East Branch Antietam Creek

Mikey2006

Mikey2006

Active member
Joined
Jan 1, 2023
Messages
103
Location
Chambersburg
I was planning on fishing for wild trout tomorrow and I was wondering if anyone has any info they would be willing to share about the East Branch Antietam upstream of the lake. It’s listed as class a, although I’ve had other class a creeks fish terribly. It’s very hard to tell on google maps satellite view how big it is. Any info is appreciated , I’m kinda running out of local water to fish since I can’t really fish the same creeks too often.
 
Fished it maybe 10 or 12 years ago a couple times. I liked it. Caught a couple 10” range Brookies.

Fished it again a couple Winters ago. It has severe Hemlock damage. Think like Clarks. It was a jungle gym to get around in. It still had fish, but it didn’t seem like as many. I punted pretty quick and went elsewhere.
 
Below the lake years ago it supported a wild brown trout population once you got downstream some distance but well above the special reg area. I don’t know if that is still the case.
 
Below the lake years ago it supported a wild brown trout population once you got downstream some distance but well above the special reg area. I don’t know if that is still the case.
I fished the part directly below the spillway on Friday just for the heck of it while hiking to a tributary. Had one fish around 6-7 inches get off and saw a 7-8 Incher looking at my nymph but that was it
 
Yes, your catch is why I explained it as I did. My recollection was that the wild brown trout population was limited by water temps in both directions….possibly too warm near the dam in summer and definitely too warm down by the special reg area. A middle stretch was better suited for the trout as I recall, which was somewhat of a surprise, and may be where I am wrong. Perhaps it was good for wild trout all of the way from the middle stretch to the dam…(appx 1977-1979). Anyway, glad you found some fish close to the dam at this time of the year.

A similar surprise occurred in Mill Ck, below Rose Valley Lake, Lycoming Co. In that case a wild brown trout population existed almost within sight of the dam. That was in late summer or early fall, 1979.
 
Last edited:
I’ve caught Brookies in the tailrace of the dam. It was in April or May though, so temps weren’t an issue yet, and the fish may move from there later in the Summer. And it was 10 or 12 years ago. Don’t recall catching any Browns in the mile or two immediately below the dam, but there was a decent Brookie population 10 or 12 years ago. Lots of Hemlock damage now though, making it not all that fun to fish at the moment.

The tribs flowing in from the west below the dam, Tumbling and Trucker in particular, have horrendous natural geology. That white quartzite stuff. About as bad as it gets in PA. I think they’re both essentially fishless. I’m sure their influence doesn’t help the water in that stretch. The headwaters of EB Antietam proper, and Hayes Run are better geologically, and both have fish.
 
Last edited:
Fished it maybe 10 or 12 years ago a couple times. I liked it. Caught a couple 10” range Brookies.

Fished it again a couple Winters ago. It has severe Hemlock damage. Think like Clarks. It was a jungle gym to get around in. It still had fish, but it didn’t seem like as many. I punted pretty quick and went elsewher
I’ve caught Brookies in the tailrace of the dam. It was in April or May though, so temps weren’t an issue yet, and the fish may move from there later in the Summer. And it was 10 or 12 years ago. Don’t recall catching any Browns in the mile or two immediately below the dam, but there was a decent Brookie population 10 or 12 years ago. Lots of Hemlock damage now though, making it not all that fun to fish at the moment.

The tribs flowing in from the west below the dam, Tumbling and Trucker in particular have horrendous natural geology. That white quartzite stuff. I think they’re both essentially fishless. I’m sure their influence doesn’t help the water in that stretch. The headwaters of EB Antietam proper, and Hayes Run are better geologically, and both have fish.
I can’t go back to Hayes yet I fished it on Friday 😂. But yeah I was noticing how different many of the streams in the same region can be despite being so close together it’s really interesting.
 
I last fished that stretch at the ball field / trail crossing area early last April and caught native brookies and stocked rainbows.
 
My experience is identical to Swattie and Roofin. I fished the EB Antietam a ton in early 90s through early 2000s. It was one of my favorites. Only fished it 1-2x per yr after and only as a side trip when in the area fishing other places. If you're in Chambersburg proper, Bear Valley Run and Broad Run would be at the top of my list. So many options where you are 👀
 
My experience is identical to Swattie and Roofin. I fished the EB Antietam a ton in early 90s through early 2000s. It was one of my favorites. Only fished it 1-2x per yr after and only as a side trip when in the area fishing other places. If you're in Chambersburg proper, Bear Valley Run and Broad Run would be at the top of my list. So many options where you are 👀
I know about those creeks and I fish them occasionally with great success
9A60BD4E A02F 43C1 970F BBC5A6F15BEF
Here’s a nice brookie I caught today within a half hour drive of chambersburg, there’s many great creeks around.
 
I know it’s been a while since I posted this thread but heres an update. I fished the East branch today and to be completely honest, it was in bad shape. I’m no expert, but slow shallow muddy water in what used to be good pools isn’t a good sign. There were stretches where it was choked with sticks and logs which normally is good but again all the water underneath it was just muck. The brookie population was there and there was still a good amount but did not seem comparable to class A streams. Saw two legal size brookies the whole day and caught 4 tiny ones. Lower section of the class A seemed devoid of fish except for one real nice 8-9 Incher I spooked, only catches came from upstream where there was actually some rock.
 
I know it’s been a while since I posted this thread but heres an update. I fished the East branch today and to be completely honest, it was in bad shape. I’m no expert, but slow shallow muddy water in what used to be good pools isn’t a good sign. There were stretches where it was choked with sticks and logs which normally is good but again all the water underneath it was just muck. The brookie population was there and there was still a good amount but did not seem comparable to class A streams. Saw two legal size brookies the whole day and caught 4 tiny ones. Lower section of the class A seemed devoid of fish except for one real nice 8-9 Incher I spooked, only catches came from upstream where there was actually some rock.
One thing you need to keep in mind. Class A stream populations fluctuate constantly. Some years, streams can fish every bit of their Class A status, while in other years, you might wonder if they aren't more like a Class C. The other thing is that many of the surveys conducted on Class As are way outdated and not very reliable. The E. Br. has never really fished all that well above the dam, and this goes back to the mid 90's.
 
There's a few weird things about class a designations, one being that it seems to me like it's a lot easier for a tiny creek to be class a. I realize the designations are based on pounds per acre (actually kilograms per hectare), but if you think that 100 to 200 yards of Penns Creek would need to be able to support 35.6 pounds of brown trout to be class a wild brown, you can follow my line of thought. You'd be hard pressed to come up with a full acre of surface area (40,000 square feet) in the whole of East Branch Antietam above the Waynesboro reservoir (the class a section). As a practical matter, if you presume the creek to be 10 feet wide, you'd need 4,000 feet of stream (three quarters of a mile) for there to be a full acre.

Suppose, for the sake of simplicity, you presume (not unreasonably) the creek as having a full acre in the class a section, that means there are at least 26.7 pounds of brook trout in that section of water (the class a threshold for brook trout is 26.7 pounds per acre; for browns it is 35.6 pounds per acre and for rainbows it is 1.78 pounds per acre). Presuming you need a sustained brood stock of fish in the size range of 10 or more inches long, and guessing that a reasonable brood stock in that small section of water would be 30 fish at an average weight of about about a third of a pound (5.3 ounces) each, all of a sudden you have accounted for about 20 percent of the total biomass of the population. Add in a few hundred one- and two year old fish and, all of a sudden, you are at the 26.7 pounds of brook trout you need for that tiny creek to be class a wild brook trout.

This extrapolates to the reality that if you are the second person to fish the creek in a single day, a fair number of the fish have already been spooked once, so catch rates will go down. Also, on a tiny creek, it is possible to do a tremendous amount of damage to the brood stock by killing just one or two of them, either by accident or for the frying pan.

Meanwhile, Penn's Creek is 75 to 100 feet wide, so, using a middle ground number of 85 feet, you only need 470 linear feet (150 yards) of stream to complete an acre. It is very easy to imagine well in excess of 26.7 pounds of brown trout in that much of Penn's Creek. And you'd only need two or three big rainbows and a handful of one and two year old rainbows to meet the Class A threshold for that variety.

I guess the short version is the smaller the class a stream is, the worse the fishing (and the greater the chance of damaging the population). Also, class a rainbow streams are essentially the same thing as class a unicorn forests, at least from a fishing perspective.

You can see the class a, b, c, d and e breakdown for Pennsylvania for brook, brown and rainbow at this link:


I don't know about any of you, but that's more math than I like to think about.
 
There is not a need of a fish population to consist of "brood stock" in order to meet class A biomass thresholds, it would just take more smaller fish. A couple big fish on a small stream certainly put it well on the way to meeting class A biomass requirements.

I also do not think most class A streams would experience any significant population level impact from the loss of 1 or 2 adult fish.
 
There's a few weird things about class a designations, one being that it seems to me like it's a lot easier for a tiny creek to be class a. I realize the designations are based on pounds per acre (actually kilograms per hectare), but if you think that 100 to 200 yards of Penns Creek would need to be able to support 35.6 pounds of brown trout to be class a wild brown, you can follow my line of thought. You'd be hard pressed to come up with a full acre of surface area (40,000 square feet) in the whole of East Branch Antietam above the Waynesboro reservoir (the class a section). As a practical matter, if you presume the creek to be 10 feet wide, you'd need 4,000 feet of stream (three quarters of a mile) for there to be a full acre.

Suppose, for the sake of simplicity, you presume (not unreasonably) the creek as having a full acre in the class a section, that means there are at least 26.7 pounds of brook trout in that section of water (the class a threshold for brook trout is 26.7 pounds per acre; for browns it is 35.6 pounds per acre and for rainbows it is 1.78 pounds per acre). Presuming you need a sustained brood stock of fish in the size range of 10 or more inches long, and guessing that a reasonable brood stock in that small section of water would be 30 fish at an average weight of about about a third of a pound (5.3 ounces) each, all of a sudden you have accounted for about 20 percent of the total biomass of the population. Add in a few hundred one- and two year old fish and, all of a sudden, you are at the 26.7 pounds of brook trout you need for that tiny creek to be class a wild brook trout.

This extrapolates to the reality that if you are the second person to fish the creek in a single day, a fair number of the fish have already been spooked once, so catch rates will go down. Also, on a tiny creek, it is possible to do a tremendous amount of damage to the brood stock by killing just one or two of them, either by accident or for the frying pan.

Meanwhile, Penn's Creek is 75 to 100 feet wide, so, using a middle ground number of 85 feet, you only need 470 linear feet (150 yards) of stream to complete an acre. It is very easy to imagine well in excess of 26.7 pounds of brown trout in that much of Penn's Creek. And you'd only need two or three big rainbows and a handful of one and two year old rainbows to meet the Class A threshold for that variety.

I guess the short version is the smaller the class a stream is, the worse the fishing (and the greater the chance of damaging the population). Also, class a rainbow streams are essentially the same thing as class a unicorn forests, at least from a fishing perspective.

You can see the class a, b, c, d and e breakdown for Pennsylvania for brook, brown and rainbow at this link:


I don't know about any of you, but that's more math than I like to think about.
I can guarantee you 100% that I was the first person to fish that creek that day. Even if it is class a which it very well may be even if it’s just a bunch of little fish too small hook, the fishing sucked compared to most regular natural reproduction streams. Gotta try the creek sometime I guess, Ive now fished every class a except for two in my county and countless other natural repro streams hoping for some big brookies (biggest was an 8.5 i actually caught today, seen a fish over 10 but other than that nothing)
 
TBH, I've been more surprised by natural repro streams than Class A streams. Go find the blue lines and you just might be surprised!
 
TBH, I've been more surprised by natural repro streams than Class A streams. Go find the blue lines and you just might be surprised!
That’s exactly what I’ve found, class a creeks obv fish well most of the time in numbers and size, but I fished a natural repro stream the other day and caught 26 with the biggest at 7.5 with multiple 5-6 inch fish, it was incredible
 
That’s exactly what I’ve found, class a creeks obv fish well most of the time in numbers and size, but I fished a natural repro stream the other day and caught 26 with the biggest at 7.5 with multiple 5-6 inch fish, it was incredible
Bro...Class As receive more pressure because people automatically assume they will fish the best. With the exception of a few Class As, I always have superior outings on Nat Repro streams. Because wild pops fluctuate year to year, in the right cycle, Nat Repro streams can be Class A level. Some of my best days have come on Class B/C streams.
 
Bro...Class As receive more pressure because people automatically assume they will fish the best. With the exception of a few Class As, I always have superior outings on Nat Repro streams. Because wild pops fluctuate year to year, in the right cycle, Nat Repro streams can be Class A level. Some of my best days have come on Class B/C streams.
I was at a class a stream Ive been fishing every month or so today and there were three other fisherman there, I guess it was the warm weather. Funny thing was I was talking to one of them and he said he had driven to the creek I was at because another nearby class a had even more people on it. Still caught my pb so it was fun but definitely not the wild trout experience alone in the woods I was looking for. Hopefully the opening day crowd stays away and doesn’t keep the legal brookies because I’m not sure how much pressure the creek im talking about can keep taking
 
Back
Top