Tulpehocken DH Area: Did you notice anything different this spring?

[Mike]

A fisheries management change occurred this spring in the Tulpehocken DH area. Did you notice anything different from recent past years' fishing experiences vs this year's experiences. Were catches or catch rates worse, better, or the same? If your response depended upon the general location, then feel free to break it down into two stretches.....1) Rebers iron bridge upstream to Blue Marsh Dam and 2) Rebers iron bridge downstream to the covered bridge.
Thanks. Yes, I will reveal the difference after the responses are in.

 

[krayfish]

Haven't been there since November. Dying to hear the info. I have watched the guage and the flows / temps have looked good this year.

 

[TimRobinsin]

okay, I'll bite.

I have caught more fish from refers up this year than in years past.

of course, I have caught more fish this year all over the stream than in years past so I don't know how that figures into your scientific research here.

 

[lestrout]

Mike - once things got going (lower water levels, better weather) about April, I saw more rainbows above Reber's and more browns below. It seemed to take awhile for the trouts to get looking up, but since early April they seem to be ravenous. Average size might be up some, though that's been true this year in a lot of streams, stocked or not.

tl
les

 

[McSneek]

Only one trip to the Tully this year and that was on Good Friday. Fished a stretch below Reber's just upstream from the Refrigerator Hole. Got bored after awhile catching stockies on wooly buggers. A mix of browns and rainbows. They were nice size and appearance for stockies. Nothing really remarkable about it so I'm curious to know what might be different.

Took a quick glance at the Tully on my drive to work this morning. Looks like it dropped overnight but is still high and off color. It was blown out Monday. With more rain on the way will probably go way up again.

 

[whheff]

I was there once last year and did really well nymphing. The conditions were perfect too.
I have been to the Tully twice this year and caught fish but the conditions were either raining and/or low water and clear. The low water day they released water and I think that affected the fishing for the rest of that day.
There are too many variables to consider, weather, water level and clarity etc, my only constant is that I only nymph.
Bill

 

[flatlander]

Overall I've caught more Browns than Bows, But only caught the Bows upstream from Rebers. The Browns caught upstream from Rebers seemed to be bigger than those caught downstream.
3 Browns 18" or better this year vs 1 last year and 2 in 2011
Biggest Rainbow this year 16", last year-same, 2011- 17"
To be fair I fished upstream from Rebers 6 times and downstream 4 times so far.

 

[krayfish]

Bumping and more importantly, looking for Mike's secret info.

 

[Chaz]

Haven't fish the Tully in years.

 

[krayfish]

That's because it doesn't have brookies in it....right?

 

[NedZeppelin]

Waiting with baited breath (pun intended) for the Secret to be revealed unto us poor fly anglers.

 

[Wharfrat]

I am noticing that the water temps are already getting too warm. I don't recall this happening until at least late July in past years. Anyone know why they are not releasing cold water from the lake ? If this doesn't change we may not have much of a Trico season this year.

 

[afishinado]

Wharfrat wrote:
I am noticing that the water temps are already getting too warm. I don't recall this happening until at least late July in past years. Anyone know why they are not releasing cold water from the lake ? If this doesn't change we may not have much of a Trico season this year.

Here is the SOP for the Tully dam from Mike:

...the bottom releases are started when the 8 am water temp hits 68 degrees three mornings in a row. I set this up with the Army Corps Of Engineers Back in about 1982 or 1983 after we experimented with various tail race water temp trigger values and release schedules for a few summers. It was frustrating to see how warm we had to let the stream get to extend the cool water temps through only part of the summer and we would still run out of cold water in the reservoir.

Tully Temp Thread

Much has been written about the high summertime water temps in the Tully. I as well as others have witnessed fish struggling to survive in the warm water and have chosen not to fish it in the summer, at all. The choice is really yours, I guess.

 

[krayfish]

Why aren't they releaseing cold water? Because there isn't any.

Mike,

What's the secret? Fished last evening with my nephews. We fished above rebers. All bows and one small brown. The rainbows looked great. If I had to guess, the bows look different. Is it a different strain? If I guessed correctly, please send my gift card right away. Lol

 

[outsider]

I have noticed the area around the Palisades has degraded the past few years,

 

[krayfish]

Dear mike,

You started this thread a while back. You've recently posted on other threads but never followed up on this one. Can you please not keep us waiting any longer? I know I'm not the only one waiting to hear your info.

 

[wgmiller]

Wharfrat wrote:
I am noticing that the water temps are already getting too warm.

Fished it yesterday (not for trout) and the [color=CC0000]water was 74[/color] in the Palisades area. Saw plenty of rainbows hanging on stream bottom. That and a bazillion suckers. I've never seen so many suckers!

 

[krayfish]

Also fished it Sunday. Water temp just got to 70 at 1:30 so we left. Fished just above ya. Caught some smallies and a pile of bows....including 1 eyeball from a trout that looked at my caddis emerger just a little to close as I picked up the cast. Yuk.Water stayed in the 67-69 degree range for most of the morning. Freaking trico blizzard and the fish were not user friendly. Had to work hard for them.

 

[TimRobinsin]

Soooo ..... nothing. Nothing at all. Bummer, I was hoping for some insight.

Booooooo

 

[NedZeppelin]

Mike, we are still waiting for the revelation, sir.