Fly Fishing For Brunner Island Smallies

I wanted to fly fish for smallmouth bass all summer and due to either high water or being distracted by trout, it turned to fall and I didn’t make it out. On Sunday I had an opportunity to get out and fish in the afternoon. I checked the USGS gauges on the Susquehanna River (“Susquehanna”) and the flows were perfect for wading, I finally had my chance. I’ve fished many different parts of the Susquehanna for bass throughout my fishing career, but Sunday afternoon I decided I’d focus on familiar water.

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Yellow Creek Trout Club, Andrea Larko Edition

Heading into this past weekend I was finally expecting a proper spring weekend. The daytime temperatures for Saturday were forecasted to be as high as 75°. I was excited to get out and fly fish anywhere in Pennsylvania because for the first time in three weeks water levels were perfect. The list of streams I’ve wanted to fish during the spring months has been steadily growing. Although I had my sights set on Big Pine Creek, I decided I’d head to the Yellow Creek Trout Club. If you’re asking yourself why I’d head to club waters during the middle of April, you are justified. However, I had a great opportunity to meet-up with fly fishing artist Andrea Larko to chat about a project I’m working on and do some fishing. Big Pine Creek would have to wait.

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Big Nasty Bows On Cripple Creek

Pennsylvania fly fishermen were collectively pulling their hair out this past week as the state saw another week of heavy rains. A majority of popular spring trout fishing streams were well above their banks heading into Saturday. While frustrating, remember that April showers bring May flowers, as well as a healthy population of stocked trout that will hopefully last well into June with a high water table. Early last week I figured I was going to have to formulate a game plan to find fishable water on Saturday. I decided to pull out my little black book of trout streams south of the Pennsylvania border. Cross referencing streams with the path of last week’s rain storms I was able to find some water in Virginia that was minimally impacted by the rain. I targeted a small stream in southwestern Virginia named Cripple Creek. 

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