Browns & Bobbers

jifigz

jifigz

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 8, 2013
Messages
3,815
Location
Miff-Co, PA
Do y'all wanna see small, unimpressive wild browns from a tiny crick? I hope so, because I'm here to deliver! This marked my third trip of the year. Cabin fever is getting me, even though I've been hunting hard since October and spent lots of time outdoors. I'm really, really starting to get the itch for spring and hatching insects. I've been starting to tie, fill my boxes, and plan some good trips. You have to have excitement and plans in life to maintain energy and desire to live. Enjoy.

All fish were caught on a Pat's Rubber legs under a bobb....ahem.....an indicator......
 

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On Sunday, it got up to a whopping 37 degrees where I am, so I got out for a few hours... on a stream that may or may not contain holdovers / wild fish (there seems to be some debate). I would have found any one of those fish impressive enough, as I didn't see a single sign of life.

I did see plenty of bobber.
 
That looks like a limestoner that looks like a freestoner.
 
A bobber? Don't you have any pride sir?

That reminds me that I need to stock up on bobbers for the spring 😁
Speaking of bobbers, I find the AirLock bobbers pretty good, but has one tried the newer Oros bobbers yet? They look like they would work well >

 
That looks like a limestoner that looks like a freestoner.
This was a short, one hour trip after work yesterday. I have a lot of small streams with limestone influence near me that are a good blend of freestone/limestone characteristics. Swattie, you like to travel and fish various water bodies, maybe you have been on this one before. It gets a really nice hatch of sulphurs if fishing dry flies on a stream that is only a couple feet wide in places is what you're into.

And, the only bobbers I tend to use are yarn bobbers. I used to use Dorsey style a lot but noticed at times the rubber band system causing abrasion when moving the yarn on leader and eventually leading to weak spots. The Dorsey is good and still one the best solutions I ever found. I have both New Zealand tools (regular and X-Large) and find it to be a great system as well. Where both excel is a combination of the two. Use the macrame yarn from the Dorsey with the superior attachment system/tool of the New Zealand and you have a match made in heaven. The Bonnie Cord is dirt cheap, floats better than the NZ wool, and is easily attainable and readily available. Once you know how many strands to use in the NZ plastic sleaves it works perfectly.

Best combination of bobber characteristics I think that exist. I do, however, own and will use airlocks but they lag far behind a synthetic yarn bobber.
 
Yes, I have some of the Oros indicators/bobbers and I really like them so far.
 
I can’t specifically place it, though I suspect I could narrow it down to a half dozen streams, or less.

It struck me as having more typical freestone physical characteristics, but that water screams limestone to me.

True freestone streams don’t hold that green color that well. They’ll get like that for a short window following a good soaking, but it comes and goes, and they turn back to crystal clear quickly. It’s tough to catch that green window on them, but if you can it produces great fishing usually.
 
True freestone streams don’t hold that green color that well. They’ll get like that for a short window following a good soaking, but it comes and goes, and they turn back to crystal clear quickly. It’s tough to catch that green window on them, but if you can it produces great fishing usually.
The stream in my avatar is the same stream where I encountered you and your, at the time (July 2015), girlfriend. It has that aqua color to it. As you mentioned, freestones don't take on that color very often. That pic was taken after several days of rain and the fishing was indeed quite good. I've seen that only twice on that stream.

FWIW: The only reason I have the specifics of our encounter is because of keeping a log. ;)
 
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Should have ventured a bit further upstream to catch some world class stocked brookies hehe. jk Beautiful brownies.
 
Speaking of bobbers, I find the AirLock bobbers pretty good, but has one tried the newer Oros bobbers yet? They look like they would work well >

Yes, have them and it's my new go to.
 
Speaking of bobbers, I find the AirLock bobbers pretty good, but has one tried the newer Oros bobbers yet? They look like they would work well >

I'm also using these pretty much exclusively right now, and I like them a lot.
 
Nah, I'll use the invasive bobber since I'm fishing for the invasive salmonid. Add a little extra plastic to the environment in the form of poly yarn.
Why not!
 
Speaking of bobbers, I find the AirLock bobbers pretty good, but has one tried the newer Oros bobbers yet? They look like they would work well >

The Oros indicators eliminated the lost small parts problem encountered with Airlock indicators. The Oros indicators would be better if the spheres or at least the inside surfaces of the sphere halves were a softer material so as to bite a little more firmly on the leader. As constructed now they tend to slip a bit too much.
 
@jifigz - you mentioned rubber legs. It's one of my favorite flies when out west but I don't have as much luck with it in PA. Do you use it in smaller sizes? Color - brown or black or ? Do you find that the leg markings or colors matter?
 
I fish them mainly in size 6-10 tied on 4xl hooks. Barred legs, plain legs, olive, brown, I don't care. Just tie em and fish em. I can tell you that leg markings and colors don't matter to me. Just fish them with confidence.
 
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