Well, it’s late January and just about every one of our favorite fly fishing spots is either frozen or too dangerous to wade. Brave the streams if you must, but we suggest taking this opportunity to tie flies, clean your tackle and assess your gadgets and gear for the coming spring. But keep an eye on the forecast, cause you never know when that thermometer is going to enter the comfort zone of the 40s and award you with a winter fishing opportunity. In such cases we recommend fishing buggers, big nymphs and even egg patterns on streams such as the Little Schuylkill, Little Lehigh, Clarks Creek and Pohopoco Creek. Also, dates are filling up fast for our popular April Lehigh Upper Gorge float trips - book now so you have something to dream about through February and March!

Clarks Creek was it’s usual self today, challenging but very productive. I had Dave from Massachusets and the fishing was great with a number of nice fish landed. Small CDC Caddis and various terrestrials along with a few special guide flies brought 15-20 trout to net/hand today with only a few hours of fishing time. Today was the first time I ever saw a rainbow caught in Clarks Creek. I don’t know yet if this marks a change in stocking policy at Clarks Creek or not. The fish were becoming more active to floating inchworms last week but wouldn’t touch them today. Small Parachute Adams, or my special Parachute Oscar, also produced pretty well. We stopped taking pictures shortly after we started because I only had a few slots left on my memory card. Cicadas could be heard throughout the day but none were seen near the water and the fish didn’t pay too much attention to their imitations. I also managed to use the nifty underwater function to take a picture of a nice brookie as it was released.

We had a few fly fishing school clients out to Clarks Creek today and it was an excellent day! One of my three sports was fly fishing for his first time and landed his first trout and nearly landed a bona fide 20″ Clarks Creek Brown(more on that later). Temp is holding at 60 degrees. Light caddis and plenty of terrestrials have the fish looking up and the fish are just starting to look at floating inchworms. Small nymphs and attractor patters were also productive under a strike indicator or as a dropper. We landed a few nice fish including a 13″ brookie and everybody had a few hook ups. Dave, first time fly fishing, managed to hook up with a brown at least 20″ long and the picture below doesn’t do it justice it was just a big fish and in the end proved to be too much for 6x.