GULPERS :D

M

midgeman

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Dec 29, 2008
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I've only experience fishing for gulpers ( LARGE trout that emerge their heads and take micro flies off the surface) only out in Montana. The fishing is heartpounding to say the least. I've seen this in the upper flats at the o'hair ranch and at 3 mile access on the Big Horn. Has anyone seen this type of feeding behaviors around PA?
 
Yes, it's rare though..Mostly have to catch a good hatch before the biggins will rise...
 
Yes. On certain stretches of the Yough.
 
Yes i have. It happens everyday on certain streams.:)
 
Yes. Oh no, wait, that was Wyoming. No.

I am in the same boat as you, Midgeman. It was amazing, maybe one of the biggest factors that sets the west apart from PA. I'd like to know the answer to why it's like this.
 
it's crazy to see them come up, turn the head, open the jaw, and go back down. More crazy is catching them on a size 24 :)
 
Best answer Dude:

The fish in the West are wild. They learn to adapt and eat anything they can to survive. The streams go unmolested for large periods of time before a fisherman fishes it.

In PA wild fish take more time to grow. On the streams they can get big are limestone springs. Those streams get heavy pressure so the fish wont come to a small fly in fear of fisherman.

Why run across a 4 lane highway to eat a kernnel of popcorn? :)
 
When there is a cheesburger right in front of your nose
 
It happens with reasonable frequency in PA, it just takes the right day, the right bugs and most of all, the right stream.

The stream has to have a pretty potent population of good size fish (in relation to the overall trout population) to begin with. Most healthy PA freestones don't really qualify. They have lots of fish, but not really that many large fish, (say >14")

The best examples of this sort of situation I've seen have been on the Oswayo to dinky olives, many many years ago and to Paraleps on a certain Warren County C&R project where, sadly, at least according to the recent reports I have heard, there aren't any fish anymore...:)

If you were to look at the electrofishing fishing survey reports from either of these creeks at the time I saw these things, you'd see that their size or year year class/abundance pyramid was out of whack compared to the garden variety PA freestone wild brown trout stream, with more bigger fish and fewer smaller ones, making the pyramid a little thinner at the bottom and a little fatter up top, (although in individual counts by year class, there were far far more smaller fish than larger ones and it still looks like a pyramid).
 
I've seen this on Opossum lake and Laurel lake , timing is everything but they are usually bigger fish.
 
We always called them cruisers , mostly have seen this in stillwaters here.
 
The Upper D - Main Stem, and West Branch - Especially in higher water. :-D And to a lesser degree to some extent on the Lehigh. But the reason here is prolly more to do with less pressure.
 
I love it when that happens and can fish over one fish or one pool all day if they keep it up.

Joe E
 
I was fishing Raystown Lake once and recall what I believed at that time to be Large...REALLY LARGE...brown trout in a cove slurping bugs from the surface...2 or three of them...

Having said that, I was younger and they may have been carp...

But I still want to believe they were big browns...

Boss
 
big browns will take drys. i have caught them in the upper part of the clarion river on cadis in the middle of the afternoon. and you don't need big flies to take a big fish either . i think we all know that is a myth.
 
salvelinusfontinalis wrote:
Best answer Dude:

The fish in the West are wild. They learn to adapt and eat anything they can to survive. The streams go unmolested for large periods of time before a fisherman fishes it.

In PA wild fish take more time to grow. On the streams they can get big are limestone springs. Those streams get heavy pressure so the fish wont come to a small fly in fear of fisherman.

Why run across a 4 lane highway to eat a kernnel of popcorn? :)
Click to expand...

Good points, but this doesn't answer it for me. I still wonder why there are more large trout out west, and why they will take dry flies more willingly.

More food? I have fished streams and rivers out west that are far less fertile than my home waters of Centre County, PA, and the trout were much larger than a comparative sized water in PA. Less food sources coud be a reason big ones will focus on midges, but it contradicts the larger size. Oh, and the winters out west are much more extreme than ours too!

Less Pressure? True, but on C&R streams like Spring Creek that would only make it harder to catch big ones, or possibly keep them all down. I am very familiar with local waters and can say that while there are a few big ones, the numbers of big ones just does not compare to the west. So I discount pressure to be the reason for less large trout.

I can see why more harvest would lead to less big fish, but not more pressure with no harvest. There's something else that is the reason. I just don't buy the less pressure thing alone. There is probably a known reason, and I would love to hear it.
 
The Delaware River has plenty of gulpers.
And I've come across a few down the Yough.

Dude: I've been asked that question a few times by fishing buddies. My only guess would be that, because there are lots of big fish in western streams, and the Delaware river, - that they feel more secure. Safety in numbers.
Have you noticed that those fish will also rise in the middle of a sunny day? You'll rarely see that happen on a limestoner.
 
Also think a part of it may be a different mind set...I am sure there are still poachers...but I just think they see the economic impact so much better...there are far fewer people out west...even with tourist fishing...

I don't know....maybe because the sky is bigger?

Boss

I will say the football sized Rainbow in the Frying Pan and the Blue in Colorado are very much tied to the mysis shrimp in the big lakes...they come through the turbines and just explode...they should throw them in the yough....of course that would start some other ecological disaster...but the fish would be gynormous...
 
I've seen gulpers on many streams. Once I was with another guy expecting to fish gulpers in a lake in Idaho. When they were late he suggested rigging up a size 20 midge pupa and fishing down 40 ft. I thought he was nuts. We caught dozens of trout just off the bottom in 40 ft of water in a float tube. The next day the gulpers were on time. I so prefer surface action. But I've seen this on even the Loyalhanna. Its one the reasons a griffith's gnat works so well. I represents a "glob" (if you will) of midges rather than a single bug.
 
Boss.............Did you ever catch one of those Raystown carp on a dry fly , on light tackle? It's awesome , screamin. At times they will take dry flies all day long till your arm hurts. Try it you'll like it.
 
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