Early Stones - It's Game on.

[Fishidiot]

The little early stones were all over the Susquehanna River near Harrisburg today - both the little blacks and the larger browns. The browns were pretty big (roughly #16) and very active on the surface, esp the bank side eddies.

 

[SBecker]

But the question is.....Were fish feeding on them up top?

 

[Maurice]

SBecker wrote:
But the question is.....Were fish feeding on them up top?

What fish?????


Hy-yoooohhhhh! :-D

 

[1wt]

At first I thought you meant early "Rolling Stones"?

 

[mutzinbaugh]

Maurice wrote:

SBecker wrote:
But the question is.....Were fish feeding on them up top?

What fish?????


Hy-yoooohhhhh! :-D

yea, what fish? carp and catfish. i guess if you could catch them in the river on a fly rod you would have a gold mine.

fyi...slate run tackle shop reported sightings of the quill gordon!

 

[SBecker]

I would be fine catching carp and catfish on top lol

 

[mutzinbaugh]

that would be wonderful, you have to use popcorn! i saw a guy doing this years ago. there you go, tie up a popcorn fly.

 

[1wt]

SBecker wrote:
I would be fine catching carp and catfish on top

Me too! This year, I'm going to hit the Susquehanna big time for carp and channel cats.

There are so very many common carp and channel cats in the lower Susquehanna. With most of the smallmouth gone, I kinda gave up for the last couple years, but I'll be back with a vengeance (and my 8wt) pretty soon.

So many times I have seen lots of carp sipping flies off the surface, and this year I'll be after the "fresh water bonefish"

 

[MattBoyer]

Funny you should post this Dave, as I got a little busy and didn't get to post pictures of them crawling all over the rocks last night at Duke's in Wormleysburg.I guess good news travels fast!

Boyer

 

[StarvinMarvin]

haha its a blast i tied flies for them this year. .

 

[StarvinMarvin]

well thats weird, posting a vid is a little hard ha

 

[The_Sasquatch]

NOOOOO!!!!! No quill gordons yet!

Please rename to "March Brown Summit"!

 

[JackM]

I won't say one or two weren't seen, but there is no way, no way that any hatch has started. We get this kind of thing all the time and it never pans out. Hatches will get under way within two weeks of either side of when they would be expected. Trust me.

 

[McSneek]

MattBoyer wrote:
Funny you should post this Dave, as I got a little busy and didn't get to post pictures of them crawling all over the rocks last night at Duke's in Wormleysburg.I guess good news travels fast!

Boyer

If you want to see stone flies definitely have lunch on the deck at Duke's on a warm early spring day.

 

[jeremymcon]

Wait... I was under the impression that stoneflies were a western thing. Do we have stoneflies in the Eastern US? I've only been fly fishing for about 8 months, but I've never heard of anybody fishing stone fly patterns in PA...

 

[JackM]

We have them from size 4 down to 18 or so.

 

[dryflyguy]

JackM wrote:
I won't say one or two weren't seen, but there is no way, no way that any hatch has started. We get this kind of thing all the time and it never pans out. Hatches will get under way within two weeks of either side of when they would be expected. Trust me.

You must not have fished in early spring of last year!
I hit great quill gordon, hendrickson, and grannom hatches during the last week of march. And that was at least 3 weeks before their average emergence dates of april 15.

As for stonelfies, I saw some hatching on presidents day last year at yellow creek - which was my first day out - and was told by other fisherman that day, that they had already been hatching for several weeks

 

[Fishidiot]

jeremymcon wrote:
Wait... I was under the impression that stoneflies were a western thing. Do we have stoneflies in the Eastern US?

Jeremy,
Yes, we have stoneflies in the East. It is certainly true that you hear more about them in the West as it is out there where the big "salmonfly" hatches generally occur. Folks don't fish a lot of stonefly hatches here in PA but they do occur (several varieties) and the "early" stoneflies, such as those being discussed here.....are typically the first significant annual hatches in PA. They often don't produce great fishing but rather serve as nature's notice that winter is winding down and springtime is coming.

 

[fishingnoob]

It has definitely started JackM. They were all over the bank and could be seen easily in the snow at Cool Spring Creek in Mercer County. I in fact took a picture to post on here to show everyone, I'll put it up again in this thread.

 

[troutbert]

The little black stoneflies aren't surprising or unusual at this time of year.

I am surprised by the mention of Quill Gordons, though. Does anyone have a link or quote about that?