This Gentlemen is a BUFFALO!

Did you sneak up on him or did you stop him on a deadly charge?  Yikes!

Big Woods Summit as Witnessed by the Chief

Mike "Sleeps with Bison" Bowhunter, VP of Culinary Affairs

The best ever, despite not having Yucca.  The omission of Yucca, the Official Cocktail of the Pro Staff, on Saturday before the Paella Feast will never happen again on my watch.  We did however enjoy that damn deadly apple drink that Sleeps with Bison prepares.  I mostly enjoyed the fellowship, especially with our military members.  We are very thankful for their continued service.  Thank you Midger for arriving after 6 PM on Friday so that I could win the 2 Fly Contest.  "Judgment Day" was read before our annual awards ceremony.  Award winners will be announced later.  The food this year was simply incredible.  The only thing Mike's Deluxe Burgers needed was your mouth.  If you went to bed hungry, it was your own damn fault.  Hell, Bunyan woke up hungry; stuffing himself with a chunk of Lasagna the size of a car battery covered with leftover American Fries for breakfast. I had to look away.  I pray that God pardons our gluttony.  Midger and I spent most of Saturday preparing the Paella Feast.  We insured that we were sufficiently libated with bourbon shots during the process.  Hours later, I experienced a port wine blackout shortly after instructing Midger to put the paella fire in simmer.  I must admit that the Paella was one of the best I have ever prepared over the fire.  The Pro Staff enjoyed fishing a Brown Drake Spinner fall after the Paella Feast catching many trout.  After fishing, I rested peacefully in the Mobile Command Unit while the others closed up the Old Tanner Inn.  GlenG and I spent a quiet Sunday morning sitting and talking on the Rossiter Lodge porch drinking freshly brewed coffee from our coveted  RBF mugs. The others were recovering from shuffleboard, Potter Co. babes and beer.  Sunday night was very peaceful.  Sleeps with Bison and I casually fished the First Fork  Many dumb trout were caught and released on the RBF Gum Wrapper.  Monday morning was quite different.  The fish would not cooperate, as their bellies were full.  I even tried spinning tackle.  The RBF Girl sure looked good in those cutoff jeans.  Sleeps with Bison and I vowed to keep this annual passage going so that Agrontrutta will have an opportunity to visit with us possibly in his retirement.  This event would never be possible without the outstanding men that attend this ungodly affair.  We all should be thankful that we have such humans in our lives.  As time goes on, I will add to this blog things that are noteworthy and things that are not.

Brown Drake Spinner Falls at the Big Woods Summit

The Brown Drake Spinner

The Brown Drake is a true ephemera.  You will only meet a Brown Drake Spinner Fall on two to three nights in early June.  We were lucky this year.  I have chased the Brown Drake Spinner on Big Pine Creek for many years in the 1980's.  I only got lucky three times including one time during mid-day before a mighty storm.  You see, Brown Drake duns hatch sporadically in the afternoon and evening.  The duns are of little importance as they get airborne almost immediately.  Fishing a #10 2XL nymph during the day and evening will catch trout as they are focused on this prolific food source.  That explains why Jonny Ranger netted 21 trout on Wednesday using a #10 Hare's Ear Nymph.  The large spinners will gather in the late evening over the water.  They may get as low as head high.  Then without any explanation, they will return to the trees and later fall in the wee hours of the night when you are asleep.  This year on the First Fork, they fell on three nights around 9 PM!  On two of the nights, they fell through an incredible caddis flight.  The number of bugs can not be explained.  Best estimate is 100 billion caddis per minute flying at break-neck speed up the creek.  This went on for nearly an hour.  Bowhunter thought that the Brown Drakes were emerging because he saw "duns" floating with upright wings.  They were in fact spinners, not quite yet spent.  The spinners have clear, well marked wings with very long tails.  They were spinners and the trout took as many as they could.

RBF Gum Wrapper

RBF's Gum Wrapper proved to be very effective.  The Brown Drake version is tied with two hanks of white poly yarn and 10-12 strands of Micro Silver Crystal Flash for wings and coc de leon fibers for tails.  Bowhunter and the Chief enjoyed great fishing Sunday night as the spinner fall was not as dense as previous nights, giving the trout a better chance of finding our flies.  Often times, the morning after a Brown Drake Spinner Fall can produce good fishing.

Nice wild brown taken during the morning hours with a RBF Gum Wrapper

Memorial Day at the Big Woods Summit

BWS Summary

This year’s summit was one of the best one’s yet. We encountered coffin flies early in the week and a tremendous Brown Drake hatch and spinner fall later in the week. Throw in caddis, olives, Cahill’s and any other bug you can think of and that sums up the fishing.  RBF Gumwrapper was a killer

So let’s move on to the high lights of the weekend ½ pound burgers with bacon and cheese and Saturday night Paella, moved up to afternoon because of the Brown Drakes.

Top it off with Hydrotherapy and that gives you an idea of what you missed.

P.S. Next year look forward to a Hydrotherapy Fishing Contest

2 Fly Contest

Chief does it again.... winning the 2 fly contest held Friday from 6-7:30

Big Woods - Saturday nite Paella

If its Saturday nite at the Big Woods Summit then they must be enjoying the Chief's outstanding paella. The pic from above was from the 2008 summit. Here is the sequence of events that usually precedes the final product: First, there is a Yucca making session at about 4 p.m. Yucca is a frozen concoction that lulls you with its sweet and smooth taste and then knocks you out when you aren't looking. After the yucca, Chief is usually sufficiently lubed to prepare the paella fire and gather all the fixins. Everyone mostly sits around and watches the Chief do his magic with rice, saffron, mussells, onions, shrimp, etc. that eventually results in the delicious fare in the photo above. After pounding down several plates of paella, the prostaffers ruminate over the events of the day and stare at the camp fire. Round about midnite the hardiest of the bunch make their way down the road to the Old Tannery Inn for some after dinner aperatifs, shuffle board, and ogling the big woods belles. Presently, everyone makes their way back to Rossiter Lodge and some shut eye. At least thats the way I remember it. Heres hoping everyone murdered those dumb trout in Potter County this weekend and no one set themself on fire (I'm looking at you Chief). Go ahead and laugh! Agrontrutta

Big Woods Summit 2012

The Annual Big Woods Summit will be held from May 23rd - 28th.  Plan on a week of fishing and eating.  The menu is currently being prepared by Chief and Bowhunter and will include meatloaf, Deluxe Burgers and Paella.

Guide Catches Large Trout

Costello, PA Bowhunter, Head Guide at the Rossiter Lodge, caught this rather heavy Orange Trout with Berkley Powerbait over the weekend.

Behind the Leader Board.

Check out troutlegend article on Pat.
http://troutlegend.com/player/behind-the-leader-board-pat-weiss/

Baetis Roll Call

Time for roll call for this years Baetis Summit.
Also don't forget to mark your calendar for the BWS May 23rd-28th
Breakfast this year will be at Rony's in Pleastant Gap, I will need an idea of how many will be attending for breakfast.
If the RBF command unit is coming then I recommend parking at the lot above the first bridge at Paradise. Or we could go for less crowded water at fish the McCoy dam section, very little pressure and lots of room. I do not recommend the Benner Springs area, but it does have the most parking.
I wouldn't expect great Baetis action as things have been hot the last 2 weekends, with this past weekend being the best I've seen in years. I would expect the suckers to be spawning if the weather continues.
So who's coming and who isn't

BWO's

Well, the polls have closed and it looks like the 24th is the clear winner. Someone should have picked this weekend. I had one of my best days ever as fish after fish hit from 1-3PM.

The lower parts of the steam have been receiving little pressure. I had a good mile of stream and never saw another fisherman. The Beatis are really coming off and the fish are looking up. If you head up drop me a line. I’ll be out each weekend except next Saturday Chief and I am going to go watch Pat in the tournament.

Gold for Midger

He really can catch trout in a sewer:

http://troutlegend.com/team/?p=897

I'm Dreaming of Baetis

Days are slowly getting longer here on the northern plains. It plays out first with slightly more light after 5:30 p.m. The dark still hangs around in the morning but after mid February we hit that exponential upswing in daylength.

I'm ready for winter to be over, despite the mild open winter we have had here on the plains. The Sandusky mess has had me in a funk all winter. JoePa's passing weighed heavy on my heart.

I'm dreaming of Baetis. Those harbingers of hatches to come. I'm dreaming of overcast days on Spring and Penn's Creeks in late February and early March when the trout carelessly sip small sailboats of slate and olive. I'm dreaming of Baetis. I'm dreaming of spring.

News

Pop with his muzzleoader doe

I apologize for the lack of activity here.  This Fall has been very trying for the Chief.  One damn thing after another...most notably losing some eye sight in the right eye making it difficult to do computer work.  Also Pop has been in the hospital nearly this whole month.  Started with pneumonia and progressed into the dreadful infection C. diff.  He finally turned the corner and will be moved soon to a rehab unit to get his strength back.  Pop has always been a fighter but this bout has been difficult.  He told me that his hunting is over but I bet when he starts feeling better he'll be planning on spring gobbler!  I hope.

Waffle Shop

The yearly X-mas outing (Dec 17th) is just around the corner. I just wanted to see who is up for breakfast at the waffle shop. I’ll be sure to have a nice hot bowl of chili for everyone fishing later in the day. Hopefully the weather will cooperate.
Good luck.

While staying in Key West FL I spotted some fellas fly fishing on my way to dinner. Turns out ESPN's own CAPT Jose Wejebe aka-The Spanish Fly - calls me down to do a little fly fishing with him on the dock. "Here - use my gear - I had a 12 weight, 1 piece, 8" foot G. Loomis in my hands and had a blast. Pics and more info to follow -

Scary Weekend

The Chief was in the process of preparing his new cider press to press some Concord grapes.  The Fair Maiden noticed that the Chief wasn't his normal "color" and after consulting with Katie, transported the Chief to Lock Haven Hospital.  Chief was admitted Saturday morning and was given three units of A+ blood over the weekend to cure anemia brought on by upper GI bleeding brought on by medications, another Pirate losing season, work, work and work.  Not to mention the lack of fishing.  Chief was discharged at 5:45 PM Monday and was told to avoid work.

Another Lousy Day in Paradise Valley

Apologies to John Gierach for bastardizing the title. The Better Half, Cricket the Flyfishing Beagle, and I spent 10 days meandering from Bismarck to Livingston, MT and back at the start of September. We spent the first day trying to drive as fast as the highway number (I-94) to get out of the plains and into the mountains. Along the way we detoured to take in the Little Bighorn battle field near Hardin, MT.

Son of the Morning Star

After overnighting in Billings, we headed to Red Lodge and the Beartooth highway. Fortified with coffee and schneckens (a wonderful german concoction of cream cheese dough, sugar, almonds, and more sugar) from the City Bakery in Red Lodge we began the ascent of Beartooth pass. What a fantastic drive! We lost count of the switchbacks but the scenery and views, especially on the plateau, were breathtaking.

Beartooth Pass

Beartooth Plateau

Better Half with Cricket the Flyfishing Beagle
Once over the pass we headed into YNP for few hours fishing on the Lamar. Most of the summer crowd was gone but the river was still busy with fishermen and the bison were also crowding the river at several places. Landed a few Yellowstone cutts but I mostly took in the scenery and tried to become one with the water. After all, I hadn’t wetted a line since leaving State College in October.

For the main part of our stay, we stayed at Yellowstone Valley Lodge about 15 miles south of Livingston. Very nice place on the Yellowstone river with comfortable rooms, great breakfasts, and moderately priced. We gave it 4 stars. I was able to land a few modestly sized Yellowstone cutts behind the lodge along with a couple of whitefish.

I spent the next two days on Nelson spring creek and Armstrong creek. Hatches were few on both creeks and rising fish were scarce. Not to say that the fish were scarce. Plenty of big fish were lurking amongst the weeds sneering at the flatlander flailing a graphite stick in the wind. The only rises were to midges of about #26 to 28. My 55-year-old eyes can’t tie anything that small on 7x tippet so I was relegated to pounding the water with #20 BWOs on 6x and searching out the dumbest fish on the stream. Finally, I found him and was able to land it late in the day. No matter, it was a beautiful day, I was the only one on the stream, and I was not at work!

Nelson Spring Creek and Lodge

Nelson Spring Creek Cutt

Armstrong spring creek was nearly a repeat of Nelson’s except with a lot more water to explore. This nice sized rainbow finally felt sorry for my pathetic attempts to get a drag-free drift and slurped my #20 CDC BWO emerger. As at Nelson’s, I was in heaven simply wading the stream by myself and soaking in the scenery.

The next day I did a float on the Yellowstone with Bob Bergquist, a local guide out of George Anderson’s shop in Livingston. We floated from the Grey Bear put in point to Big Timber. It was a great day and a few more fish came to hand. In addition to some healthy rainbows and browns there were a few golden eyes and whitefish to be had.

Whelp, that was the fishin trip. It was good to feel the tug at the end of the line again. Best regards to my fellow Prostaffers.

The Chief's New Rig

Not really. Saw this outfit at a rest stop on Hwy 89 in Paradise Valley, MT. I immediately thought of the Chief and his helicopter story told during one of the infamous Big Woods Summits. Short version of the story is that the Chief almost convinced the Fair Maiden that he had bought a helicopter to hop from creek to creek during their camping trips. To comprehend the entire version requires a pan of paella, some fine Spanish wine, and the company of fellow Prostaffers.

Hope to follow up with a boring story of fishing on the Yellowstone and spring creeks of Paradise Valley.

Best to all.