Terrestrials it is!

[sstasiak]

Took the day off today to try my luck at some wild browns. The first stream I went to was in PA. Stream temp at 9am was 62 degrees at a slightly below average flow. I decided to fish a dropper setup the whole day to see what that'd do for me. No bugs coming off except for very few #16 tan caddis. I tied on a #8 parachute hopper with an olive emerging caddis pupa dropped off of that. Fish were coming up to the hopper. I landed one nice 13 brownie on the hopper and had fish coming up pretty consistently. I forgot my digital cam, but I'll post a pic I took with my phone. More on the way after I develop the crappy disposable camera. Water temp when I left was 65 degrees at 12:15pm.

On the way home, I stopped by a stream in NJ for some more browns. I broke off my hopper/pupa setup at the first stream and had no more. Tied on a black cricket with a red ant dropped off of it. Again, fish came up to the hopper predominantly. I fished one pool for about 45 minutes after spotting a nice fish holding in some slack water. I kept missing hook sets. He kept coming up for it, but the dropper tippet was keeping the fly from getting in his mouth properly. I clipped off the ant and made a few casts back into the water. A few minutes later I had another 13" brown. For a 13" fish, this fish fought like a madman. I was fishing 6x and he just kept peeling line out when I'd get him to my hand. That's the one in the picture. Fish were coming up consistently here as well.