Still looking for a "Big Dance"!

I am still looking for a big dance! For those of you that don't know what a big dance is, allow me to give an explanation. A big dance is a combination of many ingredients all coming together at once. First, there must be at least three varieties of Mayflys duns floating on the surface struggling to take flight. Next there must be numerous Caddis dancing across the water. Then, mix in thousands of Mayfly spinners hovering above head mating, bobbing up and down, laying eggs and finally dropping to the water surface. The most important ingredient requires participation from each and every trout within casting distance, even the big lunkers that almost never feed on the surface. Some gently and rhythmically rise to sip spent Mayflys from the surface film as they float through thier feeding lane. While other less modest trout make big showy splashes often shooting completely out of the water to take emergers, duns or an unfortunate Caddis who has unknowingly skated by his final resting place. The final ingredient, the cover of darkness seems to happen without notice, almost as if one minute the sun is shining down and the next it is pitch black. The big dance is truly one of those spectacular events that cannot be summed up with words and must be experienced first hand to fully appreciate the level of excitement it can bring about.
My first year of fly fishing there seemed to be a big dance every time I went out. I could litterally do no wrong that first year. It was simply a matter of showing up at the stream around seven o'clock and catching trout until my arm hurt. I knew nothing about Caddis flys, nothing about the intricate anatomy of the various mayflys and even less about the life cycle of each. The insuing result was the start of an addiction with fly fishing. I began reading everything I could find on the subject of entomology as well as asking a hundred questions each time I met a more experienced fly fisherman, which was litterally everyone. Around the middle of June that first year I was suddenly hit with the realization that there is a small window of opportunity for the big dance. At this point I still believed that it happened every night but just in the month of May and the beginning of June. I could live with that, mostly because I am an avid bass fisherman and bass season was now in full swing. Time to hang the fly rod up until next year. The next year and the years that followed have been a rather rude awakening for me. I quickly learned that the big dance is not something that happens every night. I now know that there are several factors or ingredients that go into the making of a big dance and that predicting when one will occur can be very difficult or impossible. I learned that a dance can be going on a mile down stream while there is virtually no activity on the section I am fishing. Probably the hardest lesson that I have learned is that nymphing is the most productive method of fly fishing. It's not that I dislike nymphing and I have found that I enjoy it more each time I do it. I just don't believe that I will ever experience the level of excitement catching a trout on a nymph as on a dry fly. I will often walk the banks of the stream for an hour searching for a single rising trout knowingly passing up hundreds of trout feeding subsurface. And lets not forget about wets! For some reason I had overlooked the excitement and the productivity of fishing wets for years. Finally, lets talk about tandems. Tandems rigs allow you to utilize all three methods at once, often greatly increasing your odds of landing trout. I will often fish tandems with a dry at the front, a wet in the middle and a nymph at the end. Most of my catches have been on either the wet or nymph with the dry simply functioning as an indicator but there are those rare times that the trout will rise for the dry.
The bottom line is that my fondness for nymphing and fishing tandoms will more than likely continue to grow over the years and in time my dry fly expectations will diminish but I am certain of one thing, I will always be looking to the horizon for the next big dance!

Fly Fishing for Native Brook Trout

Fly Fishing for Native Brook Trout in Central PA

As I sat down and attempted to organize all of my thoughts about Native Brook Trout fishing into one neat little package, I found the task to be far more difficult than I had first thought. My first attempt at this article was a nice structured list of how to plan a “Native” fly fishing adventure. Although this may have been useful to many and easy to write it did not quite give “Native” fishing the recognition I believe it deserves. The bottom line is that fishing for “Natives” isn’t about being technical. We all know that fly fishermen, including myself, can take the simplest things and make them extremely technical. That doesn’t have to be the case when fly fishing “Natives”. Right now you are probably thinking, “So I have allowed myself to temporarily abandon the technical aspects of fly fishing including: entomology, technique, presentation and equipment; So what is left”? What you are left with is adventure, exploration, discovery and the chance to catch and release the most beautiful trout you have probably ever seen.
Over the years I have become more and more obsessed with fishing; it has become a way of life. When I am not fly fishing for trout I am bass fishing and as winter arrives I am tying flies or reading all the information I can get into my hands about fly fishing. When temperatures rise above thirty degrees I am nymphing for Wild Brown Trout or exploring wilderness trout streams. 
Deep at the roots of my obsession is a cold rainy day about seventeen years ago, in the mountains of Central Pennsylvania. It was the Sunday morning after the season opener and my friends and I had gathered at camp the previous evening to celebrate the event. Season opener in Central PA can best be described as a circus. There are people everywhere and the mountains are alive with activity. Although, it is an event that needs to be experienced at least once, I had quickly grown tired of it. Fifteen guys at each hole, elbow to elbow politely fighting over the fifty trout the state had put in that hole just a few days earlier. It was literally what I thought trout fishing was all about and as you can probably guess my interest rarely lasted past opening weekend. My definition of trout fishing and my interest level unexpectedly changed that Sunday.
The rain came down that morning as if it had been held back for a century, just waiting for its opportunity to saturate the earth. It was so cold that if the temperature would have dropped just a degree or two we would have been in the middle of a blizzard. At camp that morning, the previous nights embellishments combined with the miserable conditions outside seemed to diminish any enthusiasm for hitting the streams. The fact of the matter was that we really weren’t missing much anyway. As we had all seen so many times in the past, Frank had a different take on things. He was stirring with an enthusiasm that was unparalleled, or at least in the context of trout fishing. As the rest of us meandered around the quiet little camp, I’m sure he was strategizing as to how to get the rest of us motivated. Although rarely discussed it is well known that Frank is a very effective motivator. He employed numerous tactics as he worked the room slowly gaining momentum. With some he would talk of adventure, with others guilt was the motivator. Butz was the first to submit and did so rather quickly in my opinion. I was a little more of a challenge, he pulled out all the stops, talk of adventure, the guilt of going to fishing camp and not fishing and the fact that Butz was going so I might as well go too. I can’t really remember what hooked me. As I think back I like to believe that it was my inner need for adventure but in reality it was probably the guilt.
As we arrived at the stream my first thought was where is it? The stream was literally a small pipe protruding from the underside of an earthen bridge located at the low point of the path. With little conversation we forged on, sometimes losing the stream underground or mistaking it for one of the many developing runs emerging on the surface. As we travelled further down the swampy mountain top the run began to increase in width and as it grew near a foot and a half wide Frank and Butz began fishing. My first thought was that they were out of their minds but when I saw them start to pull trout from the water I quickly changed my tune and eagerly dropped my line in the water too. They were both using eight foot fly rods and had an approach that had seemingly been in development for years. Frank, decked out in full camouflage would slink to each hole as if he were sneaking up on an unsuspecting enemy. Sometimes he would hide behind a tree using his fly rod to sling shot his minnow into a calm pool. Minutes later you would see him stretched across a boulder tossing his minnow into the deep hole below as if minnies were dropping from the sky. Butz used similar tactics with similar success but with far less intensity. They were both landing trout left and right, a site I haven’t seen repeated to this day. On the flip side there was me; bumbling and struggling. I was using a $10 combo rod purchased at the local department store. I can’t remember all of the details but more than likely it was sporting 20 lb. monofilament and your standard loop on worm hook. After seeing my apparent frustration Frank kind of took me under his wing and showed me the ropes. He set me up with a open needle, a treble hook and showed me how to thread a minnie. Within minutes, I too was hauling in one Native Brook Trout after another. I had far less success than Frank and Butz, not to mention that the biggest trout I caught was probably seven inches long. The bottom line was that I had a blast and was hooked on trout fishing for life.
Over the next few years my skills and equipment improved dramatically. I soon began purchasing topographic maps for the sole purpose of finding new remote Native streams. As my collection of maps grew so did my fishing experiences. The one day adventures soon turned into two night backpacking expeditions. Trout fishing had all of a sudden gone from a one weekend fight for a few stocked trout to an elaborate hobby that consumed a lot of my time each Spring. I was now seeing new territory, catching beautiful Native Brook Trout full of vibrant colors and getting back to what fishing really should be about.
It would be years before I used my fly rod to fish for “Natives”. From time to time I would tie a fly on the end of my line but it was more of a novelty than an actual attempt to catch fish. It was only after a trip out West that I truly learned how to catch fish with flies. After I learned about nymphs and I knew that I could actually entice a trout with one, I began to apply this knowledge to my love of “Native” fishing. Fly fishing for “Natives” is very different than fishing for Wild Browns on a large limestone or freestone stream. Often pools where trout are lying are only three to four feet long, you are usually surrounded by trees and brush, and most of these trout have never even seen a Mayfly. 
I know I began this article talking about how fly fishing for Native Brook Trout is not technical and I do strongly believe that it is more about the adventure than the technicalities but I would like to throw in some suggestions for all those looking to give it a shot.

A delicate and secretive approach is critical. These trout spook extremely easily and any recognized movement will usually ruin your opportunity to catch that trout.

Forget about where you think the trout will be holding. These trout will not be sitting out in the middle or end of a run waiting for their next meal. Instead they will be hiding from predators under the nearest rock waiting cautiously for an opportunity to eat.

Get out there! There are thousands of streams in Pennsylvania that hold Native Brook Trout. I recommend seeking out the most desolate ones. The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission have an entire division dedicated to Wild Brook Trout enhancement – it is a very good resource.

Use a lot of Gink. It will help in those short runs where casting is nearly impossible.

Tandem rigs work very well.

Forget about matching the hatch because more than likely there isn’t a hatch. Attractors like Adams work very well. Don’t worry about size – these trout are opportunistic and often take what they can get.

Take food and water with you – I have learned this one the hard way.

State land is usually the best way to avoid trespassing on private property. North Central PA is a spectacular region to start.

Bring a friend if you can. You don’t want to fall down and break your leg three miles away from any road.

Have fun!





Finally, you need walk into this knowing that you aren’t going to catch any twenty inch trout or anything that weighs over a pound. What you will get of it cannot accurately be summed up with words. It is an experience that every fly fishermen needs to experience for themselves