We had a few fly fishing school clients out to Clarks Creek today and it was an excellent day! One of my three sports was fly fishing for his first time and landed his first trout and nearly landed a bona fide 20″ Clarks Creek Brown(more on that later). Temp is holding at 60 degrees. Light caddis and plenty of terrestrials have the fish looking up and the fish are just starting to look at floating inchworms. Small nymphs and attractor patters were also productive under a strike indicator or as a dropper. We landed a few nice fish including a 13″ brookie and everybody had a few hook ups. Dave, first time fly fishing, managed to hook up with a brown at least 20″ long and the picture below doesn’t do it justice it was just a big fish and in the end proved to be too much for 6x.

Good fly fishing continues in the Lehigh Gorge in Pennsylvania, though it eluded Jay and I tonight. Shortly after arriving at one of my favorite spots I broke off a nice fish and Jay had one good hook up despite a half decent olive hatch. The fish were just not on tonight for some reason. Twenty miles or so below the dam and we have a water temp of 68 degrees a few days before July. The temp could be much worse but with proper management of FEW dam it could be much better.

While conducting a guide school in the Lehigh Gorge today we did a little fishing and were rewarded with a few trout in the heat of mid-day. I know it’s hard for most people to believe but you don’t have to drive all of the way up to the West Branch to catch trout on dry flies in the middle of the day. Fish slashed hard at #8 Golden Stone dry fly patterns including Stimulators and also were hitting CDC caddis good. We missed a few large trout at a real fast stretch just before dark and had some more hook ups but even 4x didn’t prove stout enough for these fish tonight.

I headed up to the Gorge myself tonight to check out a favorite pool that I hadn’t yet hit this year. After parking at Glen Onoko and biking a few miles up river I had finally reached my destination and was greeted by rising trout and a beautiful pool all to myself. I had some camera difficulties but managed to snap a shot of this nice 17″ Brown with a small parachute adams. I was about 1/3 of the way across the pool and hooked him about 2/3 of the way across, he bolted all the way over to my bank and another 50 feet upstream and put up a good fight. I landed a few other fish, none as big and broke off a monster just before dark. Water temp was 66 degrees, hatch avtivity was light but it was hard to miss all of the snouts poking up through the glass smooth surface.

We had decent fishing tonight to decent Olive hatch. The water temps continue to hold steady. Before hatch begins look for fish in the riffles and don’t forget to let a dry fly swing and skate at the end of your drift. Prince Nymphs, Pheasant Tails and various dry flies continue to produce trout with a good drift. For some reason a lot of the anglers we’ve talked to on the river are down to 6x tippets, we continue to have very good fishing with 4x and we’re able to land our fish much more quickly and with much less stress to the fish.

We had fish on early in the float and hook ups here and there the whole way down to Bowmanstown. Todd landed all of the trout today but his fishing partner Jeff had plenty of hookups, and a few really nice trout on but just couldn’t get them to the boat. Again, blue winged olives. Again, we caught fish with #14-16 parachute adams. The Turnpike Pool is still mostly devoid of trout activity. The water is holding steady at 65 degrees and all of the fish caught look plenty healthy. The pattern for us continues, we put on in the afternoon to avoid the mid day heat and pretty much everybody hooks some trout.

Tonight was the first of Ken and Fred’s two annual floats. We had a few browns and rainbows landed with the nice brown trout caught near the turnpike pool with what else, a #14 parachute adams. If you can get a decent drift this almost the only dry fly that you need from White Haven to Walnutport. Water temp is still 65 degrees. Blue winged olives and Suplhurs were hatching and what fish weren’t caught with a parachute adams were caught with #14-16 Lehigh Unusuals in BWO and Sulphur colors. Fishing pressure continues to be light, probably because the only fish that seem to remain in any good numbers aren’t really in spots fishable from the banks.

We had Lane and Caroline for an evening float today. The trip was a birthday present for Caroline and it turned out to be a good birthday present for her landing two nice rainbows. Hatch activity was light and the fishing was slow, nobody was really catching a whole lot despite cool temps and plenty of overcast. Just not enough bugs to get them moving tonight I guess. Hatching insects were #16 blue winged olives, one fish took a #14 parachute adams and the other ate a #16 pheasant tail hanging off the back. Water temps was 65 degrees.