Fly Fishing BS thread

Creel surveys are only one tool. Electrofishing generally gives the best estimates of population trends. A major reason slot limits are imposed is because larger fish have much higher fecundity than small fish, and allowing harvest within a "medium" size range allows for greater recruitment for larger size classes.

 

you must work in the natural resources side of things

 

If I keep anything, they're usually 12-15". Anything bigger than that goes back. Unless it dies. That's very rare, but it happens. Especially during summer months when the waters around here really start to warm up.

 

There is a lot that plays into it and creel surveys do leave a lot of error. I agree that electrofishing is probably the best way to determine population size/structure but is not always possibly. Slot limits work well for some areas and not so well for others. You have to take into consideration of big fish preying on yearlings. Or some people release medium fish in hopes of it growing to be of trophy size...but its near impossible for the environment it is in. They will get to a size and then starve because the the food available is not great enough for the fish. This is a problem with brook trout in my area. People want big fish and keep releasing them, but the population needs to be drastically dropped in order for big fish to exist.

It all depends on what the fishery is used for. Do they want trophy fish? Wild populations? Fish that are easy to catch (kid fishing areas)? Etc.

What I am getting at is that the areas are managed for a specific purpose. There is no reason to feel bad if you catch a fish that is legal to harvest and keep it. You should almost always harvest hatchery fish (if legal) because that's one of the ways they determine if their money is well spent. Plus, the rate of survival in hatchery fish is rather low anyways. Chances are if you release them, they will end up dead not long after.

 

Im all for eating stocked fish, especially ones in stocked or warm water fisheries, since they typically dont hold over. If we had a larger sustainable wild trout fishery here in southwestern PA, I would feel less bad about eating them as well and would probably keep a few of them.

Me and my buddy are going out on a weekend fly fishing/camping trip in 2 weeks to Allegheny National Forest. Saturday, we are gonna fish a stocked stream or 2 and keep a handful for dinner that night and then on Sunday, fish for wild fish. Best of both worlds in my opinion.

Im lookin forward to eating more of this -

 

Damn that looks good! Bacon wrap trout is superb.

 

Indeed. Im looking forward to being able to harvest a few.

Speaking of harvesting, do any of you guys eat panfish - sunfish, bluegill, pumpkinseed, ect? I do a lot of warm water lake fishing after work in the summers and always catch nice sized sunfish and always wonder what they taste like.

 

We catch black crappie in the winter ice fishing. Bread, season and fry them up. I was skeptical as I am not huge on fish but they were really good. Pain in the but to fillet though.

 

Tied up some top water offerings to supplement my bass box.

 

Those colors are pretty insane! Where do you fish?

 

Those fish are from a small river about 30 miles outside of Boston.

 

Alright guys, I've been fishing a couple small creeks around here more lately. The fishing is much better there than in the river lately. I've been trying to take my 9' fly rod and use it, but for the size of the creek and with all the trees and limbs everywhere, it's just waaaay too long. What size would you guys recommend? I was thinking about maybe a 6'6" rod maybe. But, I need something that will still handle good size fish. Like...good fish. I recently caught a 24 1/2", 20", several 16-18". This creek doesn't get fished that often, so the fish can get pretty big.

Suggestions....AAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNDDDDDDD.......GO!

 

Some fish from said creek...

 

Gorgeous fish. Id love to fish North Georgia for wild 'bows. Ive been to Helen GA before, what an awesome place.

When you say small, how small you talking? The definition of "small" really differs between fly fishermen, Ive noticed. Your small stream my be my medium sized stream.

I have 2 go to "small stream" rods - A 6'6" 3/4w 'glass rod and a 7'6" 3w graphite rod. I fish em both with 4w line. The 6'6" rod is my go to though. Most of the streams I fish are small headwater freestone mountain streams that are between 5' and 15' across. The 6'6" rod is perfect for this. With some practice, Ive gotten pretty accurate at bombin dries 20+ feet with the 6'6". If the stream is less brushy (more casting room) or wider, Ill fish the 7"6 rod.

I find the rod I fish the least out of all the rods is my Orvis 9' 5w because its too long for 90% of the streams I fish. I bought am 8' 5/6w 'glass rod to fill the gap where the 7'6" is too small/light. I like it for casting larger streamers and big foam dries.

Ive landed 12" fish on both short rods, unfortunately wild browns and native brookies dont get much bigger than that in the streams I fish so Im not sure how those rod would handle a 20" fish.

A 7'6" 5w rod might be another good option.

 

Yes. I think you could even get away with a 4 wt.

 

Most of the holes I hit at this particular creek are 10-15 feet across. But, a lot of trees. If you're not in the middle of the creek, and casting directly up-or downstream, you're probably in a tree.

 

Roll cast, baby. But you probably already mastered that. Nice fish!

 

That's about the only way I can cast in most of the holes.

 

If it was me I'd just stick with the 9 footer lol. Any shorter and your roll casts and line control will suffer more than any gains a compact rod will provide.

Now if yer goin 3 wt or below I'd shorten it up a lil like 7'6 to 8'6

The creek in the picture screams 9' 4 wt to me lol any smaller and it won't have the backbone to deal with those brutes

 

I'm probably going up there tomorrow. I'll snap a few pics of the tree coverage of k remember. And hopefully a few pics of fish too