I have another question about sculpins. What color and size would you tie for fishing them in Pennsylvania? I hear they are mottled.
I like this question. I’m looking forward to numerous answers.
I doubt sculpins in Pennsylvania are any different than those in Montana.
They vary from mottled brown to mottled olive. I tend to like mottled brown because my olive efforts look too much like weeds and algae.
I’ve seen big sculpins pushing 5" long.
If you’re trying to catch a 14lb trophy, swinging giant sculpins at the tail ends of the pools at dawn and dusk might be a good idea.
Chester Marion used to do that on the Yellowstone. And he’s one of the few people to catch multiple fish there in the 10lb plus category.
For every day use smaller than 5" is more better. It does seem bigger streamers are a filter for big fish only. While smaller streamers catch many more fish–including a mixture of big and small. Same thing for Crawfish too, for that matter. The Madison River in Montana has some giant, baby lobster like crawfish. But it’s the smaller ones that seem to end up in fish stomachs.
lastchance,I seen Dave Whitlock tie his sculpin yesterday.In our area,I tie mine up to 3 inches,mottled browns,yellow underneath.They have a habit to camoflauge.I would not worry about the eyes,they seem to disappear in the camo.
I’ve seen them 12-14" long in some of the small to medium sized river in middle Tennessee (e.g. the Buffalo River).
Ed
I tie a bunch of articulated versions up to 6" or more…
Have tied saltwater versions much larger. They are a great candidate for tubes…
You catch fish on large and small versions. I like to go big personally. I tie mine in olives, browns, mixes of the two, black, brown/yellow, whatever meets my fancy that day.
Here’s one of the things I came up with.
