After such a brutal winter, I was suprised that the transition into spring was so seamless and simple. With the exception of maybe 2 inches of snow and a couple days that didn’t crack 40 we had a pretty pleasant march. 

I spent mostly all of March fishing the Tailwaters of NW PA. I did make a couple trips to Ohio to do some steelhead fishing but most of the month was heavily focused on brown trout. 

Allegheny & Clarion: 

With a good amount of snowmelt coming out of February and steady rain both rivers have full lakes and steady flows. This will set us up for good trout fishing all spring/early summer! 

The Clarion had perfect water conditions all month with a very good streamer bite and steady nymphing most days. Stoneflies and caddis were hatching most days from mid March onwards. I would look to see hendricksons popping any day now. 

The Allegheny gave me mixed days depending on flow and water temps the fish seemed to be keying in best on small baitfish patterns an I did the best when they were releasing in the 3-6,000 range. 

Between the 2 rivers for the month of March I was able to net over 30 20”+ trout… that is tough to beat. 

I’ll be looking forward to some dry fly fishing later this month. 

Flies:

-GD spark plug
-Drunk n disorderly
-Frenchie
-Elk hair caddis
-Zone stone 

SoHo & Watauga:

TVA has been working on both dams which has gave the SoHo a steady 400 sluice for the month of March which has made for great days. The Watauga is doing a couple pulses a day on top of their usual 240 CFS and as of the last few days the caddis hatch has started to pop. This is some of the very best fishing of the year, with fish getting reckless on the caddis since it’s our largest bug of the year! 

As we transition out of caddis I look to see the lake run brown trout making their annual migration to their summer homes and start sight fishing season as well as sulphurs rolling in on both rivers. I’ve already seen some hatching on the Watauga.