Stop out tonight, April 27th at the Dame Juliana League at 7:00 for my "Light Spey for Local Waters" presentation. During this presentation we will discuss casting and fishing light, 2 handed gear in our local waters for species like Trout, Shad, and Bass. For more information about the "League" or for directions to the club click HERE. I hope to see you tonight at 7:00.
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Well, as I sit here reflecting on what was a great weekend it was, I can honestly say the "Irish Flies" Shad School was a big success! Each day I left my house at around 8:15 am and would return after 9:00 pm. On Monday morning the owner of the company of my "real" job asked me if I was tired. I told him yes, but it is a good tired. There is something rewarding about working hard and achieving the result you are looking for. I do feel the class went well, and I do absolutely believe the people in the class gained some knowledge and are set to take advantage of this great fishery. Information packets were prepared with directions to the river, recipes for the four fly patterns we tied and performance surveys were also provided. I provided the class with a survey to rate the content of the class. My thought was if I am going to continue to up my game I need the honest feedback of the people attending my events to let me know about areas for improvement. I have already received some of the surveys back and the comments have been great. Many positive, and some suggestions for improvement, which is exactly what I am looking for. Thank you to all whome returned their surveys, I hope to see many more soon. The slide show went through the different Shad species we have available. We also talked about appropriate gear, flies, rigging, and fishing techniques. I think the slideshow was well received, and the questions afterward were great. After the slideshow and the Q&A session we took a short break to set up and we prepared to tie. We got all 4 patterns in each day. The ability of the tiers in these classes was great! It made my job easy. We tied the One Boot, Micro Clouser, Deer Creek S fly and the Dart. I told the class if they spend some time and fill their Shad box with a variety of these patterns you will be set for Hickories and Americans for years to come. After we finished tying we had lunch at the Brandywine Grill. If you are ever in the Christiana Cabelas store stop in the Grill and get the Elk sandwich. It is REALLY good. I would be remiss if I didn't give a big thank you to Eric Williams, the marketing manager of our local Cabelas store. Eric has been very good to me and my "Irish Flies" endeavors. The conference room and cafe set up are perfect for this type of class and I look forward to doing more of this events in the future. Now, what everybody has been waiting for...Everybody is waiting for the Shad run to happen. I fished our local Shad river 2 times last week in preparation for the class, and I was there for several hours each weekend day with the class. The verdict...in my opinion it is not "on" yet. On Wednesday evening I hooked one Shad (could have been a Herring) and Ed landed 1. I did manage this nice Carp, and yes, he ate the pink Shad fly. On Wednesday the numbers of fish moving through the river system was staggering. Many of these fish were Herring, but, by Sunday evening the Shad to Herring ratio was definitely swinging more toward Shad. As mentioned the number of fish moving up the river was insane! One of the people in the class would stop fishing for LONG periods of time and just look into the water. He said "I have never seen anything like this". Water temps varied between 58 and 70 degrees from Wednesday night until Sunday afternoon. My guess is that the fishing will get better and better as the days go by, this has been confirmed by reports from the last few days. As mentioned the fishing was tough. We caught fish both days, but not in the numbers we are looking for. I scheduled the class early on purpose. My thought was the fishing would not be as good, but the guys would have the entire season to go back, use the knowledge they gained in the class, and bang some fish. We took a ton of pictures and there is no way I could post all of them here. You can check out all of the photos on the Irish Flies Facebook page here. I would like to thank every body that attended the class. I hope you had as much fun attending as I did hosting. I also have to give a HUGE thank you to my buddy "One Boot" Ed. He spent about 24 hours helping me this weekend. ED, I couldn't have done this without your help. Thank you! Till next time...
Tight lines As many of you already know my wife, Michelle has been stricken with Multiple Sclerosis. We have been living with MS for about 7 years now. In a effort to combat this terrible disease my wife is looking for sponsors for a walk to benefit MS research and hopefully find a cure. If you are inclined please use the link below to make a pledge to support Michelle's team. Click the link to the Walk for MS home page, click "Donate" and type in Michelle O'Neill where it says "Name". Your generosity is much appreciated. For any donation of $50.00 or more "Irish Flies" will give that person one free, in home, private fly tying lesson. Please help us try to find a cure. Thank you. Michelle & Tim To donate to Michelle's team click HERE I came home today and in my mailbox were these awesome new "Irish Flies" decals. I had my friend Matt Zudweg of BoneYard Fly Gear make these up for me. Matt has done some work for me in the past and he knocked it out of the park again. The really cool thing is that I needed these for an event this weekend (Irish Flies Shad School) and unfortunately I drug my feet a little contacting Matt for the order. I didn't actually order them until the 9th and I had them 6 days later! Matt labels his company as "a graphic arts company inspired by the art of fishing". Spend a little time on his web site and I think you will agree! Check out Matt's site here or his Facebook here. Thank you Matt for another great job!
In last weeks post I talked about the fact that spring is finally here and some of the tell tale signs that we know it is here to stay. Well, one other sign is the fact we are seeing some consistency in the weather. The old adage of "April showers bring May flowers" is true and I am sure we will see our fair share of rain in April. We better if we want good, fishable water levels through out the summer. That is not the type of consistency I am talking about. What I am talking about is the warming trend we have seen in the past few weeks. I can look at my weather app on my phone and plan, with relative confidence, a day trip of fishing without worry of snow, ice and bitter cold temperatures. Maybe stability would be a better word choice, ether way I knew where I was headed on Sunday morning. Before I get into that I would like to share with you a few things I have been working on. The "Irish Flies" Shad School is this weekend. All of the prep work is completed and I have a few loose ends to tie up before the first class on Saturday. For the time of year the Shad reports have been positive. This is based on first hand info. I am really looking forward to this weekend, and I hope the guys in the class are too. I have added a page to the web site. If you go to the home page and move your cursor over the "Home" tab at the top of the screen you will see a drop down titled "Local River Conditions". Click on that page and you will see various buttons with names of our local rivers. These buttons are links to the USGS site for each river. Here you can get river height, flow levels and water temperatures. I also put a link to NOAA as well as Salt Water Tides .com. If there is something else you would like to see on this page let me know. If I can I will put it up there. I also would like to let you know I will be presenting at the April meetings of the White Clay Fly Fishers and the Dame Juliana League of Fly Fishers. On April 21st I will be presenting "Articulated Flies, a Practical Approach" for the White Clay Fly Fishers. This presentation will discuss fly design and fishing techniques of big, jointed flies. On April 27th I will be presenting "Light Spey for Local Waters" for the Dame Juliana League. This presentation will discuss fishing with light, two handed gear on our local waters for Bass, Trout, and Shad. I hope to see you on the 21st or 27th. I will post more about these dates in the next week or so. Sunday fun dayAs mentioned, the stable weather had me planing a day trip on Sunday. I haven't done a full day on the river since the fall and I was excited to get out there. With temps predicted to be in the 70's I was hopeful the warm temperatures would have the bugs active and the fish would follow suit. A quick text conversation with "One Boot" Ed and our plans were made. We would be meeting up at 8:30 and heading to one of our favorite rivers. Ed had to leave in the late afternoon so we devised a plan to drive both cars out and park his at the spot I wanted to fish in the evening. We then got into my truck and headed to a section of river with about a 50 / 50 wild to stocked fish ratio. The weather was great and the water temps were just under 50 degrees. The bugs were active and I found several Nymphs under the rocks. I also saw a bunch of these guys in the air.. As mentioned this section of river has stocked fish mixed with wild fish. The stockers were acting like stockers and the wild fish were wild. This section is also open water, meaning it falls under the "all tackle" rules. Fly, Spinners, Bait and Stringers are all part of this rule set. At one point I was nymphing over a pocket of stocked fish when an older gentleman fishing spinners walked up next to me. For those of you who have never fished ultra light spinning gear for Trout being successful is much more than casting out and reeling in, and this guy was good. He proceeded to pull 3 fish out from underneath of me as fast as he could cast. When fishing open water I have come to expect this, I actually enjoy it. I am sure this old guy was thinking something like "I don't know why you are messing with that long rod son, I just showed you how to do it" Well, I figured a silver spinner and a white Bugger are pretty close to the same so I re-positioned myself, tied on a white Bugger and proceeded to pull 3 fish from underneath of him as fast as I could cast 3 times. The look on his face was priceless and we both started to laugh a little. We had a nice conversation before we parted ways. I do enjoy showing non-fly fishers just how effective our gear can be. After fishing out the afternoon it was time to head back to Ed's car so he could leave and I could fish out the evening on a section of water that was tailor made for throwing dries. When I met up with Ed he was UN-hooking this little guy. I didn't realize it was a Trout until he started saying "get a picture" "get a picture" Ed's day was similar to mine, stocked fish podded up like stocked fish do and wild fish acting like wild fish act. The top fly was a red Copper John, but PT's, Buggers and Midges all caught fish. After dropping Ed off I took a break, ate some lunch and devised a plan for the evening. There is this awesome little run at the bottom of the dry fly flat that I have always wanted to fish, but never seem to get to. I decided I would fish there first before moving up onto the flat to match wits with some risers. I stuck 2 out of the run on a tight line rig including this awesome brown. After spending about 1/2 hour in the run it was time to move onto the flat. Stoneflies were definitely the prominent bug so I tied on my Snowshoe Stone and fished my way up the flat. I only stuck one fish, but it was a good one, a solid 13" Brown. It was great to be out fishing in nice weather for a change. It was also nice to spend the day on the river with a good friend. With Trout fishing heating up, Shad and Saltwater fishing right around the corner and Smallmouth only 6 weeks away this is a great time of year. Here are the rest of the pics from yesterday. Till next time... Tight lines...
Well, I think it is safe to say Spring is finally here. Before we get into this week's post I would like to give an update on the proposed rule changes for the "DAHLO" section of the White Clay. I am happy to say that the proposed rule changes have been dismissed! According to the Fish and Boat Commission there were 343 comments posted with all but 5 opposed to the rule changes. I must say I believe that number of comments to be EXTREMELY low. With the software I have for this site I can track things like how many people visit the site on a daily basis, what pages have the most views, What Blog posts are the most popular ETC. When I put a link in a post I have the ability to see how many times the link was clicked. I can say that from the Blog post I put up on March 19th. OVER 1200 PEOPLE CLICKED ON THE LINK! I am sure not everybody left a comment, but I am sure most of you did and I want to thank you for that. At any rate I am glad the proposed changes have been dropped and we can continue to enjoy the middle branch of the White Clay the way we have become accustomed to. Thank you to all that took the time to voice your opinion. It is good to see we still can make a difference. To read the official word from the PAFBC click here. Spring is here!Yes, Spring is finally here. It is funny, it seems the older I get the less I seem to like Winter. I can remember when we were kids we couldn't wait for winter to arrive! We would spend all day outside sledding, building snow forts and having snowball fights, playing hockey on the local pond. (the same pond we would Bass fish in the Summer) As we got a little older we dabbled in some more mischievous acts like throwing snowballs at passing cars (c'mon, if you are my age or older you know you did it too) or, as the older people in our circle got their drivers license we would tie ropes to the bumpers and drag people on sleds around the neighborhood streets. Not the smartest thing we ever did, but it was fun. The point is we would be outside all day and sometimes well into the night. Now, when it gets cold, my back hurts, my knee hurts, I am stiff, and I really don't like shoveling snow! I am confident all of that is behind us. Several things tell me Spring is here. In the morning, when I go out to start my truck I can hear the Robins and Sparrow's singing their songs in the trees near by. The daffodils in my wife's flower bed are blooming and that is a sure sign spring is here. As I type this Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals just launched his first home run of the season right center field, I am sure there will be many more this year. All of these things are tell tale signs that spring is here. Perhaps the biggest sign that spring is here is the fact that both Delaware and Pennsylvania's regular Trout seasons opened this weekend. Now, opening day doesn't hold the same allurement for me as it once did. Anyone who fishes year round will tell you opening day is just another day. Many people I know don't even fish this weekend because of the crowds. I understand that point of view, but, there is still something about opening day. I think, for me, it is in the tradition. My bio on this site tells a very fond memory about a particular opening day with my dad and 2 brothers some 35+ years ago. Tradition in fishing with my brother in south central PA every opening day for for almost 2 decades. Well, unfortunately for me, tradition had to be broken this year. Instead of getting to the river way to early on Saturday morning to stake my claim, I was in my truck heading RT 1 south to my job. That's right, I had to work on opening day! I did have a phone conversation with my brother on the way down to work; "where you fishing" "who are you fishing with" "what spinner you gonna start with" (he doesn't fly fish) were all a part of the conversation. I tried to tell myself it was "no big deal" but in reality, it was. As I sat at work I fully expected my phone to explode with pictures right around 8:02 (2 minutes after legal start time) I was surprised when nothing came through. 8:15...nothing, 8:30...nothing finally I couldn't take it anymore and I sent him a text, no response. Well, come to find out the only reason my phone didn't blow up is because he didn't have a signal! I did get only one text with a picture attached "I think it is a Cutt Bow that swam down from Nova Scotia" Before you start sending me comments, yes I do realize that statement is wrong on so many levels! If you know my brother it would make perfect sense, trust me! We did get out together on Sunday morning for a bit, The fishing was not as productive as it was the day before, as it goes when you are chasing stocked fish, but is was still fun anyway. I am glad Winter is gone, I am glad it is not so bitter cold anymore' I am glad baseball season is here, most of all I am glad I got out on the water with my brother this weekend. Till next time...
Tight lines The past three weeks have been a very busy time for Irish Flies. Between attending seminars, banquet dinners, prepping for the shad class and actually getting in a little fishing the past few weeks have been extremely fun as well as overwhelming. Before we talk about the "Ice Breaker" event at TCO I would like to discuss the "DHALO" section of the White Clay Creek. If you are not familiar with the proposed rule changes please check out my post from last week. You can read it here. I will keep my personal opinions to myself, no reason to go into a rant here. I can say if you fish in the state of Pennsylvania, and these proposed changes go through, this will affect your fishing at some point. Please use the link in the post or the link in the PDF to leave your comments with the Fish and Boat commission. Now, last Wednesday, a popular Pennsylvania based internet forum exploded with posts saying the rule changes have been dropped or dismissed. Things like "I just got an email from so and so and they said it has been dismissed" or "I just talked to such and such form PAFBC and they said all proposed changes have been dismissed". Based on all of the chatter it would seem that the rules have been dismissed, after all, it is on the internet so it must be true... All kidding aside I have been trying to confirm this myself with PAFBC as well as our local deputy warden. Unfortunately, I have not gotten any responses as of yet. If anybody has any information on this please feel free to contact me. The White Clay is too rich in history to allow these rule changes to go through and I don't think anybody wants bait fishing in the DHALO section year round! I would suggest we all continue to make our voices heard. If you don't make your opinion known than don't complain if these rule changes go through! OK I will get down off my soap box now. Ice breaker event at TCO ReadingMy buddy Ed and I headed to the TCO shop in Reading a few weeks ago for their second annual "Ice Breaker" event. This years featured speaker was Blane Chocklett. Blane is a full time guide out of Roanoke Virginia. He guides for Trout, Bass and Stripers, but his bread and butter is putting his clients on what has to be the baddest of all of the fresh water fish, the Musky. We watched a great presentation where Blane talked about his guiding operation, fly design and Musky fishing. As good as the presentation was, the tying demo was better. Jake and the boys at TCO put out a spread of pulled pork and smoked wings. After the slideshow we took a short break to stuff our faces then it was time to tie. We watched as Blane tied his signature "T-Bone" fly, and articulated beast with 3 segments and a really cool design to keep the bucktail flared while in the water. Then he tied the "Game Changer" which is quickly becoming one of my favorite flies. It was cool to listen to Blane talk as he was tying. One thing I found interesting were some of the words or terms he used. Terms like "engage" or "RE-engage" the fly. "Trigger" was a very popular word in regards to building in design features to entice the fish to eat the fly. There was a long explanation about the design and shape of the fly's head and how that causes the rest of the fly to move in the water. I can say without a doubt there has been a ton of thought into these flies and their inherent design. A ton of trial and error too. I am really looking forward to using what I have learned and tweaking a few of my personal designs. Constantly learning, that is one of the great things about this sport. Talk about some cool flies! Several of those "Game Changers" will find their way into my Smallmouth box this Summer. To benefit the the stocking effort on the Tully, A TFO Esox rod was donated to be raffled off. Always wanting to support a good cause I donated an Andrew Jackson and wouldn't you know, my name was pulled out of the bucket! I opted for the 400 / 500 grain model. I am confident this rod will handle any of our local Musky action, it will also make a great jetty stick handling with ease the big Bunker and Eel flies we throw in April and October to the migrating Stripers on the jetties at Indian River Inlet. I wanted to thank Blane for coming north to do this seminar and thank Jake and TCO for hosting. You can check out Blane's Facebook page here. Also for another great blog, check out "All things Fly" here. Jake does an awesome job with it and there is a ton of great information. Till next time...
Tight lines Below is the PDF that describes the proposed rule changes for the Delayed Harvest Artificial lures Only (DHALO) section of the White Clay Creek's Middle branch. If I understand this correctly the Fish and Boat Commission's proposed rules will allow kids under 16 to bait fish the DHALO section year round, it will allow all anglers to bait fish during the "harvest" season and lowers the size limit of harvested fish from 9 inches to 7 inches. If you would like to comment, and I hope you do, please click here. I have already made my comments to the Fish and Boat commission and hope everyone reading this will do the same. Till next time...
Tight Lines "You fish Year round"? I always liked to see the look on peoples faces when I tell them that we fish 12 months out of the year. part of the beauty of living where we do is that we have legitimate fishing opportunities available to us all year. One of those opportunities are Shad. If you have never fished for Shad before let me tell you, you are missing out on an awesome fishery! If you want to take advantage of this fishery, but don't know where to start let me suggest "Irish Flies" Shad Fishing 101. I just got the information from the venue and the dates are a go so I can finalize all of the details. I am running 2 classes with 6 people in each class. My goal is to give everybody the best experience I can, I will have help while we are on the river, but I believe more than 6 would be a stretch. Here are the details... O'Neills Irish Flies Shad School Class one is Saturday April 18 th Class 2 is Sunday April 19th Each class will meet at 10.00 am. I will present a 45 min / one hour slideshow that will cover species, locations, gear, techniques and flies. I hope this will spur on a question and answer session. After that we will tie a minimum of 2 to a maximum of 4 of my favorite Shad flies. (the number of flies we tie will depend on how we are doing on time) We will break for lunch and then head to the river to fish out the evening. (The un-official start to Shad season is usually the 15 th of April. I have purposefully set the dates up early in the season so after class you will have the entire rest of the season to put your new found knowledge to task). O'Neills Irish Flies will provide a coffee and doughnut type breakfast, lunch and all of the tying materials for the tying portion of the class as well as the slideshow. Cost for the entire day is $100.00 / person. For the tying portion of the class you will need to provide a vise, bobbin with thread (any 6/0 light color thread will do) bodkin, scissors, and a dubbing twister. A light for your vise is recommended, but not necessary. You will also be responsible for providing all of the appropriate fishing gear including rod, reel, line, waders and boots and fishing license. You can fish the flies we tie in class and I will have custom flies available for sale during the "classroom" portion of the day. For a detailed list of the gear needed or to sign up for the class please use the links or phone number at the bottom of the page to contact me. If you don't fish the winter months Shad fishing is a great way to shake the "shack nasties" and knock the rust off after a long winter (especially this one). If the run is strong, and I believe it will be, it is also a great way to catch a bunch of hard fighting, jumping, beautiful fish. My hopes are this class will give you the tools necessary to start you down the path of being an obsessed Shad fisherman like I am. I hope to see you in class. Till next time... At the end of a tough day on the White Clay this past weekend I was pondering the events of the day and I came to three conclusions. 1) This winter has been brutal, these cold temperatures are as harsh as I can ever remember. 2) Those same cold temperatures have made the winter fishing uncharacteristically tough. 3) It is very evident that river etiquette is lost on quite a few people. I would like to share with you two very different scenarios from the same day. Scenario #1; as I pull into lot number three I see two members of the White Clay Fly Fishers gearing up. We say our “hellos”, talk for a bit and proceed to head to the water. They were in the lot first so I ask them what their plan was. After a little discussion they decide to head to a spot below the second bridge. I decided I would head to the upper section and fish the area between the first and second bridges. Through a little friendly communication we ensured that we would not be on top of each other fishing through the same water. I did not see them the rest of the day and hope they had better luck than I. Scenario #2; later in the day I had worked my way into one of my favorite spots and was waiting for the water to calm down from my wading before I started to fish. Before I could start a group of 4 anglers came down and started fishing right on top of me. The one fella was Nymphing downstream and his indicator was drifting right past me. I could have reached down and picked it out of the water. Aggravated, I decided to let them have this spot and I waded out (without saying a word) and moved to another spot down stream. Shortly after I got to this new spot I looked up and the same 4 anglers were coming down the river. Knowing there was no way they effectively fished the spot I had just left them I decided to watch them and see what they do. I was half heartedly drifting my Nymph rig as I watched them move closer and closer. At one point one of them was fishing so close to me I could have literally hit him in the side of the head with my rod, something in my younger days I may have done! As my blood pressure continued to rise and I pondered how to handle this situation. As our sport becomes more and more popular there seems to be an entire faction of anglers that may not have had the benefit of people to mentor them and teach them the proper way to handle themselves while on the river. Each situation is different with several factors to consider, and I understand that. Here are a few suggestions you may want to consider the next time you head out. Following these simple rules may make the day of you and your fellow anglers more enjoyable. 1) The first person there gets first choice: Just as mentioned in the opening paragraph, it is my belief that if two people are gearing up in the parking lot at the same time they owe it to themselves to communicate. Let the first person decide where they would like to go and then fish somewhere else. It is a big river out there with plenty of spots to fish. Fishing on top of each other will only decrease the odds of both anglers. 2) Give them plenty of room: If you come upon another angler while on the river take a minute and assess the situation. Are they at the end of their run? Are you at the end of yours? Are you both fishing in the same direction or are you going to cross? Who is in the best position to get out and walk around? Again, some simple communication here will go a long way in this situation. As a rule of thumb I always try to give at least 50 yards of river to another fisherman, and I hope the favor is returned. 3) Don’t drop in on somebody: This is probably the most violated of all of the etiquette rules and is the one that will usually draw the ire of most people. Weather a person is working up or down river NEVER jump ahead of them in the same run. I don’t care the situation or the circumstance it is not acceptable to low or high hole a fellow angler, ever! You have two choices here, you can wait a bit and fall in behind them (assuming they are fishing up stream) or you can walk a run or two above them and start to fish. I have seen first hand the kind of confrontation this can cause and it just is not worth it! 4) Use common sense: The reasons we fish can be as varied as the fishermen themselves. On some level we are all out there to have some fun. Nobody wants to deal with drama while on the river, we get enough of that in our day to day lives. Employ a little common sense and conduct yourself with some decorum. I read a quote the other day that I think fits well here “would your Grandmother be proud of the way you are acting right now”? If the answer is no, than you should probably re-think your position. Back to scenario #2 from the first paragraph. As mentioned I was getting a little upset. Just then the guy that was standing less than nine feet from me asked me about the strike indicator I was using. Well, it turns out all four of these guys are total beginners to the sport. Here I was thinking these were the actions of some brash, cocky individuals that were only looking out for themselves, in reality they just didn’t know. Maybe I should have taken my own advice and communicated with them first, my mistake. We had a nice conversation, I answered a bunch of questions and helped them with some rigging. After we parted ways I was thinking about the many people that have helped me to become a better fly fisher, many of whom I still lean on today. I would be lying if I didn’t think a little part of me may be responsible for these guys sticking with the sport. Helping out a fellow person…that is something my Grandmother would have been proud of. Till next time… Tight lines |
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