Beatiful Day Today .. what did I catch all day?

[Stagger_Lee]

Would fish everyday and Oct is the month I would like to replay like groundhog day. Hadn't been out in a few weeks and when I woke up this AM had the talk with the wife abt the beautiful day .. she was all good.

On my way to was deciding btwn VC or Pickering and choose Pick considering I never fished it b4. Geared up and hit the h2o @ 10 until 3:30 less a nice break for the lunch I picked up on my way.

Nice creek and easier to cast (for me) than Valley, less tree tie ups than Valley. Also caught fish today tho you guys have to tell me what they are!

I love this FF thing. Even alone there is something to be said abt being on a stream and just listening to the water move and natures mystique coming from the surrounding woods. Just forget abt all the everyday stress and not a care in the world

/Met jbomb for the 1st time on the creek when we began BS'ing and he mentioned he posted a question on a board and I asked him what board. Nice guy and hope he can make it to one of our next newbie jams. It still stands .. not an aholes on this board


//Thanks to Swattie67. Back in june I posted abt getting lost trying to find access to Pickering and he PM's me. Saved it, used and it was extremely helpful today.

Who can help me with what I caught all day?

 

[Stagger_Lee]

 

[Swattie87]

Glad my access advice got you into some fish Stagger, even if they weren't trout! I drove over Pickering at lunchtime on Friday and it was borderline blown out...must have been some heavy rain Thursday night.

Pretty sure the mystery fish is a Common Shiner.

 

[pete41]

nice fish

 

[jbomb]

Today was the first time I met anyone from the board, Stagger and someone else (I only remember his real name). I didn't get into any trout, but putting some faces to names and talking trout definitely made up for it.

 

[Volksnurse]

Nice job Andrew!!!!!! and yep....look like shiners. You can target trout, but any day with a fish is a good one IMO.

 

[Foxgap239]

Stag, do we now need to teach what fish to catch? :-D

 

[Stagger_Lee]

Def common shiner after I saw what you guys wrote and googled ..

Are they WW fish?

Are they common in Bucks, Berks, and Montgomery county?

Caught a bunch ystrday and they aren’t as ‘easy’ as the Blue gills and Rock Bass I was catching over the summer. Some nibbled but did not take .. thought they were trout I wasn’t hooking. The ones I hooked gave up a nice lil fight for small fish. Totally enjoyable

I only saw one small school of trout but I spooked em.

As I stated I enjoyed fishing pickering and it was only a 50 minute drive .. anyone know approx how many trout to the stock it with and does it get fished hard like VC and LL?

 

[Swattie87]

I'd say they're more of a coolwater or transition water species. They're present to some degree in all the major watersheds across the state. They compete with Chubs, Fallfish, and other minnow species to fill that niche in their stream system. They can become locally abundant in streams where for whatever reason they outcompete those other minnow species, perhaps that is that case in Pickering.

Not sure on how much the PFBC stocks into Pickering. I'm pretty sure there's some local clubs and the like that stock it too. Like any ATW in SE PA it gets hit pretty hard in the spring and then pressure dies off. I drive over it about once a week at lunchtime, and outside of April/May, rarely see anyone on it. It stays fairly cool thanks to a couple decent smaller tributaries, and is probably better than average in terms of holding over fish for SE PA. Several of its smaller tribs have a few wild Browns which at times can be found hanging out in the main stem of Pickering.

 

[paparise]

They put some nice fish in there this year. The quantity is down from previous years but the quality is there. The chester valley sportsmen club stocks it but I'm not sure when or how frequent.

 

[streamerguy]

I vote striped shiner. I took the time to research the difference between the two by just looking at them, and apparently the scales directly behind the gill plate on the common shiner are considerably smaller than the rest of the scales. I don't think that's really a good way to tell the two apart, but other than that you have to do genetic testing.

Either way, it's a common or striped shiner, and believe it or not striped shiners are supposedly more common than common shiners lol.