Fishing Caddis Dries in March

Skipped out on work this afternoon to hit up the Delayed Harvest Artificial Lures Only section of White Clay Creek.  I made a good choice.  The thermometer in my truck was reading 79 degrees as I motored out of Wilmington and headed into Pennsylvania.  A few cars were in the parking lot and some fishermen were enjoying a stoogie and a beer at their car.  I geared up and headed upstream with the plan to fish my way back to my truck.  I didn't observe any significant hatch activity, so I decided to do some Euro Nymphing.  I rigged up with a woven anchor fly at the point and a black micro nymph for the dropper.  It was a good choice as I hooked up with a rainbow in the first hole on my first cast.  No picture as this fish slipped my grip before I could photograph him.  I need to start carrying my net for photo ops.  If any net companies who make the ghost type nets want to supply me with a net, you will get great exposure in future pictures. 

I observed a few random caddis fluttering upstream as I worked my way down, so I switched up to a more specific dropper.  I picked up another brown on a caddis emerger further downstream.  Again, no picture.  See my comment above about the net.  I missed a few hits as I was rusty since I hadn't fished since January, oh well. 

In the next run down I observed some rising trout, so I switched up leaders and went with dries to try to get my first dry fly fish of the year.  I endured multiple refusals and switched flies a few times before I hit the magic combination.  A CDC and Elk Hair caddis wasn't right, but a parachute caddis did the trick.  I was able to land this nice trout.

I worked a few more runs and switched back to nymphs since there weren't any more rising fish.  I managed another fish or two and decided to head home as we were having the neighbors over for dinner.  This was definitely better than sitting at my work desk dreaming about being outside.