Testing 1, 2, 3

                                                                 Testing 1,2,3.
                                                                      6/08/25

  For the past week trout have been rising in the water just out from my camper. I’ve fished over them the first day and another day earlier but not within the past 5 days. I mean, why scare the fish? It would get boring fishing over the same fish everyday. It would be like throwing sticks at yard rabbits every day. They’re like pets. After a while they’d find somewhere else to go. The trout rose to March Browns when I did fish for them as well as an Elk Hair Caddis.
 I came back to the camper from the Big Foot Festival Saturday evening and there were fish rising everywhere along the section of Tionesta Creek outside the camper. Mayflies were coming off the water in bunches. I suppose it would be like finding yourself in a blueberry patch while hiking without a basket to put the berries in. You’ll just gorge yourself till you had enough. This is just what the trout appeared to be doing at will.
 I actually took a step in the creek, with slip-on llBean’s, and grabbed a fly near the bank. I was pretty sure it was a Brown Drake. There were smaller mayflies appearing also but one wouldn’t come close enough to be caught. I took the Brown Drake to the camper for a reference when I decide to tie some up, in which I did. 

 Sunday morning, after breakfast, I tied up some March Browns and some Brown Drake imitations. I tied up two different patterns of Brown Drakes.
 Around 10:00 March Browns started to come off the water in spurts. Though the water was stained a light brown, trout had no problem finding the MB’s fluttering or drifting on the surface. I knotted on a March Brown imitation and was hooking up pretty frequently to the risers I was able to reach, even though the water was a bit stained brown.   

 After a nice brown trout grabbed one of my March Brown imitations, like fooling a young bride to be with a Cubic zirconia engagement ring, I wanted to see if a trout would rise to one of my Brown Drake imitations. 

 I was never a believer that trout knew when a hatch quits or they know what time a hatch starts. I figured if trout are used to eating certain mayflies or caddis, if they’re hungry, they are going to eat them no matter what time of day it is. And especially the same flies after an evening hatch the night before. Now if there is a heavy hatch going on then maybe the trout will key on the hatch and not another fly. I mean if there is a special price, at the jewelry store, on a certain pendant I would think most buyers will buy that pendant and not another.
 I knotted on a Brown Drake and casted out to the risers. It took a little convincing but after missing one and hooking one I was convinced the less pickiest trout will take the Brown Drake.

  Now, my Brown Drake pattern doesn’t look anything like my March Brown pattern. My Brown Drake is tied on a #10 3x long hook, brown body and either a deer hair wing or mallard flank feather wing with medium blue dun hackle. My March Browns are more of a beige body on Tionesta on a #12 1x long hook. I tie it with a brown rib, wood duck feather for a wing and, hard to find, barred golden straw hackle. So telling those two apart is very easy. (Unlike the March Browns that come off on Kettle Creek that are a much orangish-beige body.) This is why I tie my own flies instead of buying them on line. The Mayflies on different creeks and rivers will vary by color and size which I feel is important.

 After hooking and teasing the trout within my casting ability I decided to go up creek. There were trout rising pretty often up creek. The sun was overhead by now and I was getting pretty hot from dressing for the early chill. I went back to the camper, undressed some, and walked up the creek to the risers.
 While fishing to the risers with the March Brown and occasionally one of the Brown Drakes I was wondering if a trout would take a caddis. I casted out a deer hair caddis with a dark body but couldn’t get a trout to commit. I knotted on a bigger elk hair caddis and tossed it out. I had been doing well with an elk hair caddis wherever I’d be fishing on Tionesta Creek. I had three risers for the caddis and netted two.   

 Now, that confirmed my thinking. If there isn’t a prolific hatch of one or two kinds of Mayflies, or caddis, trout will take something they have eaten recently in the past couple of days. 
 I found out that even the small sippers aren’t always smaller trout. Also some of the bigger trout I caught were mid-creek and not hugging the far bank which is usually the case when the creek water is very low.
 All of a sudden a trout slapped the surface twice not too far upstream from me. It was if he missed an emerger first and then got it the second time,,, maybe? I already had a March Brown knotted on and made a cast upstream quite a bit in front of his feeding zone. I was pulling in slack line as my offering came towards us. I saw the trout rise and sip it off the surface. I reared back the 9 foot rod and pulled in line to set the hook. The line tightened and he dove deep. He took off in a hurry as if he had just stolen a priceless neckless off the jewelry counter. The rod bowed in his favor and line stripped off the reel as the spool spun. I knew I had something special that I hooked in the middle of the creek. We had a good go around before I convinced him to settle down and come to me. A beauty of a butter belly brown laid in my net with the March Brown I offered him just on the tip of his upper jaw. Fighting with him much longer may have gotten the hook released? 

 There’s nothing I enjoy more dry fly fishing than making a long cast to an unexpecting trout. One had been feeding close to the far bank just out from a low hanging tree limb. I waded a little further out for more room for my backcasting. I made a looping single haul cast towards the far bank. The fly line unrolled in the air followed by my March Brown. My cast was a little short of the slower water he was feeding in but I let it drift over the wavier water near him. He rose and grabbed it on the wavier water. I chuckled as I reared back the long length of line forcefully to get the long length of slack off the water. The line tightened and I’m sure the trout, on the other end, was surprised. We had a good tussle and when I finally netted him I found my dry was just inside his mouth. He was pretty sure it was the real thing. I had to hold him delicately upside down to reach in to get the hook out. It wasn’t as bad as I would of expected and came out easily. I released another nice brown trout unharmed. 

  The one trout I was after, down creek a ways, wasn’t cooperating until I skated a caddis across the surface and ‘Gotcha”.   

 I caught more trout on this outing on March Brown dries tied Catskills style. I didn’t have any trout take my para-post March Brown which I was surprised. Maybe because the water was calm with gentler flowing surface current. I usually do better on the para-post on riffling or wavy current where the trout have less time to inspect it.   

 When it started to rain, more than a sprinkle, I waded out and headed to the camper. Tomorrow was another day and I didn’t think the trout were going anywhere! 

~doubletaper.