Transcript: Central Pennsylvania Fishing Report with TCO Fly Shop State College
S5, Ep 151: Central Pennsylvania Fishing Report with TCO Fly Shop
2023, Marvin S. Cash
The Articulate Fly
http://www.thearticulatefly.com
Transcript
Marvin:
[0:04] Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly, and we're back with another Central PA Fishing Report with George Kost of TCO Fly Shop in State College. How you doing, George?
George:
[0:14] I am amazing as always, Marv. How are you?
Marvin:
[0:16] And as always, I'm just trying to stay out of trouble and taking a look at your weather.
We chuckled, you don't have a big snow pile yet, but you're kind of into that like late fall, early winter, kind of gray and chilly weather.
What are you seeing on the water?
George:
[0:29] Well, we're not seeing great in Chile. We got bright bluebird skies for the next couple of days here.
Maybe over the weekend they were saying a little bit of rain Sunday into Monday.
But on the water right now, we had some pretty good rain over this past weekend.
So everything kind of got up and got dirty Sunday night into Monday.
So everything is dropping and clearing right now.
Penns remains a little bit high still, but the Jay, Fishin Creek and Spring Creek are They're all in really nice shape right now.
Fish are pretty much done spawning and there might be a few stragglers here and there, but the reds are all fresh.
So just watch out for those reds and don't walk over them. Give those eggs and fry time to develop.
And streamer bite has really picked up. When it gets a little cloudier, it's been better than on those bright days with the dirty water.
But a lot of those post-spawn fish are really chasing streamers well right now.
So probably should be your go-to.
Nymphs have been consistent as well. With the high water we had last week, stoneflies are working good everywhere.
A lot of them got moved around, so bigger stoneflies, egg patterns, small dark mayflies are good.
Haven't heard much in the way of dry fly action. I haven't even heard really of any sporadic olives at best, so now's not the best time to be fishing on top, but nymphs and streamers are working really well locally.
Marvin:
[1:48] Yeah, and I would imagine if you're getting another shot of water this weekend, the Steelhead boys up on the alley will be pretty happy too, right?
George:
[1:55] Yeah, Steelheadin has been really, really, really good. The reports from Erie, I was there a couple weeks ago and I had a couple guys in yesterday that were here, that were up there earlier in the week and it's been a really good year.
There's a lot of fish in, a lot of silverfish and a lot of big fish this year.
So Steelheadin has been off the charts so far.
The weather holds up and we don't get those big gray piles of snow.
It should remain good throughout the winter.
Marvin:
[2:22] There you go, and I got a question for you from Brenner, and he wanted to get your thoughts, George, on three essential color combinations you should have in your fly box.
George:
[2:31] Good question. So it depends on what we're talking about.
So if we're talking about dry flies, I'll start there I would definitely have like your Adams gray, a gray May fly in size 12 through like 16, I would have a yellow fly to imitate a sulfur or pale morning dawn or something like that so a yellow color fly for and and probably an olive color fly for those little BYOs and those smaller, darker olive colors.
So like a light gray, a yellow, and then a darker olive in smaller sizes.
For nymphs, I don't know, color's so much important as tone.
So maybe a dark black, something like a hares ear and a brownish would imitate majority of your mayfly nymphs and then sizes anywhere from 12 to like 18.
I think color is gonna be way more important as far as streamers go and then for streamer colors You want all of all day long black and if I had to pick a third color for streamer I would probably lean towards a white just you know for a little flash and, A little something a little brighter, especially if the water is dirty.
So for streamers, I think colors probably More important than the other ones depending on the time of year.
So all of black and white would be my three streamer color choices Well, there you go.
Marvin:
[3:55] And, you know, folks, we love questions at the Articulate Fly. You can email them to us.
You can DM us on social media, whatever is easiest for you. And if we use your question, I will send you some Articulate Fly swag.
And we're entering into a drawing for something cool from the shop, which is actually what we're going to do on our first fishing report of 2024.
And, uh, George, before I let you go, you want to let folks know shop hours, any kind of cool holiday stuff, anything like that?
George:
[4:18] Yeah, absolutely. Um, holiday stuff. We've got a couple of good sales still going on, on our website.
I would say get your orders in now and you know Christmas is only a little over a week away so if you wanted anything shipped I would get those orders in now.
We got a couple cool events coming up in January. We've got our Brewing Bugs at Axeman Brewing on the 25th of January. We got a couple of tine classes worth checking out over the winter and other than that you know get up here and wintertime fishing can be fantastic.
You know that you'll have the water to yourself if you can brave the cold.
So check us out on the web at TCO Fly fishing and we'll see ya.
Marvin:
[4:53] Yeah there you go and you know folks George has all of the blackberry brandy that he can possibly stand so the next slot we need to fill for him you need now you don't need more you need you need bucca.
George:
[5:05] More sand bucca and blackberry brandy. That'll be a good drink.
Marvin:
[5:08] Yeah but see now you're being greedy.
George:
[5:11] Headaches abound.
Marvin:
[5:12] Yeah it's all good you know you got to die of something right George?
George:
[5:16] It's just true.
Marvin:
[5:17] Well listen folks we won't talk again until we're on the other side of the holiday so I want to wish everybody a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year's, George.
George:
[5:28] 6-5 Happy Holidays to everybody out there.