If you post in an online forum asking, “I’m new to fly fishing, what rod should I buy first?” there’s a good chance someone will respond with, “Get a 9-foot 5-weight.” You won’t just hear it once. You’ll hear it over and over again.
This isn’t about groupthink. It’s about practicality. More specifically, it’s about what I call “versatility in ignorance.” A 9-foot 5-weight gives new fly anglers the flexibility to explore the sport of fly fishing, without needing to understand every detail.
If you spend any time scrolling through fly fishing Facebook groups, Instagram posts, or the comment sections of YouTube and TikTok videos focused on wild brook trout in the Appalachians, you’ve probably seen it—someone jumps in with, “I hope you were using a barbless hook.”
Sometimes it’s said with care. Other times, not so much.
Truthfully, some fly fishermen should be ashamed of how they talk down to others who haven’t yet gone through the same process of learning and growth. It is a learning process. Some anglers get there sooner than others, depending on who they’ve rubbed shoulders with or the fly fishing environment they were raised in.
Fly fishing can seem overwhelming for those new to the sport. Walk into a fly shop or browse an online catalog, and you’ll find dozens of fly patterns, each seeming to have a specific purpose. It’s easy to assume you need a fully stocked fly box filled with every possible imitation to catch fish. But the truth is, you don’t need all that complexity, especially when fishing the wild trout streams of the Northeast.
It has always felt like the fly fishing industry lags behind major consumer sectors in adopting digital transformations. I guess it is part of the industry's personality, rooted in tradition and slow to embrace change. We saw it with YouTube. While gaming, fashion, and fitness exploded on the platform in the early 2010s, fly fishing content took years to gain momentum. The same happened with social media. By the time people realized short-form videos were dominating Instagram, they were already mainstream.
One question I am asked more than any other is what type of fishing gear is required to fly fish for salmon in New York. There isn’t one answer to this question. Gear is determined by the style of fly fishing that’s being done and water conditions. Below I will cover the basics of what brought me success on my first several trips to the Salmon River and what you can use to drift fly patterns to entice territorial strikes from King or Coho salmon. This gear can also be used to fly fish for Atlantic salmon, as well as lake run steelhead and brown trout, however other techniques may prove more successful.
I first fly fished the Salmon River in Pulaski, New York in October 2015. It remains one of my most memorable solo fishing trips. I’ll never forget the excitement I felt driving north at three in the morning wondering if I’d be successful. I caught my first King salmon on that trip and the reality is I had no idea what I was doing. I used a 9’-6wt fly rod that was good enough to swing a woolly bugger, and when I hooked that first fish, I chased it up and down the Douglaston Salmon Run for the better part of 15 minutes.
Throughout 2019 I spent time researching the brook trout fishing opportunities in Shenandoah National Park. I was waiting for the right time to hike in at an access point I’d discovered in Madison County, Virginia. Having talked to several people that were familiar with the area, a small tributary to the Rapidan River named Staunton Run seemed like a great place to start.
Everyone was talking about winter storm Harper late last week. The storm was moving across the Midwest on Friday and was expected to make landfall in Pennsylvania on Saturday afternoon. The weather report was telling me I was going to have a four or five hour window on Saturday to fly fish. The air temperatures were supposed to hold steady in the mid-30s into Saturday morning and this was actually an increase from earlier in the week when overnight temps were dipping into the low 20s. My experience is that any gradual and sustained increase in temperatures in the colder months can mean active brook trout.
The wet weather continued in Pennsylvania last week. A storm system dumped rain across the state overnight Thursday into Friday afternoon. Any big trout waters that were on their way to normal December flows once again pushed out of their banks. I’m thankful that Pennsylvania has so many spring-fed streams in its mountains. The blue ribbons that fill the map of the keystone state wilderness make me feel alive.
In Union County, Pennsylvania just west of the town of Mifflinburg, there is a thirteen-mile Class A Wild Brook Trout Stream known as North Branch Buffalo Creek. The Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission designates North Branch Buffalo Creek as a Wilderness Trout Stream. This means that humans have not encroached upon the stream and it provides the fisherman a true wilderness experience. The stream is referred to as providing Exceptional Value. This spring fed creek is a tributary to Centre County’s Buffalo Creek.
Each year during the months of September and October, Pennsylvania’s wild brook trout begin spawning. The start of the spawn is different in every stream and is typically touched off by a change in water temperature. During the spawn, the male brook trout begin to change color. The orange on their fins and bellies becomes vibrant as they prepare to join females on redds. There is a lot of controversy around whether or not it is ethical to fish for brook trout while they are spawning. Some folks feel that fishing has little to no impact, as long as careful catch and release is practiced. Others believe that it is the worst thing a fisherman could take part in and avoid fishing entirely.
The rain continued this week. After flooding last week, the streams of central and eastern Pennsylvania desperately needed a break. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. Going into Friday I knew it was going to be impossible to find anywhere that was fishing well for the weekend. I studied the storms as they moved across the state and I noticed that a majority of the weather systems were moving south of the Allegheny National Forest. This giant green area on Google Maps has been in my travel plans for a long time. Deciding to go there this weekend ended up being less about a choice and more about necessity. And so Friday evening I decided I’d chase wild brook trout on Saturday. The big question was where. I wanted to stay as far south as I could to limit driving time. I focused on State Game Lands 44 and 54, which are located in Jefferson and Elk Counties. The brook trout streams in this area are tributaries to the Little Toby Creek. The southern most tributary that is surveyed for wild trout is Jenkins Run. I decided I’d head here first but then found a back-up stream further north called Vineyard Run. This stream was rated Class A and was easily accessible off of 7thAvenue. I headed off to bed early and set my alarm for 3:30AM.
One of my favorite things about writing the Wooly Bugged blog is the people it’s brought me in touch with. I’ve met some genuinely good human beings that I hope to keep friendships with for a long time. Earlier in the spring of this year a fellow by the name of Matt Willison reached out to me on Instagram and told me I needed to come down and see the Savage River in western Maryland. One of Matt’s close friends, Brad Burbas, eventually reached out to me as well and we all struck up a new friendship through social media. I specifically remember one weekend where I’d traveled to western Pennsylvania and fished the Casselman River down into Maryland. Brad saw me post some pictures and asked when I’d be down to meet my “brothers in trout.” As things often go, my paths went other directions in the spring and early summer and I never got down to fish the Savage River or its tributaries.
I think I can officially say that I’ve caught the “brookie bug.” It happened more quickly than I expected. I’ve now been on five adventures across Pennsylvania chasing these colorful native fish and I still haven’t had enough. On Saturday I focused my sights on a familiar area, Centre County, Pennsylvania. I was student at Penn State’s Main Campus around the turn of the millennium. This is around the time I first picked up a fly rod. During this time, the iPhone didn’t exist yet and Pennsylvania Wild Trout lists were not available in seconds via a PDF in Google. This was a simpler time where I was happy to get out on the Little J or Penns Creek for a few hours with a college friend and hope to catch anything on a dry fly. Who knew there were so many brookies in streams just a few miles from campus.
For several months now subscribers to my blog and YouTube channel have been asking me to do more wild trout fishing. A week ago I decided to give everyone what they’ve been asking for, a series of content focused on wild trout in Pennsylvania. One thing is for sure, the Keystone State is not lacking for opportunities to catch wild trout. The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission maintains an annual list of wild trout waters where natural reproduction is occurring. You can find this list by quickly typing “PA Wild Trout Water List” in Google, and you’ll find a PDF that is kept updated by the agency. This list is over 100 pages long and each page has over 40 bodies of water listed. No matter how you slice it, that’s a lot of wild trout water. One thing that is important to note is that many of those streams are not public. You cannot find a stream on this list, locate its physical location and fish it. You’ll need to first determine that the stream is publicly accessible. If it is not and you are able to locate the owner, then you can ask for permission. I’ve taken this list and started to cross-reference it with maps of state game and forestland in an effort to find public access to wild trout water. This can be a painstaking process and as you’ll read later, just because water looks accessible on a map, does not mean it is easily accessible.
The itch to chase spring run steelhead trout hit me about the middle of last week. A large weather system moved across the Mid-Atlantic Tuesday night through Wednesday and it put a lot of creeks over their banks. Thursday morning, Lake Erie tributaries on “Steelhead Alley” were all blown out. I heard reports that there were still a good number of fresh steelhead staged in the lake prior to the wet weather and all I could think about was how many of these fish were moving upstream. By Friday, folks were posting videos from Walnut and Elk Creek on YouTube and Instagram and sure enough, fresh fish were being caught. Somewhere in the middle of all my internet surfing I came across a podcast by Washington D.C. fly fisherman Rob Snowhite. If you love to fly fish and you’ve never checked out Rob’s podcasts, I’d suggest you do. He’s got a lot of great content posted online that can fill long hours travelling to fishing destinations. Each year Rob spends time fly fishing for steelhead in Ohio. In the podcast I came across he was talking with Dan Pribanic of Chagrin River Outfitters. After listening I made the decision I was going to explore Ohio over the weekend.
I typically make a couple of trips to northwestern Pennsylvania each year to fly fish for steelhead in the tributaries of Lake Erie. Coming off of a very active 2017 fall run, I was expecting the spring fishing to be good. There are two types of steelhead you can catch in Erie from March through May. First is the “drop back” steelhead, a fish that ran upstream in the autumn to spawn and is now working its way back to the lake. Second is the “fresh” steelhead, a bright chrome fish that decided to make its trek up a tributary in the spring instead of the fall. A healthy fall run typically means good springtime steelhead fishing because there are drop back and fresh steelhead in the streams at the same time.
I don’t have any proof that the month of March is windier than any other time of year, but this year it seems that way. The first week and a half of March has brought two nor’easters through Pennsylvania and as I write this, a third is on the way. I’ve only had the opportunity to fly fish on the weekends and the wind has been a problem. It’s not that my fly rod can’t cut through the wind but trying to film video for the Wooly Bugged YouTube Channel becomes problematic, even when using wind screens.
Last January while fly fishing the Monocacy Creek, I reached down to scoop a wild brown trout from the water with my net and simultaneously watched my wading stick fall from my hands into the rushing water. It floated downstream ten yards before slowly disappearing under the water. I spent fifteen minutes looking for my lost wading stick before giving up and chalking it up to the third one I’d lost in the past six months. I could’ve never known that losing that wading stick would lead me to fly fishing one of the most unique streams I’ve ever had the chance to fish, the Elkhorn Creek in West Virginia.
There’s a moment in every fly fisherman’s journey where a fishing pack becomes essential. Maybe it hits you when you're a hundred yards upstream and realize your water bottle, spare fly box, and tippet spool are all in the truck. Or you’re knee-deep in a riffle, untangling a mess of leader while digging through a vest pocket under a rain shell, and the hatch is on fire. Eventually, every angler rethinks how they carry gear.
Fly fishing packs come in a few designs: backpack, sling, hip, and chest. Each solves different problems. Choosing the right one often depends on where you fish, how far you hike, how much gear you need, and your personal preference.