The sun finally peeked out. I knew that I was walking in on a spot in the stream that could hold an active fish, so a stealthy approach was necessary. As soon as I could see the water, I could see fish. Then a rise. Then another. Then I saw this little guy literally jumping out of the water after a bug that had already taken flight. Tied on a Parachute Adams, and I started catching famished fish one after the other.

This was not a typical day of our early season trout trips to NW PA. In fact, this was the last day of the trip…a day that successfully capped off what had been a very tough weekend of fishing.

There is no shortage of fishy water in this part of Pennsylvania. Without thinking hard, I can name more than a dozen cold water streams within an hour’s drive of my in-laws’ cabin outside of Tidioute. This year we added to the list by exploring new streams that we’ve only read about. One of those was Kinzua Creek’s DH section.

Kinzua was the only place where we really ran in to other fisherman. For good reason. I walked about a mile of the stream before casting a line. The holes and deep runs were apparent, though not a frequent sight. Only two of the holes that I cast two produced fish. The water was so clear in one hole that I was able to watch fish get aggressive with a wollybugger. A faster, shallower run yielded a fish on an elk hair caddis – wasn’t really expecting that so I didn’t get a visual on the strike

After that we hit a familiar FFO/CNR stream called Caldwell Creek. I always have a lot of fun on this stream – seems like the fish are primed for flies where other streams’ trout seem to prefer the offerings of spin fisherman. Never saw a rise on Caldwell, which was a bit of a disappointment, but I did manage to trick a couple small browns into hitting a dropper nymph.

The other new water we hit this year was the DH section of East Hickory. A beautiful slow grade stream that passes through the small town of Endeavor, PA. The weather and the water looked just right for a major hatch the evening that we were there. But, the bug activity was minimal, and the only fish hooked were on spinning gear.

Had a delightful encounter with some gentlemen from the Oil Creek Chapter of TU at the Little Sandy pull-off when we were on our way back home Tuesday. They, in fact, explained that there were a few streams that were not giving up good hatches in the area – at least not the kinds of hatches those same streams had in the past. I was also given the low-down of stocking strategies there at the Little Sandy, as well as the Big Sandy, Oil Creek and Caldwell Creek. Of course, before all of this chatting I was on the Little Sandy catching famished fish one after the other with a #16 Parachu…I mean Shane Fly.

Simply, I cannot mention a trip to NW PA without talking about Thompson Run. Seriously, one of the most beautiful places I’ve been. Imagine fishing micro streams for native brookies on the set of Lord of the Rings. These little brookies are so aggressive, and so beautifully marked, I was quite content catching them on dries while my father- and brother-in-law cleaned up on the larger stockers.

I consider myself very lucky to have such access and opportunity to fish the waters of NW PA. As always, I’m very grateful to my father-in-law for his hospitality. And I have to mention that my brother-in-law Devan was outfishing all of us. Handily! That still doesn’t sit very well with me

I love making little fly fishing films. It combines two of my favorite activities, and it gives me a tangible product that we can share with our family and friends, “This is what fly fishing is like.”

While I’m still behind in editing two of our fishing trips from 2012, I was able to string together a few hours to whip up ‘December Steel,” which is a very quick look at our recent steelhead trip on the Rocky River in Cleveland. We are very fortunate to have an immediate audience in all of the subscribers and fans of our Facebook page. Then, Phil Monahan at Orvis caught wind of the video and selected it to be part of the first Orvis Friday Fy Fishing Film Festival.

The only reason we make these videos is because we love doing them, and we love sharing our experiences. We hope y’all enjoy them. Now I’m going to get off of the website and see if I can’t pick back up on editing our Rocky Mountain trip.

Half of you will stop reading after this: I did not land a poon on my recent trip to the Tampa area. For the rest of you, I’ll explain why this trip was still a huge success and also why I would never suggest that any of you ever try fly fishing for tarpon.

I’ve been watching other people catch tarpon on the fly since I was a little kid; my brother and I sitting in the sofa on Saturday mornings in the fall watching Jose Wejebe make it look so simple, yet, so exciting. The real draw of these fish is not just that they’re huge, or that they look awesome, or that they’re they’re the most violent fighting fish in the water. It’s the method. The hunt. The chase. That’s the sickness that I had, and now the sickness has become so strong that I was trying to figure out how to justify another tarpon trip just halfway in to this one. It’s that hard-to-explain notion of casting to a fish that I’m afraid to hook up with.

Capt. Nick Angelo spying poon

It didn’t take long to catch on to how to approach tarpon…just wait on one to wander by. Capt. Nick positioned his Hell’s Bay skiff around a sandy flat at the exit of a near shore channel. The idea is fish swimming up and down the beach get funneled into this skinny water where it’s easy to see them and then cast to them. Before we saw any tarpon we had dolphins go under the boat, then some good-sized rays skated past, then we saw a shark, then manatees. No shortage of things for a boy from the Flatland to gaze at. Then we heard a little curl in the water behind the boat. I looked just in time to see the dorsal of a 100+ pound fish before she took a dive into water too deep forums to see where she went. Time to go a little shallower.

In 3-4 feet of water we quickly found some fish to cast to. Now, let me explain that I’ve been casting heavy rods in the yard at home, working on distance, accuracy, and getting a strip going before the fly hits the surface. I could hit a tree stump from 50′ no problem. All of that practice and simple common sense goes right out the window when you are casting at is that’s as long as you are tall. I’m flailing the rod around like a maniac, slacking the water left and right with no discernible rhythm whatsoever. As more fish swam by I was able to recompose myself a little.

I had two amazing encounters with these fish that I’ll never forget. A big girl darted in fast over my right shoulder so I had to back cast to her. First cast missed but she turned toward the boat. Second cast was right on, she gave chase, but then she got so close to the boat that she got spooked and calmly turned her head and went on her way.

Tarpon fishing is a lot like fishing a rising trout in current, except that it’s completely different. Everything has to be just right: angle of the fly, position of the fly, the current, the presentation, just like you have to create a natural presentation to a trout, mend line, keep up slack, etc. This time, I got it as good as I could. This fish slowly gave chase to my fly and she was no more than 20′ away from the bow of the boat when I witnessed her gaping mouth drop open and the fly disappeared. Oh, did I also mention that setting a hook on a tarpon was completely different from raising the rod on a trout? Capt. Nick gave me fair warning of how to do it properly by stripping the line until it’s tight, and keeping the rod tip low until the fish is on the reel. Yeah…I lifted the rod. I felt a tight line for a matter of seconds and then it was all over. One amazingly powerful shake of her head and she darted away.

I had to take a seat. I wasn’t disappointed by any stretch of the imagination. I was exhausted. Seriously, I didn’t breathe during any of the 15-20 close calls that I had with these tarpon. I was grateful for having such a close encounter with such an amazing creature. I got to see mouths open on my fly twice, got fish to chase close enough to the boat that I was able to see individual scales on at least seven fish. None of these fish were any less than 75lbs. And this all took place in just a half day of fishing and a month out of the “prime season.”

So, I’m addicted. I’m not the type of guy that can afford to do trips like this. Not sure that I ever will get to do this again. But the sickness will thrive inside me, and I fear that actually putting my hands on a tarpon will only make it worse. My advice: Don’t do it.

P.S.

The term “soak” a tarpon is a tasteless phrase that the salty fly guides in Tampa have come up with to denote a fish that wasn’t hooked properly. It’s based on an old Mormon trick where young unwed couples could have intimate encounters without actually “doing it.” Y’all can prolly connect the dots.

It was hot…HOT!!! As most of you in the Midwest part of the country can serve witness to, we had temperatures over 100 degrees. We spent the majority of the daylight hours soaking in the river in search of relief from the heat. I think the fish were in the same mode – just ducking away to wait for cooler temps.

We only had a chance to fish on a couple occasions, and those were both limited to morning times. One foggy morning, about an hour after sun-up my father-in-law and I fired up the 6hp motor and headed upstream a couple hundred yards to a familiar spot that has yielded lots of action from respectable smallmouth, and even a couple muskies. Dad-in-law struck early speeding a buzzbait over a rocky flat at the end of the pool. A beautiful healthy smallmouth that measured more than 18″.

A couple casts after that, I missed a good smallie who swam up from behind a car-sized rock to get his mouth on my popper fly because I yanked it out of his mouth too quick. These were smart fish who’ve seen all kinds of tempting lures, and it was a very busy time of week for fishing traffic floating down the river. It was going to take a more delicate approach. I put another cast in the same area – the fly landed looking like it could have fallen from a smaller rock on the bank. Bam! I never even got a chance to strip the popper in.

This fish went deep on the far side of the big rock. Using 6x tippet (I ran out of 4x the morning before), I knew I had to finesse him so I gave him some line to try to let him get out of the far side of this rock, but he just went deeper and eventually the rock frayed my tippet to point that it broke. Poo. A few seconds after that my popper fly surfaced. Shane will be proud to know that I didn’t lose one fly the whole trip. Mostly because he didn’t tie any of them.

There was all sorts of non-fishing fun to be had there on the river: fireworks, float trips, cliff diving with toddlers, etc. Despite the heat, we found fish and plenty other ways to have fun. One of the most special moments was delivering to my father-in-law his custom-crafted 3wt that Shane whipped together. The whole family “Ooo’d” and “Aaaahh’d” at it, thrilled that it said “Pop Stone” written by hand above the handle.

First, let me say that I now own one. The Simms SunGaiter Mask, to be exact. Camo in color, to be more exact.

When I first saw guys wearing these silly things in a saltwater fly fishing films, I couldn’t help but think, “Don’t they know that they look stupid?” Cuz, really, that’s what fly fishing is all about, right? How cool you look? Well, then I started to notice that everybody is starting to wear these things. So, they probably know that they look stupid, but somehow it’s become an acceptable fashion statement amongst fly fishing hipsters. And now, if you don’t wear one in your fly fishing film, you are clearly stating that you have no idea what’s going on in the world of fly fishing fashion.

Then I fished Pensacola Bay earlier this spring, and the wonderful guide we were with pulled a head mask out when the sun broke the horizon. I wasn’t sure if I should laugh at him or be jealous. The Captain summed up the whole conundrum for me with one sentence: “It’s cheaper than sunscreen.”

Cheaper. I speak that language. Especially for a guide like him who’s on the water 300 days of the year in the Sunshine State, it’s a no-brainer. At the current price of sunscreen, you can either buy two tubes of Nanner Boat or buy a dopey-looking mask that will last as long as you know where you left it.

Welp, my parents bought me one for my recent birthday (shame on the rest of you for not buying me gifts). It came in the mail, and I promptly went to grab my fishin’ hat and my WalMart polarized glasses to try it on and scare the kids. A dear friend told me, “You look like an idiot.” Like anything else once you have it on for a while you hardly even know it’s there. It’s lightweight and comfortable…I’m like a lot of dudes – I can’t stand the greasy feeling of lotions. Just fishing sans greasy sunscreen is worth looking sillier than I normally do.

Here in the Flatland we have things like trees that offer some shade in and around the streams that we fish. There will be a lot of times where I’ll leave the SunGaiter in the vest. However, in just about every case where I would wear sunscreen whilst fishing, I’ll be donning the SunGaiter, looking as cool/dopey as the rest of hipster fly fishers.

If you don’t make a ritual out of checking out the OrvisNews.com site every Friday afternoon, consider it. There’s always some interesting short films from all over the globe of dudes (and gals) capturing some fun moments on film while fly fishing. For instance, our latest little short “Bronze Surface,” which just happens to be featured on the 6/29/12 Orvis Friday Film Festival! Check it out!

Orvis Fly Fishing Blog

Here’s a quick group of clips from our latest trip to the Mad, on 6/15.

Camp is a very special place. It’s a humble little cabin on the banks of the Allegheny outside the tiny town of Tidioute in northwestern Pennsylvania. The place belongs to my in-laws, but they’re kind enough to allow me to tag along on fishing trips and family get-togethers. The more I get into fly fishing, the more I get excited each time we start the long drive from Central Ohio.

All the stars were aligning to make this a productive trip. Literally. The weather was just about perfect: 70s and sunny all three days. The Supermoon was out at night. And the water conditions were right where you’d want them to be.

Loads of fish were caught by my father-in-law, my brother-in-law Devan, and myself. But mostly by my father-in-law I’m gonna pass on writing up a typical fishing report. Instead, I’ll waste a few words talking about one decent brownie that made my whole trip. The forthcoming video will help reinforce the story.

Caldwell Creek has a short stretch of FFO and DH. I’ve fished just around the Selkirk Road bridge with success on dries – that’s where Devan caught his first dry-fly trout last summer. This time we wanted to explore the water a little, so we headed downstream, scaring fish, but taking note of some holes we would hit on the walk back upstream. One particular hole caught my eye – it was perfect for a dope like me: no trees in my casting lane, an easy route for me to stalk without spooking the fish, and a hungry brown intently looking for a snack.

Before I concentrated on that hole, I did hook up with another nice brown on a Prince dropper in a rippling run. Fun fight, but he threw the hook. With very little action on the surface, that fish was an encouraging reminder that Caldwell held willing participants.

I approach the hole at question. There are at least two trout active in the hole. One is a typical 10″ stocker, and the other is a darker fish, closer to 14″. With the Caddis/Prince combo still tied on, I put a couple cautious casts into the hole. The smaller fish swirled around to take a look, but no take. I put on a BWO after having seen some similar bugs in the air. That wasn’t doing the trick either. I decided it was time to turn to my go-to dry fly, the exotic fur ant. With a couple trees overhead, it made sense to try. Leader felt a little short so I went ahead and re-rigged the line.

Felt like I made a million casts in and around the hole to position the fly into this fish’s feeding lane. Finally I saw a fish rise – a fish attacked a bug about 20 yds in front of me, but upstream from a fell tree – I had no chance to make that cast. This brown in front of me was gonna have to come up. A couple casts after that I finally got it close enough to his feeding lane. He gives chase but turns back just short of my fly. I was so disappointed. I assumed that he saw me…no doubt he did. I thought it was all over. But, I was going to keep casting at this fish until I scared him or got him to hand.

The very next cast was the most profitable cast of the trip. The fly was floating perfectly, it was gonna go right over his nose. My heart was thumping hard, just like if a wall-worthy buck was approaching me in November. Like so many exciting times in life, everything happened in slow motion once he turned his head up to look at the fly. He was coming hard and fast and attacked the fly with a splash. With 7X tippet I couldn’t horse him right to me, but I didn’t want to exhaust him either. My impatience ended up making it an exciting fight as it took seven…yes, SEVEN attempts for me to dig him out of the water with my net.

A lot of things added up to making this an exciting catch for me. Sight fishing with dries never gets old. I really had to think about how to approach this fish. This is one of the few times I efficiently executed a plan and it paid off. And more rewarding than anything, I caught the whole scene on video to share with others (see below).

Lots more fish were caught that weekend, again, mostly by my father-in-law. But this little brown gave me such a thrill, I’m sure not to soon forget.

There’s a very specific part of my calf muscle that’s sore from keeping my left leg steady on a rocking boat. The right side of my spine is untouchable due to my less-than-perfect back cast. And my forearm is on fire just because of my grip on the fly rod. But, oh, the pains have never felt so good.

While our video crew was on assignment in Pensacola, Florida, there was no question that I would have to find some time in the schedule to make it out to fish. With a few hours to kill before our flight home myself and my two co-workers, Doug and Travis, met up with Captain Eddie Woodall of Full Net Charters. We pulled into the Pensacola Beach boat ramps, and Captain Eddie was all set to for us to board and begin the search for some action.

As a fly fisher in Ohio, fishing saltwater has never really been something that I pay attention to. I go out of my way to skip past a lot of saltwater blogs and articles – I don’t live near there, so I always felt that it didn’t pertain to me. And now, with one trip under my belt, I’m still not considering myself a saltwater fly fisher, but if my travels ever take me near a legitimate saltwater fishery, I’m gonna find a way to get out.

Eddie was a very pleasant gentleman, a joy to speak with, and very familiar with the Bay. We cruised around in a very comfortable 24′ Blazer Bay vessel with a silky smooth 250hp Yamaha outboard. There was plenty of space for Doug and Travis to cast spinning rods while I stayed on the bow and whipped fly line in the wind.

Travis' Sheepshead

Captain Eddie had a plan to hit a variety of spots in search of a few different species. We started on a rock pile near the north shore of Pensacola Beach and we were feeling some strong strikes within minutes. Strong tugs that, to me, felt like large bass let Captain Eddie know that we were probably dealing with sheepshead. He was dead on. Travis finally got one in the boat while I was being tinkered with by some short-striking fish. The salt water sheepshead has a medium-sized mouth, but they don’t open very much, so short strikes were common on the size 12 clouser I was casting. The live shrimp that Travis and Doug were fishing was repeatedly being stripped off. That spot gave up another larger sheepshead as well as a good-sized puffer – an interesting sight for us flatlanders.

Puffer Fish

Our next spot was a dropoff where the incoming current encouraged Spanish mackerel to pass by. I had no idea what to expect…wasn’t even sure what a spanish mackerel looked like. Once we settled on a spot we were quickly getting signs of Spanish in the area. The live shrimp bait were coming back missing a head – a sure sign that we were dealing with the sharp chompers of the Spanish mackerel. I changed my methods and started stripping the fly quicker and shallower. On the second cast of my new technique I saw the definite flash the a Spanish as he darted towards the fly. I probably flinched the fly away from him in excitement.

Spanish Mackerel

A couple casts later and it was fish on. From out of nowhere this Spanish grabs and sprints away with the clouser. Incredible speed and strength for this relatively small torpedo-shaped fish. I was so thrilled I hardly remember getting the fish to the boat: this was my first salt water fish on a fly (as well as the first Spanish caught on a fly this year, as Captain Eddie noted). And what a beautiful critter these Spanish are. A couple more casts brought me another lightning-quick strike from a Spanish. Such a thrill to SEE these fish dart in to swipe the fly. This fish was a little bigger and a lot stronger. Took me a couple minutes to haul this fish in with a TFO 9′ 8wt. Even now I’m awestruck with the attractiveness of the Spanish as I’m browsing through our photos. Two more Spanish grabbed my clouser, but I failed to raise the rod quick enough. The last strike I had at this spot was from something special. I didn’t see that strike, but there’s no doubt it was a bigger fish. Nearly pulled the rod out of my hand. The two Spanish mackerel I brought in were a blast, but it was time to move on in search of a red.

We pulled near an interesting spot where we could cast around a dock near Fort Pickens State Park. The clean emerald water was broken by some dark rocks under the surface around the dock. Captain Eddie was confident the reds were in there. Live shrimp were being stolen from the spinning rods. I was getting short-striked again. Since I was getting more comfortable with my accuracy I dropped the fly right in on the dock. After a three-second drop count the rod bent and I was fighting a little redfish. He came in without too much drama, but a very respectable fight for one of the smaller of the species. I got him to the side of the boat, put my hand under his belly and brought him up for a closer look. I was holding a redfish. Very exciting – but the Captain quickly reminded us that more and bigger reds were in there.

My conscious was telling me that we would have to call it quits soon if we wanted to catch our flight home. We milked a few more casts out of our limited time. Travis made a great cast with the spinning rod right at the base of one of the dock’s pylons. Next thing we know we’re hearing drag get pulled. We look up and we can see this beast of a red thrashing at the pylon. Travis did all he could to keep the tip up and positive tension on the line. Unfortunately, the bull redfish had wrapped around to the other side of the pylon and he snapped the braided line. Not exactly the outcome we hoped for, but everyone on the boat was all smiles after having encountered such a special fish.

After a few more casts the responsible side of me made a request for Captain Eddie to run us back to the docks to get us home on time.

I knew that I was gonna be sore. Casting a dry fly with a 3wt halfway across a trout stream is nothing like trying to get WF8 line 75 feet out in 20mph wind. After the Captain gave me a few distance-maximizing casting tips, I was doing pretty good. But I fished hard, and did all that I could to cover as much water as possible. My body is paying the price, but, IMHO, it’s well worth it.

No chance I could say enough good things about Full Net Charters. No hesitations in recommending Captain Eddie to take you out if you’re in the Pensacola area. Thanks to Doug and Travis for joining in on the fun…and extra special credit goes to Doug for his wonderful camera work. Once I catch up on life after having been gone for a week, I’ll splice together some of our footage for a video. In the meantime, I’ve just about talked my wife into a Tarpon trip to the Keys.

Things are hopping along well at Flatlander. We’ve created a Facebook page for Flatlander Fly Fishing. For those of you who are already on Facebook, you can simply hook up to us at facebook.com/FlatlanderFlyFishing. There we will post many of our blog entries, videos, photos, news, and some useful links. Hope you join us!