Like Mike's Salmon Eggs and Pautzkie's Fire Balls or whatever?
Any Big Ones?
- Thread starter Brown71
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At times. But I actually prefer the cured real eggs, usually from kings. But BT eggs are money too if you get a big egg laden at a place you can harvest it.
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It’s not impossible. They’re out there.
I’m far from an expert in this area (Brown71 and a few other guys on here legitimately are…pay attention to the finer details when they post, you can learn a lot) but the one piece of the puzzle I’ve figured out (and am willing to share) is the really big ones are not usually in places where there are lots of other Trout. If you’re catching lots of normal sized wild Browns, or even catching good numbers of mid teens fish, you’re generally not in the right kind of place for the the 20”+ fish. In my experience. They’re in places where the ONLY Trout you catch are that size. Ok, maybe not the only ones, but you gotta put in your time. Lots of striking out and casts with nothing on the end of your line. Think like Musky fishing. I just don’t have the patience for it to do it regularly. I give a lot of credit to the guys who do.
And I agree with Brown71, this type of fishing is more effective with spinning gear IMO. Can cover water more quickly.
Complete truth, every word of it!!
I said on here 1000 times. My largest non Great Lakes brown from PA, a 31” spawned out hen, was caught in a creek that flows into a much larger river that people literally laugh at you for fishing. (The Creek I mean, the actual river is known to have rare, but huge BT)
Whatever floats your boat of finds your lost remote. People who laugh at others doing things can learn a lot by listening and observing instead of being so quick to judge.
I am not a chaser of large browns. I am the chaser of small streams where people don't usually fish, or at least not many people.
Kyle
Well-known member
plenty of trophy browns from the erie tribs just like the NY tribs. they are out there.
I always tell the folks that stop and ask I’m fishing for musky bait. 😁
But I do love musky fishing too!
5footfenwick
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I will 100% agree that if you are catching a lot of trout, you aren’t quite in the right place. The creeks/ rivers that I have dialied in you aren’t catching much. Like 1-3 fish is an incredible day for two guys fishing all day. Most days nothing. Two guys fishing a month straight and we get 0-5 of these fish …..Total. Density may be less than one trout per mile. I find that the range they stray from the big rivers is usually about 5 miles or less. A little before Halloween is when we start. We fish hard right up to thanksgiving. They are rare. Almost have to wish them into existence. But hard work pays off.
5footfenwick
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5footfenwick
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Sometimes, though seemingly even more rare, there is a giant rainbow tagging along. Most likely looking for eggs. But who knows for sure?
Trails and trout
Member
I saw a 24 inch wild brown in a really small spring creek in Cumberland county surrounded by smaller browns and the little ones got to my flies before the larger one. Could Other than that no big trout this fall for me, really not that many trout at all
Mikey2006
Well-known member
It’s not that I can’t do that style of fishing, one of my favorite ways to target bass is using big glidebaits and with that type of fishing usually it’s fish all day for one or two bites, but it helps to know that the fish are there even when they aren’t biting. I’ve explored lots of tribs of the conodoquinet where I know big browns move about and I’ve done a lot of research trying to find spots but It’s hard to fish a creek for hours when you don’t even know if it holds fish to begin with
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Yeah, it’s a game of patience and covering lots of water. It’s not for everyone, and admittedly, it’s largely not for me. I mainly target small streams that have lots of wild Trout, but not necessarily large Trout. In fact, my favorite small wild Trout stream has never produced a fish larger than 15”, but it’s still my favorite. It’s mostly wild Browns, but has some Brookies too. I’ve probably fished it 20 times in my life, and caught close to 1,000 fish out of it.
I do a long weekend type Fall trip to a certain area of PA that includes some of this big fish specific type of fishing, but we also fish several more “normal” wild Trout streams on that trip where you catch better numbers, but smaller sized fish. As mentioned by the others above, these fish are present under certain circumstances, but are not plentiful, and are not easy to catch. A good year for us on that Fall trip is maybe one or two fish above 20” amongst the whole group. We’ve never caught a fish bigger than 25” though, and some years, like this one, we don’t get any above 20”. Biggest have maxed out about 24”. (Measured with a small roller tape.)
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I still just call that Musky fishing. 😜
You’re right though, sometimes you do end up with some interesting bycatch when fishing using methods like that. You still don’t catch a lot of fish, but what you do is generally pretty decent sized…Whether it’s a Musky, or Walleye, or big Brown/SMB/Fallfish/etc.
That said though, that’s not how I’ve located my personal “honey holes” that hold the potential of a really big Brown. It’s more involved and complicated than that, and requires some boots on the ground watershed knowledge, an awareness of the timing of certain things, and frankly, a little luck.
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Agreed thats just the least boring way IMO. My biggest have all come from working specific waterways and looking for repeatable patterns of features the bigger fish gravitate to. Then day time fishing/scouting before going back at night when the tanks are out and about, just my preference.
If I really really really cared about finding the extra 4-6” of trout length I imagine id look at a geology map, find where larger CFS streams intersect karst formations, look for transition points where they hit non karst and upwelling is likely, hit google sat view and look for bank/stream features consistent with ground water(lime green cress, lush pockets of grasses/swampy wetland area, limestone quarries) then look to establish seasonal movements in those areas that make sense consistent with the fishes life history(finding summer thermal refuge), identify nearby spawning areas based on gravel size current speed, reverse plot potential routes from there to rich post spawn winter feeding areas they use to replace caloric deficit in the cold, then based on the seasonal location I suspect go there with a giant 20 foot long L shaped PVC shaped structure I made from home Dee Pot to probe undercut banks and brush piles then mark the fish I flush out and come back at night and catch em.
……But personally I’d rather go get lost in hemlock’s + rhododendron on SGL/SF and hunt for a 12” brookie, thats just me.
