There's a lot to talk about re: this topic, but Sr. Management (the Mrs.) and I are getting ready to escape for the weekend and I can't gas on at any length.
Here's one interesting nugget though as related to me many years ago by former Area 2 PFBC AFM Ron Lee:
He said one thing he pretty firmly believed the dam did was damage smallmouth spawning success from the outflow down to at least West Hickory. The problem, in his view, was caused by the annual filling of the reservoir for the boating season. There were a number of years when this happened just about the time the bass were going on the beds in earnest and they lost most of a number of year classes. Once you got down past the mouths of Tionesta Creek and then Oil Creek, and especially French Creek at Franklin, the effect of the reduced outflow was greatly reduced. Accordingly, the prime smallmouth zone of the river, which was once in the water from Buckaloons (Brokenstraw) to about Tionesta shifted down to begin around Franklin and continue down to Emlenton or even East Brady.
This was a while ago and I think the bass in the upriver section rebounded quite a bit now. But the point is that the dam caused a major change in the river fishery in this way for a good many years.
So, that's just one thing.
So far as trout, there is and has been for as long as I can remember, good trout fishing in the river all the way nearly to Oil City. It's spotty and somewhat limited to around the trib mouths (at least in the section below Tidioute) and highly variable depending upon how rapidly Summer heats up in a given year. But the fish are there, there are enough of them to bother with and they are usually pretty nice fish. Occasionally into the 20"+ plus range.
What I don't know is how much of this is due to the dam. My guess would be not much once you get below Tidioute. I think it has perhaps always been that way for as long as they have been stocking the river tribs. Above Tidioute where the fish seem more spread out, some of it may be due to dam release temps. But even that is speculative on my part.
