Little J, Huntington Co., 04/08/2013

[3wt7X]

I took a trip to the Little J today with hopes of hitting the tail end of the Olives. The weather was a nice 60 degrees, and the flows were pushing around 400 cfs. The day started off pretty bright and sunny, and I did not see any surface activity, until after noon. I nymphed the morning, and did well with a walts worm followed by a pheasant tail. I was targeting the slack water along the edges, and the fish were hitting the flies pretty hard. I took a very healthy 15 inch wild brown on the walts worm, along with several smaller fish nymphing.

I noticed the olives coming off sparatically around noon, and I found a nice side chanel that had several risining fish. I took four on a parachute biot body emerger, including the fish of the day, which was a very strong 16 inch brown. Overall, it was a great day. the flows seemed small at 400 cfs, but I was worn out after wading all day. The fish in the Little J are quite impressive, as well. It reminds me a lot of Penns, with those regards.

On a side note, I caught a brownie with a clipped adipose fin. I cannot remember, does that demark a wild or stocked fingerling. My common sense says, stocked fingerling, but I know they recently did that large survey on the wild trout in there, and I am unsure if they clipped them then.

 

[JF_]

Great looking fish, sounds like a fun day...

 

[bam]

I believe the clipped fin was from the last, or second to last time they put fingerlings in. You should be able to find out on-line. Find out when they put the fish in, and you should have an idea how fast they're growing.

Saw a bunch of olives out Friday, but very few fish were on them. Conditions were far from ideal with high winds and not a cloud to be seen.

 

[sipe]

Beautiful fish! Sounds like a great day. I have never fished this stream. I'll need to check the Landis book to get some intel. Any heads up as to a place to start on the little J?

 

[Maurice]

sipe wrote:
Beautiful fish! Sounds like a great day. I have never fished this stream. I'll need to check the Landis book to get some intel. Any heads up as to a place to start on the little J?

Find it on a map, travel to it and fish it. It has a ton of open water, all of which is good.

 

[lv2nymph]

Yes, there is no shortage of places to fish on the Little "J".