Tully DHALO (Waterworks), Berks County 4/26/09

mrchunk

Member
Joined
May 25, 2007
Messages
245
Well, I sucked it up and took a ride up to the Tully to meet my friend from Boston who was in town for the weekend and hits me up for a day on the Tully whenever he's in town. Arrived at the stream around 3 PM. Air temp was over 90 and stream temp appeared to be in the 50s but I did'nt take a reading. Flows were around 180 and the water was slightly off-color.

We had hoped to catch an evening caddis hatch and came equipped with Yellow/Tan and Emerald caddis patterns for both adult and pupa situations. Sadly, the warm weekend did not do enough to turn this hatch on although we did see a few here and there. Sporadic rises with big splashes suggested emergers. I did manage one 12" bow on a emerald pupa emerger (18) early on. Since the caddis were slow, we tried zebra midges in black and brown from 18 down to 24. We took one or two on midges but nothing to write home about.

We noticed assorted mayflies - some BWO in various sizes and thought we saw either some larger sulfurs OR craneflies size 14 or so. I have a hard time differentiating these bugs in the air - the legs usually give them away but I have captured some sulfurs which I could have sworn were cranes only to find they were indeed sulfurs with longer legs than usual.

In any event, we switched over to mayfly imitations and had better success underneath. Several fell to lightning bugs / copper johs 18 and smaller. Some fell to Serendipitys and Barrs Emergers. My friend managed the biggest fish - a 20 inch bow on a size 20 serendipity. My best was a 15 inch bow on a barr's.

6x flouro was the trick. We fished until 8:30 when the lights went out. We finished with san juans and black buggers. I managed the only brown between us on the bugger at the end of the day. We were bummed we werent able to coax any up to the dries although we did throw a few caddis for giggles. All in all it was an ok day - probably 12-15 fish between us.
 
Thanks for the report. I fished the tully saturday and had much success with a size 18 creme colored midge. Good fishing to you buddy 😀
 
I got the big skunkaroo at the Palisades yesterday evening. A rarity. Well, not completely skunked (suckers were taking nymphs, hehe). Got there about 6:00 p.m. and fished till dusk. The only rises I saw were trash fish. Craneflies, midges, and the odd caddis on the water. Spent most of my time rotating between various underwater offerings to no avail. I need to go back downstream to where the fingerlings went in, I've been doing better down there.
 
pcray1231 wrote:
I got the big skunkaroo at the Palisades yesterday evening. A rarity. Well, not completely skunked (suckers were taking nymphs, hehe). Got there about 6:00 p.m. and fished till dusk. The only rises I saw were trash fish. Craneflies, midges, and the odd caddis on the water. Spent most of my time rotating between various underwater offerings to no avail. I need to go back downstream to where the fingerlings went in, I've been doing better down there.



Pcray,

I got skunked on the Tully in March, and I can't recall that ever happening. I chalked it up to the cold water, but on two more trips, I caught a few, but not near as many as other years. The Tully was a place for me to catch 15, 20 or even 30 trout, fishing for 4 or 5 hours. The numbers of fish don’t seem to be there. I have not fished the section above Rebers where you fished, but the fishing in the sections below the bridge has not been very good either. I haven’t fished it since they stocked it recently with adult fish. Also, I have not caught very many fingerlings at all since the late fall. It’s all a big mystery to me too.

Mike posted that he is very interested in all our comments about the Tully.
 
Yes, I am very interested and I have been watching the comments about individuals' trips.
 
Well, I'd been catching fingerlings, in respectable but maybe not "good" numbers, most of the winter. Many of them were in the Gring's Mill stretch and below, though I'd done ok up around the refridgerator hole and road to nowhere areas too. I considered them decent catch rates for the time of year and water temperature. I generally avoid Rebers and the papermill due to crowds, and I haven't been back to Grings since before opening day.

Then I took a break from the Tully to fish other areas. Since I came back to it, I've made 3 trips in the last few weeks. The first was to Palisades and I managed a couple of adult stockers, but I wouldn't call it doing "well." Then I had a pretty decent but not great day in the refridgerator hole stretch and the slow water upstream, I believe it was 6 fish, I believe all of them were stocked as fingerlings. Then the skunkaroo the other night at Palisades, was hoping the warm temps would turn them on but I was apparantly wrong.
 
Back
Top