I had Dave from NJ this evening for a float from Lehighton to Bowmanstown. We were into fish early in the trip and managed a few nice trout with dry/dropper rigs usually consisting of a wulff of some sort on top and a pheasant tail or rpince as a dropper. Most fish grabbed the dropper. There were blue winged olives and sulphurs hatching sporadically the fish were feeding well for such a light hatch. We had fish on periodically throughout the entire trip. We had most of the river to ourselves, light action in the Turnpike Pool this year seems to have warded most anglers away from this area.

We had our annual float for the Lehigh Coldwater Fishery Allaince today and it was a beautiful day. I(Tim S.) had Bill Derhammer(LRSA) and Chris Kocher(Wildlands Conservancy) and we had a great time. There weren’t any stellar hatches but the caddis were decent and some mayflies cooperated in the evening. Mostly everybody hooked and landed fish and we all had great discussions about the fishery and what has to be done to transform the Lehigh River into the world class fishery that it should be.

The Little Schuylkill is fishing well at this time with good caddis hatches throughout the day with Sulphurs and Blue Winged Olives in the evenings. Anglers have reported success with small Pheasant Tail and Hare’s Ear nymphs while LaFontaine Deep Sparkle Pupas are deadly when the fish are on the caddis. It’s encouraging to see the Sulphurs hatching strong as the mayfly hatches seemed to wane after a barrage of floods the past few years. Cahills should appear in the not so distant future. Make sure to bring Green and Tan Deep Sparkle Pupas and #14-16 CDC Caddis Olive and Tan.

Despite blanket Blue Winged Olive hatches today the fishing was a little slow. All three boats out managed to land fish. The excitement of the day was when JT’s rainbow pictured below ran straight at the boat and jumped into the boat. Stonefly nymphs seemed to be the ticket although the real deal was getting your flies down with the water being up a bit. At this time anglers should concentrate more on fishing close and deep than throwing lots of line. Even dredging streamers on a sink tip was not productive. Nymphs, slow and deep. Sporadic rise activity was too intermittent to get the fish pinned down.

They say when it rains it pours, they were right today. It was a soaker all day but all three boats out brought fish to the boat throughout the day. As expected buggers and nymphs got the job done as the water rose around us. The constant rain made for difficult picture taking but I’m sure you get the point. Fish were glued to the bottom for most of the day and dredging was the answer. The evening brought hatch activity - Blue Winged Olives, Grey Foxes, and Sulphurs. We hooked into a few fish including a nice brown using higher riding Grey Fox patterns but could not get them into the net. The cold evening air temps are keeping the water temps down and the fish like last year are behaving like like early spring trout. In the coming weeks once the warm air kicks in there’s going to be some surface mayhem.

Another fine day to float the Gorge. Intermittent rains give us a day here or there to float the Upper Gorge and most anglers are chomping at the bit. Caddis, BWO, and Sulphurs have been hatching in good numbers with some remaining Grey Foxes and March Browns mixed in. Most of the fish caught today were caught subsurface - buggers and nymphs. Black and brown buggers, Prince nymphs, and Copper Johns are producing well and Lightning Bug nymphs are still fooling the ‘bows. Rising fish can be spotted throughout the day but most seem to be following emergers up from the bottom so if you are inclined to fish a dry you would be better off with a small nymph dropper.

The lower river is starting to warm up a bit and the fish are getting more active by the day. We floated from Glen Onoko to Bowmanstown today and began hooking up soon after putting the boat in. The water is still cold and these frigid nights aren’t helping the situation. A good number of March Browns and Grey Foxes were spotted hatching today and we managed to tag the single rising fish that we saw. The trout were not very active but the hatches were far from intense and we can’t stress enough that the water is COLD. Buggers and nymphs produced most of the fish - olive, black, brown - it just had to be in front of a fish. Water clarity is good, the temp was 54˚ in Jim Thorpe mid afternoon.

We had a two boat trip in the Lehigh Gorge today and despite low water and difficult boating conditions there was excellent dry fly fishing for most of the day. Thick caddis hatches brought trout to the surface from Lehigh Tannery to Rockport and we managed to land a good number of trout throughout the day. Parachute Adams, Caddis dries, and LaFontaine Sparkle Pupas in the film all produced as did wooly buggers early on when the fish weren’t looking up yet.

Low water is making for good wading conditions but dicey boating conditions. A few Hendricksons were spotted but the trout were on the caddis, #16 brown and #14 apple green. I wish we could tell you what kind of water was better than others but there were just fish everywhere. We were even able to being fish up while blind casting to the banks where no fish were rising.