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2. Fishing Reports
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3. What a differnce a day makes!

I could see fish rising from the path to the stream. There were over half a dozen riseforms within 20' of me. I sat down and took off a two fly nymph rig and put on a new 9' 5X leader and added 3' of 6X tippet and a #18 tan Lafontaine emergent pupa.

I know it sounds flip but every fish that I cast to either ate the fly and was hooked or ate the fly and I missed the hook up. I landed 23, rose at least another 15, hooked some but they got unbuttoned and about 8 I just plain missed. By 4:45 there were no more rising fish but I didn't want to leave so waited a few minutes and found one 2' off of the bank and it ate the fly on the 2nd cast. Most were little 8"-10" browns, one was 12" and two were 14". For me it was just great to have so many target and able to cover them effectively and have them eat the bug.

Yesterday I fished a Dauphin County stream near Middlesburg called the Wisconisco. It is supposed to be one of those new "Trophy Trout" waters where larger, 14", fish are stocked. I nymphed hard from 10:30 - 1:30 and never had a bump, never saw a single trout, and saw a total of four tan caddis. I happened to be nymphing a deep pool with zero visibility. I had on a #10 brown stone fly. I had a solid take and hooked up a heavy fish. It ran line and pulled hard. When it got about 20' away it came close to the surface and I saw a black tail. I said "Hmm, a black tail means smallmouth?" I got it closer and it was a 16" smallmouth. Pretty cool on my 8' 6" #5 rod. I took the nymph off and cut back the tippet to 3X. Tied on a #4 Black Sparkle bugger with a 1/4" red bead and over the next three hours landed another eleven smallmouth 12" - 17". I hooked half a dozen more two of which were 16" - 17" that jumped and threw the hook.

Considering I went to a trout stream and caught no trout but was rewarded with a dozen wild (haha) smallmouth bass. It was fun but I doubt I'd drive 50 miles again to catch smallmouth when the Susquehanna is only 9 miles from my home. I'm figuring those bass had come up from the Susky, to stage for spawning, The Wisconisco is only two miles from the Susky.

Just saw this. Yes, I've found smallies to move quite a ways to spawn. They are a great fish.