White Clay Creek

[sjangler]

Fished White Clay yesterday (11/15). Conditions were 55 degrees, water low and clear

My companion and I were struck by the very low numbers of fish. We spent about 4 hours and visited familiar lies from Good Hope Road, down past the bridge on Indian Tract (?)

Lies that, in the past, have typically held decent numbers of fish only seemed to have one or two, or in some cases zero.

Does anyone know if somehow it wasn't stocked even tho it was on the schedule? I know it is poached but there were no signs of it on this trip at all, unlike past visits.

Any thoughts or ideas?

 

[Fly-n-Lion]

WhiteClay was stocked fairly well in early October. Most heavily stocked pools were within walking distance of the fish-wagon.

I live a few miles up the West Branch and fish the DH section from GoodHope down on a regular basis. It does appear that quite a few fish have been poached out. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon to see poachers tromping out with full stringers within days of stocking since everyone knows that there has not been a ranger in there for the past 10 years.

It is also not uncommon to see some of "the regulars" relocating stocked fish to more unlikely lies away from the bucket dumping stocked holes..... Most guys walk right by them....

It would be nice if the ranger stopped in once in a while....

 

[Tups]

Fly -N: I stopped by the sp regs area at London Tract road near new peltier rd this am. The usual fish normally seen from the bridge are gone. Didn't see any trout either upstream or ds of the bridge. I did catch one nice fallfish though, on a black spider. plenty of fresh boot tracks in the sand above and below the bridge. Safe to say the trout have been recently poached out.

 

[Mike]

Just a point of clarification...the stream you are speaking of is the Middle Branch of White Clay Creek. White Clay Creek itself is formed by the confluence of the Middle Branch and East Branch of White Clay Creek and only a very short stretch of White Clay is in Pa.

 

[Paulson]

The hurricane washed a lot of them down, and I always suspect poaching. I'm going to start making it a goal of mine to try and see when this goes on, being so close, but I don't have a whole lot of time to do it. If you see any of the poaching going on, call Fish and Boat and get their license plate number and fishing license number (if they have one).

And to clarify, it was not float stocked this past October.

 

[Chaz]

Trout move, so I don't know why everyone blames lack of stocked trout on Poaching. While it may be the case, it's been found that stocked trout move as soon as they are put in streams for many reasons, in this case it may have happened because of the hurricane. See the trout movement study on the PFBC web site for details.
If the water was low when the trout were stocked, they may have gone to where the conditions were marginally better. Then were moved by the flows during the Frankenstorm.

 

[Paulson]

The first hole was fine before Sandy, and the stream gets poached like crazy.

 

[Khprager]

The WCC DH in PA preserve has trout year round..there have always been hold over trout since big fish over 20 are caught while no 20" fish are stocked. The DH section of the creek has limited holding water except for large rocks and rock formation which are many. When you are not seeing fish you should target the rocky areas with weighted nymphs banging the rocks with the offerings. In the past 27 years this strategy has been effective. Many attractor flies and streamers are good fly choices. If you read through the flyfishingdelaware.com blog you will see many patterns that were trout catchers. Right now a small black offering that represents a little black stone fly is producing. Try smaller sz 18/20 non description nymphs or oversized streamers with yellow bodies now too.

 

[k-bob]

a bit off topic for this thread, but Khprager built a great fly rod for me a few years back thanks!