S7, Ep 5: Central PA's Winter Fishing Forecast with George Costa

Foreign hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly.

We're back with the first central PA fishing report of the year with George Costa, TCO Fly shop in State College.

George, how are you?

I'm a little chilly, I'm gonna be honest.

A little chilly out here, Mark.

Yeah, it's even chilly down here in the mid Atlantic for us.

But I looked at your weather and when that polar vortex hits you guys, I don't think anybody's gonna be fishing because I think your highs are like 8 or 9 degrees.

Yeah, it's looking like after this weekend it's going to get pretty cold.

This weekend's not looking too bad though.

We got a high of 33, 34 tomorrow, a little hotter on Saturday, if you can call a high of 37 hop.

But it looks like the next couple of days will be fishable.

Just a little bit of precipitation, a little bit of snow today, not too much.

So the weekend is looking pretty good.

But going into next week, Sunday into next week, it is going to be cold up here in these hills.

So don't expect efficient to be approachable even really.

I mean unless you're fishing a mono rig gonna have a lot of ice on the guides and it's gonna be a little bit tough.

But the weekend's looking good.

And fishing this past week, the guys that have been out have been actually doing really, really well.

Nymphing has been really good.

Water is pretty low seasonally right now and pretty clear.

So stealthy approach and just targeting those darker spots and slots have been good with smaller nymphs, eggs, things like this streamer bites been kind of hit or miss from what I hear.

With the lower clear water hasn't been amazing for streamers.

But the nim fishing has been excellent the past week and the weekend should be pretty good.

Well, there you go.

You can always tie, right?

You can always downs the time.

Stock up now.

We got a lot of things to start tying over here.

We're just starting to load up on all our stuff for our cicadas because we're getting the 17 year cicadas out here this year.

So expect end of May into June to be bonkers.

So take some time and tie up some cicada patterns because this is the year.

Yeah, and you don't have to worry about missing college football while your time flies either.

This is true as well.

This is true as well.

I'm not a Notre Dame fan or anything like that.

I just know those guys aren't playing and I'm a Cowboys fan folks.

So, you know, have pity on me.

Yeah, boo, exactly.

Not super thrilled with the coaching situation right now or the lack thereof, I guess.

And so we got got a question for you from Brenner, George.

He' super optimistic and it won't stay cold forever unless we're in Game of Thrones.

Now he wanted to get your thoughts on kind of bugs to expect to see and kind of colors as we kind of get into that warming up in late winter, early spring.

Yeah.

So you know, as we get towards the end of January into February, as soon as we start getting some warmer days in February, we'll definitely start seeing some of our early early season bugs or blue winged olives will start popping.

When we start getting some warmer days in February, we always get the little black stone flies.

They're a cool bug because they'll sit on the snow and when fish key in on them, they'll be in on them pretty, pretty good.

So that's like about a size 14 or 16 little black stone.

Those are a great early season top water bug when they're coming off heavy enough for it to fish the key in on.

But look for those olives on those warmer days.

You know, come February, they usually start middle of the month and when it starts creeping up into the high 30s, low 40s, we'll definitely see them.

So yeah, early season is not that far off.

We just got to get through this this winter and watch out for the white walkers out there.

Yeah, exactly.

And you know folks, we love questions on the articulate fly.

You can email me or DM me on social media, whatever is easiest for you.

And if we use your question, I will send you some articulate fly swag and entering for a drawing for something cool at the end of the 2025 season.

And George, as we do at the end of every year, we have a drawing for everyone who submitted a question that used on the fishing report.

And before I tell you whose name popped out of the Google random number generator, you want to let them know what they're going to win.

Sure.

We're going to get a gift card to the shop here.

You can use it in the store online and some TCO swag.

There you go.

Well, the lucky winner is Brenner, Johnson and Brenner.

Congratulations.

I know you are a frequent flyer on all of our fishing reports, so appreciate your support.

I will hook you up with George and folks as always say you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few.

And if it's too cold you know, tie some pertigons, do something fun.

Tie some streamers.

Or, you know, maybe hit a fly fishing show.

Tight lines, everybody.

Tight lines.

George, take it easy tomorrow.