Oatka & Spring creek beat down

Luke has been putting his time in lately at Oatka and Spring creek. A lot of time. Enough time to make me a little green in the gills. He has even been joined on occasion by Jessie and his wife for some fly rod bending action. In fact since the 1st of this month he has logged more hours on the stream than the New York state senate has in Albany. Oh wait a minute....do we still have a New York senate?

Anyway...the fishing has been great! At least that's what I've been told. Dry flies, emergers, nymphs, scuds, midges....it really doesn't matter, the fish need to eat and those guys have been feeding the trout a regular diet of what they want.

Prolific evening hatches have the trout feeding on sulphurs, march browns, light cahills, midges and of course caddis. And there have been some green drakes as well. Which means that if you hit it right, you could catch some nice trout with a very large dry fly. And compared to some of the smaller mayflies we will be dealing with late next month....these green drakes are like sailboats on the water. Huge tom HUGE!!!

Both Jessie and Luke had a good time fishing together last week for an evening catching some fish on dries and bugs in their teeth. Or at least it seems that way from some of the pictures I've seen. Oh well, I guess a little extra protein wouldn't hurt. Speaking of photos....all the photos you see here were taken on his new camera.

If you can't get out there for the evening hatch....don't worry, Luke has that covered as well. Nymphing with small flies, and I mean small, like size #26 midges to be exact, has been a great fly fished deep. It must be nice to be able to see the hook when you tie those things up Luke. I guess those days are over for me. I'm lucky if I can tie on a size #20 fly! Anyway....Luke and his wife went out this past week as well, and each caught a number of fish in the "Honey Hole." And if you don't know where the "Honey Hole" is...well let's just say it's a prime piece of water. Especially in the summer. And I'm not giving the "Honey Hole" location away....ha! Ummm, I just remembered that I think everyone who reads this already knows where the "Honey Hole" is.

Enough about the "Honey Hole" lets talk about Spring creek...or is it Spring brook? I forget. Like the name, the trout seem to confuse most anglers. But not Luke. Or Jessie for that matter. Those boys have put a beat down on those spring creek fish like what the Orlando Magic did to the Cleveland Cavaliers. Cleveland, like Spring creek has(or had) a reputation of being tough, the best the east had to offer. In steps Orlando(Luke and Jessie) and systematically destroys Cleveland leaving them to ponder what went wrong. I would have used the Yankees vs. Red Sox analogy, seeing as I am a big fan of the Yankees. But after what has happened recently, I don't really feel like it's worth getting into. Bloody Red Sox!!! Okay enough about sports. Luke took a few photos earlier this week of an obscenely large brown trout that is now swimming around the creek terrorizing both fish and man alike. A fish that he was unable to catch. It seems as though it was the only fish to escape the fly fishing stylings of "cool" hand Luke. Hey wait a minute here....is that the fish Jessie hooked on our May fishing trip in the Oatka? The now fabled 40" incher? Anyway....Luke again caught many trout using smaller than normal flies. Size #26 midge larvae I was told. Hey, what would be the word for more than one larvae....larvie, larvy, larveas? Just a simple question really...isn't it? Sorry about the tangent. Back to fishing news....Luke also caught a very nice brook trout. A fish that seems to have eluded me at spring creek. But then again I don't get out to spring as much as I would like. But that's okay. At least that's what I tell myself. And I must say that I do really enjoy hearing all the fly fishing reports from everyone. Bob, Jessie, Luke, Rich, thanks for not indulging too much! I can only take so much....ha!

Please spend some time looking at Luke's award winning photography!!!