A Day on Marsh Creek

[mystillwater]

i took the kayaks out on Marsh Creek last week with my wife. took my trusty 6wt and paddled around the shoreline. i caught 30-40 bluegills on small poppers. i probably had over 200 strikes over 4 or 5 hours. i'm guessing most were fish too small to take the popper (?) but had a ton of fun catching the few that i did hook up with.

interesting sighting... i was drifting by some grass in 1-1.5' of water and saw a LARGE fish just sitting in the weeds looking at me. as i moved past, i saw the tiger-striping on his side and the distinctive jawline of a tiger muskie. he must have been stalking. i threw a clouser by him a few times but i figure once he saw me i didn't have much of a chance to catch him.

i also saw more than a few fish flopping in very shallow water, almost beaching themselves... wondered if they were being chased by muskies into shallow water.

cool experience overall. got me wanting a bigger boat... maybe a flat bottomed bass boat with a casting platform. would have loved to stand and be a little higher on the water.

 

[Fishidiot]

mystillwater wrote:

i also saw more than a few fish flopping in very shallow water, almost beaching themselves... wondered if they were being chased by muskies into shallow water.

That may be what was happening. I've witnessed muskies driving baitfish although never completely out of the water (have seen bluefish drive baitfish completely high and dry). There's a good chance that musky will stick around there for awhile, maybe another week or two. I'd say, go back and target him...

After you get a bigger boat.

 

[mystillwater]

not looking forward to landing a muskie in a kayak... i don't need a toothy critter flopping around between my legs.

had a good friend land a pike in a kayak... he didn't really know what it was but he flopped in over into the kayak and just about had to bail out. no bites but close call.

 

[PSUFishMenace]

Bass will do the same thing driving small sunnies up onto the banks, usually where there is a very gradual dropoff and just inches of water. Often it is a group of 3 to 5 bass, they launch organized drives and pick off the ones that are two slow. Then they move down the bank to the next spot and repeat.

Nice report, sounds like you had fun. Sunnies are a blast. I still have never seen a muskie but I don't fish that lake very often. maybe twice a year. The streams hold my attention better!

 

[flipnfly]

i remember at pymatuning lake once i ran into and old timer while i was fishing and he strated to tell me what they used to do for muskies in the lake they called it frog skipping and they used frogs for bait would toss one out about 20 feet behind a canoe and just paddle around the shoreline trolling the frog i imagine it would work the same way with a frog fly he also said they would put in a dusk and fish till dawn and then showed me an old pic of him with a musky that was about 60 inches maybe even bigger

 

[jjsjigs]

Marsh Creek in Tioga Co?

 

[mystillwater]

Marsh Creek Lake, the famous Bass and Muskie hotspot in Chester County.

 

[jjsjigs]

Sorry for my ignorance I should have realized that since you hail from West Chester. (There are so many Marsh Creeks, Mill Creeks, fishing creeks, in good 'ol Pee-Aye)

 

[mystillwater]

no worries. i often assume people have heard of it and don't think about how confusing a LAKE named Marsh CREEK would be! Ha!