Pennsylvania Crafted: Oil creek coming alive.

The last two weeks of March presented some beautiful days, the air temperatures remained in the forties during the day, twenties at night and when the sun shown the warmth of spring could be felt on my face and hands. The water is still very cold, in shaded areas snow could be found tucked away being forgotten as a winter's memory. During a scouting trip behind my house on upper Oil creek I found some beautiful Stone flies, orange and yellow bodies ranging in sizes #14-18. These flies where sporadically hatching many of them could be found just crawling from the water on near by logs and rocks, still lethargic from the chilly air. Simply spending days observing the water's you fish will always pay off, pay close attention to actual insect size and color, I see this often misrepresented in choice of hook size, Careering a measuring scale is a excellent way of accurately determining this. I have also found that taking a photo of a fly slightly out of focus helps in showing silhouettes made by individual insects, this is important in any well tied fly. Even though I find size and silhouette more important, matching color closely is also key. Mix and blend dubbings synthetic and natural to find the right colors, remember once dubbing becomes wet it darkens a few shades. Here are some pictures and patterns of my finding's that day.

Stone fly warming up in the sun.

The flies hatching that day ranged from a nice light yellow such as this one to a bright orange. Note that light oval shaped wing reaching a third of the way back over the body, this characteristic must be incorporated into a good stone fly pattern, The right proportions create realistic successful flies.

Light orange Stone fly

Here is a good example of the orange body Stone flies I was seeing, the wing on these flies where light in color just as the more yellow bodied one's.

Bright orange Stone fly nymph

This nymph just crawled from the water onto this piece of wood, the bright orange was very easy to see in the sun even from a distance. The key features of this fly are clear here in this photo, the orange body, wing cases and legs. If you show these three thing's in your pattern's and keep to realistic sizes a good fly will be tied.

Life cycle

Here is a Stone fly leaving the nymph skin attempting to dry it's wings and take flight. Observing the life that envelopes the water's we fish is important and fun, so much can be learn by taking the time to investigate this world around us, in turn making us better fisherman and tiers.