Little Juniata River, Blair Cty, 6/17/11

[PennKev]

Fished the LJR yesterday afternoon and evening. Water temps, levels, and clarity were all good. About 2:30 we started noticing tons of Blue Quill spinners. Perhaps the most I've ever seen there. Fish soon started rising consistently. In the past I've had success with BQ's by just going really small and covering rising fish. However, yesterday the fishing was mind-numblingly difficult. Got two and lost a third on a #22 dark olive cdc midge. Must have worked at least 30 different fish. Normal spinner and parachute patterns were totally ignored. The fish that took the CDC midge took on the first couple casts. Get me this number of rising fish on LJR and 9 times out of 10 you have a banner day.

Kev

 

[dryflyguy]

Are you sure the blue quill spinners fell?
I've seen them bouncing around on the LJ many times - but rarely have I seen them actually on the water - especially at 2 in the afternoon.
My guess would be that those fish were risng to something else - like midges or terrestials

 

[PennKev]

Yeah, there were enough that you could scoop them up with your hands at times. They were spinners. About 20-30 minutes after I started noticing the BQ's the fish started rising like crazy.

I tried fishing ants over several fish with nothing to show for it. Likewise for emergers and tiny nymphs fished on a greased leader.

Kev

 

[DaveS]

Kev,
I had a similar experience on Big Fishing Creek near the Tylersville hatchery. Finally got into the fish with a # 20"Biplane". Its a polywing/ z-lon tail pattern I'd gotten fron Blue Ribbon a long time ago.

It didn't really look quite right to me, but apparently the fish's perspective is different. The opinion of the fish, is the only one that matters!
Maybe that'll work for you too.

Good Luck
Dave

 

[gochs]

I saw a hatch of something 16-18ish last week on the LJ around 5:00ish. It lasted for a good hour. They looked brown/dark but I couldn't figure it out. I was set up in full nymphing gear, so they would take my walt's worm right as it hit the water. craziest thing i've ever seen. i laneded about ten fish in that one hour.

These reports make me want to the LJ more and more and more. Two more days!

 

[dryflyguy]

Pennkev -

I don't know if you've ever fished the Delaware river. But those fish can be very selective on spinner falls, just like what you encountered on the little j. I used to have a very tough time with them using traditional poly and antron wing spinners.
Then I started tying patterns using wings cut out of a materiel called web wing - which look more realistic. And finally started to have success on spinner falls up there

 

[beadhead]

I fished the LJ last week in the evening. They were taking emergers only. The splashes looked like top feeding fish, but they were chasing the emerging flies. Fished a parachute adams with a yellow soft hackle dropper. Never caught a fish on the adams. Switched to two emergers and caught fish on both.