That I like to fly fish for trout is an understatement; I try to fit in as much time as I can, even if it’s only for a couple of hours on any given day. Of course, when we hear some reference to trout fishing, we usually think April and May — after all, that’s when trout fishing gets underway here in Pennsylvania, and our streams are freshly stocked with trout and ready to go.
Certainly, you can take trout using any number of techniques, lures, and baits, but it’s also true that those first couple of months in spring offer some of the best action for the fly fishing enthusiast. While nymphs, streamers, and wet flies will all produce some great action, taking trout on a dry fly seems to rank pretty high in the excitement category. It seems, however, that by the time we get well into June, the trout fishing crowd has largely disappeared or moved on to bass fishing or panfishing in lakes and ponds. Be assured, though, that there is still some good dry-fly trout fishing, even into the warmer months.
It’s true; the higher, colder water favored by trout is now pretty much out of the picture; stream levels have dropped, temperatures have gone up, and the streams are often gin-clear — all factors that make taking trout more difficult.
Depending on stream location, however, there is still some hatching activity worth checking out. Even if there are no flies hatching, you can still work the surface with an assortment of terrestrial patterns like ants, crickets, grasshoppers, or any other bug that might end up floating down the current. Certainly, it’s no secret that you can still get some great dry-fly activity by hitting the green drake hatch in some of our limestone streams even now, but don’t think that because there are no hatches coming off, you can’t still take trout on a dry fly.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve hit several different streams; in some instances, there were hatches in progress, and fish were rising to take the mayflies, but in other cases, I could see no evidence of a hatch in progress yet, fish were still taking something on the surface. In these situations, a terrestrial may produce, but a number 18 Blue-Winged Olive may also provide some action. In these situations, I often tie on a good old number 14 Adams, and it seldom disappoints me.
Just last week, I found myself in the scenario just mentioned in the previous paragraph. No hatch was in progress, but fish were taking something on the surface with some regularity. I tied on an Adams and took several nice rainbows in the next hour.
The best was yet to come; I was getting ready to leave the stream when I noticed a large trout shoot out of the shade near the bank and take something on the surface. One more cast, I thought. I dropped the Adams in the current a few feet above the rise, and almost instantly, a fierce strike got my attention. I set the hook and found myself in a fifteen-minute struggle with a good trout. When I finally landed the trout, it appeared to be a sixteen-inch brown trout. However, on further examination, I thought it might be a tiger trout. When I showed a picture of my catch to my friend and trout fishing devotee, Doug Zehner, he thought it was a tiger trout as well.
A tiger trout is a hybrid trout, a cross between a brown trout and a brook trout. Over the past few years, the Fish and Boat Commission has raised and stocked some of the rather unusual trout in a number of our streams. They are hard to raise, and not many are stocked; in addition, the commission may well, at least temporarily, stop production and stocking of tiger trout.
The moral of the story here is don’t put that fly rod away yet, and you may want to consider making one more cast before you call it quits for the day.
