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Most mountain brookie streams never get higher then the low 60's, so that's my target during the summer.

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half right.

This is also the time of year to catch and keep - many of waters here in the west just won't hold trout all year. Great time to keep a few stockies for the grill or smoker.

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Dotman took me out last year for my first smallie day with a fly rod. Had a blast. He even let me catch one on his Boo! DD is threatening to drag me along with him this year, but I think drowning me qualifies as an alterior motive!

I forgot all about smallies. Probably give it a shot or two this summer.... I probably should since it takes me less than 1 minute to pull out of my driveway and be parked on the banks of the Susky.

The nephew has asked several times but I told him it's got to come down a good bit before I'll take him wade fishing.

yea waters warmin up a bunch already, saw a ton of floaters on the perky already.......



Ok ok that might not be the perky.

I must be old but do no know what "ww" nor "fi" mean in this thread. I checked the web but could not find the translation.
Thanks in advance.

WW = warm water
FI = Fishidiot

Thought I'd refresh this thread and see what folks think now that we're well into autumn.

My general impression is that trout fishing continued to be pretty darn good if not excellent. Lots of PAFF guys have been out all summer and fall and seem to be reporting good sized wild brooks and browns. I'm not hearing as much about hatches but that's probably just due to the season. The small, wild trout streams on South Mountain, esp on the MD side, treated me pretty good last month.
I'd reiterate my thoughts from the OP......wild trout seem to be doing very well, generally speaking, across central PA. The CV limestoners are just packed with wild trout and, I think, the ideal weather conditions this year have produced some very good freestone wild trout fishing in my neck of the woods.

I think, when it comes to trout fishing in PA, the "good ole days are now." And this has been a particularly good year.
Further thoughts? If you commented on this thread in June, did that experience hold up the last few months?

Well, my fishing has been more a reflection of where I am in my life, rather than how the streams themselves fish.

My year was both epic and dissapointing. I mean, I had a few really spectacular outings in spectacular locations. But overall, I didn't get out much. What I have is a situation where I can fish less often than I like, with family obligations and the like. But when I do fish, then I then have the motivation, approval from family, vacation time, and $$$ to make it really count. And I have done that.

There were some outings to local streams before things began to warm up much. And that was cool, but just cool. Valley, a local freestoner or two, an early outing to a new brookie stream (which wasn't bad at all for the season), and even hit Spring Creek for the BWO's (which dissapointed but was still fun).

But that was all just "normal". Things really picked up with the jam. We had an epic half week or so. Spring, Penns, brookie streams (including a few new ones). All fished very well. Every day of the trip was excellent fishing. I remember one evening where I was in the mid-20's on Spring Creek, after a day full of catching brookies. There were numbers, a few with size, just anything you can ask for. Plus good company, food, drink, and perfect weather. I remember thinking "it just doesn't get any better."

Followed by the newbie brush up day, where Swattie and I grabbed a newbie, and after a little prospecting for a new spot (which is always fun in it's own way), landed at an old favorite stream and did really well to big lumpy brookies while cicadas flew about.

That was followed by 2 other epic brookie adventures, 1 on a new stream. Both were highly successful trips.

Then my thoughts turned to the salt. An off-shore trip off of Hatteras where lots of wahoo's and a few sailfish were brought to the boat. Lots of fun, change of pace, and we're still eating really good fish.

Then another brookie trip or two, and learning a couple of new streams, before the latest trip to steelhead country. Steelhead is something I don't do as much anymore. I try, but don't always succeed at making 1 good weekend now. Well, I succeeded this year. The fishing wasn't spectacular, but multiple fish were brought to hand each day, so it wasn't bad either.

And I got an outing with some old partners as well as a few I haven't fished with before. FD, CSoult, Swattie, etc.

Now, I'm moving to hunting mode, but I might get another fishing outing or two in.

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Yeeep. Great season overall this year for wild trout as well as holdover stockies. Good flows early and cooler temps later in the summer. The fall has been very dry, but the water temps are good. As Tim Murphy often says, "tree tumbs up!"

By far, this has been my best year, in terms of number of fish caught. However, I'd have to do some number crunching to see if that is because I'm catching more fish per outing, or I've just managed to time a handful outing correctly, which resulted in a pile of fish being caught on only a handful of days. The fish I have caught (save one or two) have been very healthy looking and I do not recall seeing as many fat 2 to 4-year old fish as I've caught this year. This is also the first year where I did not really see any fish that were thermally stressed, although that may also be because during the two heat spells we had, I didn't fish (although in past years, I generally did not fish during those spells either; however, it seemed that the cumulative effect of heat wore down the streams in past years, while this year, they remained fairly resilient temperature-wise). I'll be better able to evaluate how the fish faired when I fish a few wild brown trout streams in late November.

I changed jobs, which meant that where I used to be driving over two or three wild trout streams on the way home each day, I now drive over zero, which meant that the drive-by stop off on the way home trips ceased. But I still managed a few overnight packing and fishing trips and had some really great day trips. And the year isn't over yet..

End of April early may was one of the best springs I've had in many years caught alot of good sized trout when the water was up. Was the worst green drake season I've ever had with the exception of when it was blown out the crowd gets bigger every year. This fall water was real low about the whole time.

Well the CV limestoners are still not producing hatches where they used to be. I think the Trico and Sulfur were very sparse this year on Falling Spring, Letort, and Big Spring as far as the main mayfly hatches go. Although 2 hours north where spring, spruce, and the J are, they seem to be off the charts with some of the biggest hatches I've ever seen. Especially the J's Grannom/Sulfur hatch!

I've had a good year.