Had a beautiful September day here in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains so I headed to the Lackawaxen river. At the car I put on my waders and debated fly or spin? Decided on spin, since I've only ever fly fished this section and I wanted to try something different.

The rod, a Daiwa Presso 7' UL matched to a Shimano Stradic CI4+ reel with 6# braid and a 4# flouro leader. Over the course of the day I cast Atomic Tubes, Trout Magnets, Dardevle and Kastmaster 1/32 and 1/16 oz. spoons.

I had no expectations of trout but some aggressive surface feeding made me wonder but alas I had nothing to offer with my spinning setup. Managed to catch good numbers of small smallmouths, sunfish, rock bass and creek chubs. Presentations were made to virtually all points; upstream, downstream, across, etc.

Wading upstream further than I've done previously I got to an area where the Kastmaster spoon was really producing. Worked my way to a lay down and things got even better. The tree lay pointing downstream and had three main trunks. Wading up to it I ended up walking along and fishing from the submerged middle trunk but the water to each side got deeper and falling off would probably flood my waders. Still the fishing was good so I persisted and as I approached the spot where two of the trunks joined I spotted a big snapping turtle swimming towards me. Took a quick pic and the expected that it would do like they always do...swim away quickly once it noticed me. Not this guy. He moved quickly towards me and I had to fend him off with the butt of my rod, yet he kept coming. Keep in mind, I'm still balancing on the submerged tree trunk and having to rotate as he comes around me. By now the silt has kicked up and I can't see him but now at least I'm on the wider part of the tree where the trunks meet. Not noticing any more motion, I go about tying on a new lure (a smb wrapped me around the tree and I lost the previous one). The silt drifts away and looking down I can see the snapper about 3' away, face buried in the sticks, leaves and silt. Figured I'd walk back down the trunk before he came up for air.

Great pics, looks like a fun day!

Awesome report!

That briminator is an excellent fly. Mine are all gone! Gotta tie up some more!

Sounds like another great evening of fishing. Nice photos. I was introduced to the briminator by this forum, too, and now, like mbarker, I always have a half dozen in my warmwater flybox.

Thanks Knotty! The bead chain that I am currently using is from walmart. Comes n gold, silver and bronze. It’s larger and I believe it comes in 36 or 48” lengths for ceiling fan pull chains, than the dog tag chain that I used to use and have readily available. I also use the one feather method instead of dubbing. I use the fluff for the tail and body once I make a dubbing loop out of it. Oh most important part, peasant cathedral feathers what I currently use. Gene (pearow) turned me on to it when his Briminators were out fishing mine a good 10:1. I was using Hungarian partridge. Guess it was the coloration.

Absolutely not. Work has had me pretty busy, bouncing back and forth between 1st and 2nd shift. Taking this weekend to get caught up on a couple of overdue knife projects, tie up some flies, post a couple of rods on here in hopes to pick up a recon 3wt and a superfine 1wt.