WB Octorora Special Regs, Lancaster County, 3/27/10

[mrchunk]

Fished with fellow board member Raff on Saturday from about 10 AM to 5 PM. Air temps were between 40 at the start and 50 at the end. It was partly sunny to couldy most of the day and there was only a slight breeze. We started the day on dry - dropper setups as that is generally how I prefer to fish the Octorora. We quickly switched to tandem nymph rigs as we realized the fish were not looking up for the most part. There were sporadic risers throughout the day but nymphs and streamers proved to be the most productive. We hiked down roughly 1 to 1.5 miles into the special regs sections and passed a dozen other anglers so the pressure was average. Stream temps were in the mid 40s.

BHHE were the most productive followed by Sucker Spawn in blue and yellow and BHPTs. We switched to streamers on the hike out with me on BH Buggers in Olive and Black and Raff on bigger stuff (he's a still a westerner). Overall, we both had 20+ fish days. The trophies went to Raff who pulled 2 18"+ fish out of a single hole. One was a brown who nearly pulled him in and the other was a palomino. We got pics of the palo that Raff will hopefully post. Both fish ate his hare's ear.

I hooked into what I estimate to be a 20 inch bow on a black bugger but he managed to break the hook with one vicious head shake. Although most of the fish were recent stockies we did catch a few hold overs. None of the fish fought like stockies and were very feisty. Some of the stockie bows were footballs. Given the size of some of the fish we caught and saw, I suspect they put some broods in this time.

 

[Raff]

Good times for sure! Here's that palo.

 

[PatrickG]

Nice fish guys. I was also there on Saturday fished from around 8-4. Started out in the Meadows with a few buddies then fished up through the woods later in the day. Spot on with the flies, as most of my fish were taken on a pink sucker spawn in the early morning, with BHHE soft hackles, brassies, zebra midges in red, and san juans rounding out the rest. Caught a few holdovers, with a few of the rainbow holdovers around 12 inches with hook jaws, nice to see. Caught 20 myself, couldn't tell you how many I lost, I probably don't want to know.

I'm wondering if you guys fished the log jam right around the bend above the bridge at Puseyville road, as a strike was almost guaranteed in there every cast, tons of fish. Things started to slow down as we walked up through the woods toward Black Rock, looks like you guys put down most of the fish as they were a lot less active as I got up there.

 

[Alpabuck]

Nice...everyone likes pitchers of the yeller ones!

 

[wgmiller]

Yeller ones = golden rainbows, not palominos... ;-) Nice fish!

 

[PatrickG]

got two pics from saturday... the first one looks like a holdover to me

 

[PennKev]

the first one looks like a holdover to me

Nah. 😛

 

[Raff]

Here's another chunky one from Saturday.

Looks like it ate paint chips as a small fry.

 

[Mike]

PatrickG: Check the pectoral and pelvic fins of that first fish. They are eroded, typical of a freshly stocked hatchery RT. Just from the standpoint of those fins alone, they would come to sharp points and not be eroded if they were holdover fish. Plus, the white on the pelvic fins would be much more distinct. PS: the top edge of the dorsal fin in the photo also shows some deformity. Hope that helps.

 

[PatrickG]

Thanks for the responses, shows how much I know. I don't see many rainbows with the dark black underspots and attributed that to a holdover.