Trolling purists

Twinkies

I've been making these as one piece squishy minnows for a long time. Only last week I started making them hinged and segmented. Somewhat like a swim bait. Sort of a marshmallow minnnow. The Twinkie.



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Been using the Roadkill here and there. The weather is finally breaking and the temps have been in the 60's but the water is still that warm or warmer. I got some pickerel hits from small pickerel but none of them hooked.
I have to be careful of the size as I was unable to cast the larger ones very far so I'll have to keep them on the smaller size.

Do you use the minnows (above) for Browns?

Big big mayfly hatch a few caddis here. Never noticed these things before as I never fly fished until this year. Surface covered in some areas. I see large trout tails sticking out one second and a head the next.
-Lost my fly box,
-don't own waders,
-can't use the boat right now (no one to chase me)
-They are too far out in the lehigh river to cast to from shore.

I only have Streamers and nothing, not Bass (largemouth or small) nor pickerel, nor trout are hitting the streamers right now. In another day or two the water temps should drop into the 50's and I hope things will pick up. I ordered flies. Adams, Pheasant tails and Midge nymphs and they will show up next week. I ordered 10's and 12 sizes, bigger than for spring, as I'm told that with fall fishing a little larger is a little better.

When it's warm they generally only bite streamers at dawn and at dusk. As the water temperature drops they get more aggressive in the middle of the day.

RE> Casting big flies
I make my own leaders. Extra stiff butt (40lb) tapering down to 0x in 9' feet. You can add onto that in order to fish small flies or use it as is to cast big bugs. I can throw a big Roadkill 80' feet with that leader. With a normal store-bought leader I'm lucky to get out past 40' feet.

Big rainbows will eat streamers but............they like insects for longer in life than brown trout. My smallest fish on the biggest fly was an 11" inch brown on a 7" inch Roadkill Streamer.

I don't know much about Smallmouth Bass. I wish I had more of them closer by. Here in Montana. They sure do fight hard.

I feel that pound for pound German Browns fight harder than bass but bass are the go to fish around here. Bass are some of the few fish that regularly exceed 3 or 4 pounds and will go 10lbs. in certain lakes. Smallmouth are reportedly better fighters than largemouth by a small margin. I tend to agree.

Today was dead, dead, dead. The few fishermen I met were pretty disgusted. I say it is big time change, over night, weatherwise.

I've been making my own leaders to some degree. I use a broken back piece of an old Leader of about 3-4'.. Usually it was 4x to start. To that I add 3' of 6lb mono, then 2' of 4lb Floro and then 2' of 4x floro tippet. It works well for small flys and up to about a #10 Wooly Bugger (with mono tippet). Somewhere around there things fall apart. So I'll try to beef it up as you mention above and see if that helps. In my hands 50' is about it for my White River Rod but I'm getting more and more accurate. I even caught me this past weekend.

I have not caught a trout in PA since I started fly fishing. That was the week of June 3rd after a hand operation. I've caught a couple Bass and lots of Bluegills but no Trout. I was doing fine with spinning gear up until that time but the water warmed up and most of the hatchery fish are gone. Where there used to be dozens of fishermen parked along the road there is now just me. In the Creeks the water is crystal clear and barely moving. Its virtually impossible to sneak up on the few fish that are left. The native trout will not tolerate your presence and move sharply away. I'm looking for some light flooding and murkiness to give me an edge.

I still can't believe these things eat nymphs and small flys. I've not seen one trout even look at my offerings except in Idaho in July. If I don't start catching soon I'm going back to spinning gear.

Do you tie your leaders on or use the loops?

Nail knot mostly

Im trying to learn the Nail knot, progress is slow. For now I'm using the triple surgeon which is not really appropriate.

This one's a lure not a fly. It's about 3/8oz, with weight molded into the plastic front end, which is molded with clear silicone seal mixed with corn starch, so it cures quickly. And all the way through.




.....how I made the mold (on top of glass or plexy glass)