donegal creek 4/21/08

salvelinusfontinalis

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Sep 9, 2006
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Its been awhile since Ive come back to my old friend Donegal Creek. This stream gets poached so hard I found it extremely discouraging the last time I was there because there were basically no fish.
I fished the entire C&R section. From the bottom to the top all 2.5 miles i think it is. I was trying to get a good feel for how it was doing.Right now the stream is fishing great but most the fish arent rising yet. Its a shame to cause a hella-good hatch of black midges was going on and some BWO's. I did miss a few wild bows (always good to see them) and a few stockers. However I did land alot of fish. I had an unusually good day on donegal. Then again, I fished the entire thing. I will tell you that the donegal fish conservation association and the PFBC spread them out on this stream nicely. It was good to see some fish in the old no fishing section again. It has some of the best water.
Now for my story. I was in the old no fishing section climbing over a angler ladder. I got the the bottom and walked over to the hole. My buddy had caught some fish there he reported to me so I had to try it. When I got into position I noticed a worm container and was very disappointed. I opened the container and it was almost full of cold worms. COLD! I looked up and down the path and two younger men where running away rods in hand :-x I cant believe I almost caught them. If I had been looking up and not concenrtating on fishing so hard I would have too. Unfortunately to do so means catching less fish but If i could get my hands on those people it would be worth it. The crazy thing is......I fished Little Chickies Creek way upstream from rt 772 in Mt Joy catching Trout. these poachers are more content to fish a special reg area than to legally catch fish.
here is a message to those poachers in case they come here:
Where have your brains gone. Try fishing your streams out and stop poaching. maybe if you could catch trout "skillfully" then you would have enough meat in your freezer to leave donegal alone.
Venting and ranting feels better. now please local FFO fisherman. go fish donegal its good and pleasent right now and help protect our oldest FFO section.
 
Truly one of my and my wife's favorite streams. I have not had the amount of success that you seemed to have, but I really enjoy the stream. This crazed mentality that one must kill to enjoy the sport gets me down sometime.

Thanks for the report.
 
HEY!!! I recently moved to the area between downingtown and coatesville. Im exploring all of the new water in the area. I have hit the east branch brandywine, west valley, and the octararo DHFFO. I really want to get out to donegal but dont know the roads that well. heading west on the 30 bypass whats the best way to go?

beautiful fish by the way.
 
yes take rt 30 to 283. then take 283 to rt 230 to Mount Joy then down 772. my question is why? donegal is declining my advice is to go into berks county....im finding they have some very fine fishing in that county. in fact by my research I have found over 50 wild trout streams in Berks.
 
Fifty!?! wow. Im not going to ask you the names of all fifty streams but could you share some of your resources for your research? I dont mind doing the footwork and Im always out for new spots.
 
well by my counting if you get the natural reproduction list from the pfbc website....there are exactly fifty streams in berks county. The other few i know of you will have to do foot work to find yourself. :-D
 
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