salvelinusfontinalis
Active member
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2006
- Messages
- 7,267
I was fortunate enough to fish my home river twice this past week. Both days I had from sun up to about 3pm, which unfortunately, means I missed prime time on the river.
The smallmouth are on the edges of the river by the afternoon. I took notice, through wet wading, that the edges of the river are cooler in the morning than they feel by 11am. I did not catch a ton of smallmouth in the past two days but what I got were good sized and strong fighters. All took an articulated black bleeding minnow pattern I tie.
The past few days large Cahills start hatching the second the sun starts beating down on the water. Not in "cloud like numbers" or anything but enough that the carp are taking notice, but no leaping smallmouth after them. I will note that they must hatch for many miles of river because you can see the emerger carcasses floating down stream just about anywhere you fish if you look for a minute or 2.
Watching carp rise the first day prompted me to bring dries on the second day. One the first day I went 3/5 on carp. All on my black bleeding minnow pattern. Since it's tied with a crap ton of black marabou, they likely thought it was a leach. Today I went 8/10 on carp. Split between Dean Myers bead chain crayfish pattern and Cahills. Managed to take 2 carp on top. All of the carp were monsterous in size, not that there weren't small ones but I targeted the biggest fish. I will note that the conestoga is a wonderful carp fishery that would rival any in the state.
A few things I witnessed of interest.
Saw a guy keep over his limit of bass. Saw him fishing later too upstream of the first location. Such a shame.
Saw a duck get eaten by what appeared to be a musky.
People are amazed to see a fly fisherman on the river and WILL talk to you at LENGTH about it.
Had a large musky chase a large smallie away from my fly and then caught nothing. Hard to swallow but cool to watch.
I'm addicted to WW fly-fishing. Hard to think about sulphurs and trout.
The smallmouth are on the edges of the river by the afternoon. I took notice, through wet wading, that the edges of the river are cooler in the morning than they feel by 11am. I did not catch a ton of smallmouth in the past two days but what I got were good sized and strong fighters. All took an articulated black bleeding minnow pattern I tie.
The past few days large Cahills start hatching the second the sun starts beating down on the water. Not in "cloud like numbers" or anything but enough that the carp are taking notice, but no leaping smallmouth after them. I will note that they must hatch for many miles of river because you can see the emerger carcasses floating down stream just about anywhere you fish if you look for a minute or 2.
Watching carp rise the first day prompted me to bring dries on the second day. One the first day I went 3/5 on carp. All on my black bleeding minnow pattern. Since it's tied with a crap ton of black marabou, they likely thought it was a leach. Today I went 8/10 on carp. Split between Dean Myers bead chain crayfish pattern and Cahills. Managed to take 2 carp on top. All of the carp were monsterous in size, not that there weren't small ones but I targeted the biggest fish. I will note that the conestoga is a wonderful carp fishery that would rival any in the state.
A few things I witnessed of interest.
Saw a guy keep over his limit of bass. Saw him fishing later too upstream of the first location. Such a shame.
Saw a duck get eaten by what appeared to be a musky.
People are amazed to see a fly fisherman on the river and WILL talk to you at LENGTH about it.
Had a large musky chase a large smallie away from my fly and then caught nothing. Hard to swallow but cool to watch.
I'm addicted to WW fly-fishing. Hard to think about sulphurs and trout.
