Creek Addict

Make a gift of fly tying materials or tools to an American soldier deployed overseas! Your contribution will be matched dollar–for–dollar by J. Stockard Fly Fishing to send gift certificates, fly tying materials kits, vises and tools to soldiers in time for Christmas. Choose the size of your gift — $5, 10, 25, 50, 75, or 100. Regular shipping on your whole order is free if you buy one of these “gifts” and insert coupon code “support09″ when placing your order online. (You can purchase other products for yourself and still get free shipping on everything.)

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Deployed soldiers have told us that tying flies in their off–hours relieves both boredom and stress. Please help us improve the quality of our soldiers’ lives. Write “donor list” in Special Ordering Instructions during checkout if you would like your name and email address sent to the soldiers who receive your gifts.
Must be purchased by December 4, 2009.
Starting at: $5.00

Sign the petition

Groundfishing, the catching of fish that live near the ocean bottom, was the first colonial industry in America. But decades of overfishing and mismanagement have led to severe declines in groundfish stocks (such as cod, pollock, flounder, halibut), ever tightening regulations, and the loss of traditional fishing communities.

The time has come to adopt a new management approach that prevents overfishing and protects our historic groundfish industry. By establishing community-based fishing cooperatives, called “sectors”, fishermen are given the opportunity to manage their own share of an annual catch limit. This provides fishermen with greater flexibility to run their businesses more efficiently and profitably, while adhering to science-based catch limits that promote rebuilding of fish populations.

Please sign our petition to rebuild New England’s fish stocks – and help us preserve New England’s 400-year-old industry.

Do your part!

What a great weekend! I fished with Nick and Andy from TPO this past Saturday, and the fishing was good! The goal for Saturday was to find as many wild trout as we possibly could in an attempt to get a wild trout grand slam. Mission accomplished.

The morning started out cool and productive. Nick and I fished the brookie stream we have been fishing these last couple of weeks while we waited for Andy to show up from NYC. Nick landed a REALLY nice brookie in the plunge pool of some falls. The picture of it is at the end of this post. The fish I had was pretty decent, but tiny in comparison to the gorgeous fish Nick landed.

Nick and I then headed to a wild rainbow stream to wait out the last couple of minutes before Andy made it into Suffern. We only fished this stream for about 30 minutes, but we both landed 6 or more wild rainbows a piece. The pictures of all the rainbows didn’t come out too good, but this one is about the size of the fish we were catching. The fish in this stream were really aggressive and seemed to slam anything you put in front of their faces.

After we picked up Andy at the Suffern train station we decided to go hit the wild brown stream that I started fishing a week or two ago. The fish were present, but proved to be a little tougher to catch than the fish at the last two streams. Nick and I were teaching Andy how to euro nymph and took turns at the deep gorge pool that holds a lot of wild fish. Nick caught and released a little wild brown in this section. He got a new underwater camera this past week, and caught the release on video. We tried to get some releases on tape from the brookies and rainbows that morning, but we just couldn’t get it right. I caught a really nice wild brown out of the section, but somehow had him hooked right under the chin. Since Andy was new to euro nymphing, he missed a few takes, but it didn’t take long for him to catch on.

We decided to head back to the brookie stream to get Andy into some of these north Jersey jewels. It only took about 5 minutes on the stream before Andy had his first euro nymphed trout. All of us caught a few more good brookies here.

Before it was time for Andy to catch the train home we decided to hit the Ramapo behind my house. I took one stocker on an Easter Bunny and Andy whacked a huge creek chub on a stonefly. It was a great end to a great day.

Nick’s little wild brown.

One of Andy’s pretty brookies.

Nice brookie, blurry picture.

Nick’s awesome brookie.

Another angle

Ramapo stocker.

Another one of Nick’s nice brookies.

The release.

Saturday I decided to go out exploring some wild trout water around the house. One of the streams I had been to before, but the wild brown trout stream was totally new to me. The weather was gorgeous, both streams were gorgeous, and both streams held gorgeous fish. I even had my gorgeous wife and gorgeous dog with me. What more could any simple man ask for?

The brown trout stream is stocked with a small number of yearling browns by NYDEC every year. The stream is one of the few in my county that actually stays cold enough year round to support trout. It’s also good grounds for the natural reproduction of the fish. The stream also has a healthy population of insects, which can make for some real good sized wild and holdover trout! It’s a true gem in southern New York.

The wild brookie stream is one that I’ve visited before. I won’t tell you guys the name of either of these streams, but if you come fishing with me sometime, I might divulge the secret. I was on the hunt for the bigger brookies today, and I found one that I’m happy with. These fish are really good looking creatures. If you ask me, there isn’t another fish on the planet that matches their beauty.

Most of the wild and stocked fish that I caught today were on a Kaufman cased caddis. I’m going to throw up a how-to on that fly here in the next day or two. It’s a really simple fly to tie, but man oh man does it catch some fish.

I got the Michels’ Model Lanyard in the mail on Saturday from Rick Mang over at Water Walker Lanyards. Not only did the lanyard help simplify my gear, it brought me some darn good luck. Must have something to do with him being a pastor. I’ll be writing up a full review on the new lanyard here very soon as well. To say the least, it’s functional, well made, and down right awesome.

Really awesome wild brown (maybe a good looking holdover). Best fish of the day. This thing really put a bend in my 10ft 3wt.









Good looking stocker.












Ugly stocker.












One of the best looking trout I’ve ever caught.












The wife and dog have had enough!












After dropping the wife and dog off at home, I decided to try one more stream that I had heard about. I didn’t catch any trout. I did however catch a bunch of these ugly chubs.

I know I haven’t put a post up in the last couple of days. I’ve been hard at work trying to get this new fancy layout all put together. There is still a little work that needs to be done, but it’s almost all done, FINALLY. Let me know what you guys think!

Crews Finish Cleaning up After Massive Fuel Spill in Hunterdon County, NJ

Officials in Hunterdon County, New Jersey say crews have finished cleaning up after a massive fuel spill. Hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel leaked into the Musconetcong River here in Bloomsbury Saturday morning. Environmental officials say the spill should *not* affect trout season, which is scheduled to start Saturday. Officials also say there is no evidence that the spill had any impact on wildlife or on the Delaware River.

Hopefully everything is fine. From what I’m told, diesel is pretty easy to clean since it’s lighter than water and floats right on top. Hopefully the only repercussions we see from this is a smell of diesel at the river for a little while.