Clarks Creek, Dauphin Co., 5/2/23

[Fish Sticks]

Air temp 47
Stream temp 40
Water is UP

started 11am and water was stained but not muddy. Fished lower clarks till 4pm. Was overcast and drizzly. Caught 3 wild invasive browns and 5 stocked ones. One native brook trout that was 5” hopped off at net, looked good but not sure if stocked or wild. And one native fallfish crushed my streamer with a vengeance.

 

[jifigz]

Looks like you're choking that first brownie to death. Nice looking mop fly. I've never caught a fish on a mop..... Never fished them much. I've never fished Clarks, either. It looks nice in those pictures, though.

 

[Fish Sticks]

Looks like you're choking that first brownie to death. Nice looking mop fly. I've never caught a fish on a mop..... Never fished them much. I've never fished Clarks, either. It looks nice in those pictures, though.

yea looks that way but you can see my pointer finger is separated from the rest of my fingers its pretty soft grip. Caught him over a super deep hole on a bank that was eroding and kinda suspect so couldn’t get the usual in the net shot. Yea my mop sculpin pattern is one of my favorites, think the fish thought it was a Dobson fly larva though not a sculpin.

 

[Fish Sticks]

In the high flows it was really cool seeing all the downed wood help the water access the flood plain and side channels. Clarks has a lot more braids than I remember now. Had to sort through a fair amount of stocked trout but otherwise super enjoyable fishing.


Young hemlocks, white pine, oaks, tulip poplars growing in alot of the sediment piles behind down-trees forming islands, pretty cool.

 

[troutbert]

Interesting report, and it's good to see that you found some "wildies."

By "lower Clark's Creek" do you mean the lower end of the special regs area?

 

[Fish Sticks]

I refer to clarks above lake as “upper clarks” and below the lake as “lower clarks”

 

[Jemoca75!]

Fished it today, higher then I thought it would be, 2 steps off the bank and you were pushing the limits with chest waders, was a woolie bugger day

 

[Jemoca75!]

First fish was a rainbow and I saw another bow on a stringer, never caught a rainbow at clarks so I assume just got put in the wrong tank

 

[jifigz]

 

[C_kreek17]

Yea my mop sculpin pattern is one of my favorites, think the fish thought it was a Dobson fly larva though not a sculpin.

Would you care to share a closer look at the mop sculpin? Looks like a killer fly! What size do you typically tie it in?

 

[Fish Sticks]

 

[Fish Sticks]

The cdc REALLY moves under water, the brown sharpie mottling makes it look and double as a crane fly larva too. The one i tied doesnt look as much like sculpin but when you put a split shot or two or three just at the knott infront of the fly and jig it it moves like a lot of sculpin flies do and you can pick larger saddles and cdc’s to build a bigger sculpin head like this.

 

[C_kreek17]

Nice and thank you! I’ll definitely spin some up and give them a try

 

[riverwhy]

Is there a reason you use two different olive/green colors on it?

 

[Fish Sticks]

Is there a reason you use two different olive/green colors on it?

Not in particular i don’t have a lot that matches that shade of green.

 

[redietz]

First fish was a rainbow and I saw another bow on a stringer, never caught a rainbow at clarks so I assume just got put in the wrong tank

I've taken several rainbows in Clarks over the years, including one pushing 20 inches. I assume that they're stocked in the children's area and move upstream.

 

[Fish Sticks]

I've taken several rainbows in Clarks over the years, including one pushing 20 inches. I assume that they're stocked in the children's area and move upstream.

There were stocked rainbows in a pool I was fishing and had one on for a second but yea overwhelmingly stocked fish were browns. I was there last night till 8-10pm with my dad just BSing around the parking lot because we didnt have a time. Did not catch any non-stocked fish. But was some sporadic risers at dark to cold for a nice May evening spinner fall perhaps air temp was 45.

 

[Fish Sticks]

I've taken several rainbows in Clarks over the years, including one pushing 20 inches. I assume that they're stocked in the children's area and move upstream.

Yea may be dauphin county anglers putting them in, sad because that stream is essentially an almost completely forested freezing cold tailwater with miles of public access that could support wild native brook trout if it wasn’t stocked. Troutbert was talking about how when they stopped stocking spring browns increased 8 fold. I could see a similar thing on clarks. All these meat guys could still fish it for browns and brook trout could be c and r if the will to manage it ever arrose. The wood is creating some real big fish habitat too and where the hemlocks have fallen I see tons of tiny hemlocks growing out of the root-wads themselves and surrounding areas, tulip poplars, red oaks, and all kinds of trees shooting up to replace the holes left in the canopy, really cool stream to walk and just look at whats happening compared to your average treeless lebanon valley spring creek straightened by a farmer 200 years ago

 

[Fish Sticks]

This one looks more like a sculpin style head

 

[troutbert]

Troutbert was talking about how when they stopped stocking spring browns increased 8 fold.

The population doubled. And that was the result of:
1) ending stocking
2) going to Catch-and-Release regs.