still enjoy the game of pouring over topo maps to find the blue lines that indicate running water, and studying the brown lines to learn the contours of the land. A GPS or GIS maps are cool developments, but many of the places I seek offer no internet signal, and an old fashioned USGS quadrangle map is my favorite mode of finding these headwater gems and pl

It’s rare to have a friend that will hike well over a half a mile to a headwater stream in the middle of nowhere, completely aware of the thin possibility that there will be something worth fishing at the end of it. It’s even rarer to have a friend that will indulge that trek in a downpour without whining and bitching the entire time, and laughs at miserable weather instead. Dan is one of those kinds of friends. We met in Idaho about eight years ago; and since then we’ve mana

Some days things in life just seem to come together…. The rain takes a day off on the same day that I did, and I can slip away to the kinds of quiet places where I feel the most at peace. Places where the water tumbles clear and cold over smooth stones, places where the shadows in the forest seems to hold secrets, places where the marsh violets bloom and the mosses grow close along the banks, and places where wild fish will rise to a fly tucked tight under an overhanging heml

I’ve read that science has isolated a genetic predisposition among those of us that have a tendency or need to explore. I’m not at all afraid to admit that I have this trait, and the DRD4-7R gene is certainly a dominant trait in within my DNA. I choose to blame my parents for this and their lives and lifestyles reflected that behavior also and my kids both seem to have inherited it as well. For me the “wanderlust” trait keeps me ever on the move, frequently exploring new stre

I spent a day this past weekend exploring a few thin blue lines in central Pennsylvania with my friend George Reilly. The trip was my donation to the Pennsylvania Fly Fishing Museum Association’s fundraising banquet last fall. George was the winning bidder and spent a day with me conducting “research” (aka fishing) for a new project I’m working on. He will be getting a set of 10 high quality photographs from the day and the chance of some of those images appearing in my next