East Branch Rattling Creek Dauphin County

[drumat26]

To all my dauphin county friends out there, or anybody who fishes up this way. I had some success in Rattling on the 4th. Caught several 8-10" fish that I believed to be stockies. However, I did catch two wild browns and about 5-6 native brookies ranging from 3-5 inches. I was thinking about heading back behind the reservoir to fish the east branch just to see what its like. I know you cant fish in the reservoir, Does anybody know if that area is posted or closed off at all. Has anybody ever fished back there. I gotta imagine if I caught some dinks out of the the stocked part of the stream that there has got to be some native brooks and potentially wild browns back there too.

 

[Swattie87]

I’ve fished both branches. The EB wasn’t posted the last time I was there, but that was a few years ago. There may have been one posted sign hanging over the creek mouth on a chain at the reservoir to keep people out of the reservoir (similar to the one on the WB), but the stream itself wasn’t posted. FWIW, despite the EB being more remote and harder to get to, I always thought the WB fished better. I think this is because they’re both pretty acidic, but the WB gets lime dosing from Doc Fritchey TU…the EB to my knowledge does not. Good looking water in the EB, but few fish was my experience. I also saw a baby rattler back there, just a heads up…I always wear my gaiters over my waders up in that neck of the woods.

Interesting you caught seemingly wild Browns in the WB...I've only ever caught Brookies there. The lime dosing must be working well enough to support Browns...good news in a way, bad news in another I suppose.

 

[Alnitak]

Swattie87 wrote:

Interesting you caught seemingly wild Browns in the WB...I've only ever caught Brookies there. The lime dosing must be working well enough to support Browns...good news in a way, bad news in another I suppose.

Brookies can survive and breed at a slightly lower pH so you're probably right, but I agree. I love catching wild browns...but I don't like seeing them invade the few remaining haunts of our native brookies.

Jeff

 

[Swattie87]

Most of my favorite small streams to fish are actually Brook/Brown mix streams. You get the better numbers and more consistent action from the Brookies, but every once in a while you hook into a Brown, which tends to be a larger fish than most of the Brookies most times. I agree that many of these over time tend to start to turn into more Browns and less Brookies though, except for the ones with acid issues.

 

[MattBoyer]

Swattie nailed it pretty well. I like the fish the EB, but there is a lot of ground with very unawesome trails between decent holes, so it gets frustrating pretty quickly. I've caught wild browns in the main branch, but can't recall any from the WB. Weird.

Boyer

 

[IdratherbePhishing]

I have never caught a big fish from either. But I'm with swattie always brooks

 

[drumat26]

I caught both browns just up from the sign hanging on the metal cable going across the stream one probably 9-10" the other only 5" or so. My Dad and I parked at the reservoir where the stream crosses under the road. We saw two monster browns in that little dammed up run before the reservoir. One probably 16" the other probably around 20". Maybe they will try to spawn in the fall, but while we were standing there 3 people showed up to feed and look at those big fish. So I'm guessing they are probably just going to hang out. To bad you can't go fish for those bad boys. Unfortunately if it weren't for the no fishing signs they probably wouldn't be here anyways.