Lower, Lower Yough River, Westmoreland County, 9/29/2013

[greenghost]

Fished around Smithton for bass from 5 to 7pm. Water temperature in the upper 60s. The water clarity was exceptional at least 3 to 4 feet. Flow rate was around 1000cfs.

Using a brown clouser and white popper, I caught 7 fish. 3 were 14" or better, biggest around 16" The hogs should start coming out to play soon, but none on this trip.

I began by working mid-river seams, boulders, and other structure unique to this area of the river like tires, grocery carts and washing machines. It was a wash for me... nothing doing. I switched tactics and began to work grass beds, deeper runs, logs closer to shore and started to move fins. My biggest fish came out of a small side channel from under a low-hanging sycamore tree in only about 2 feet of water. He smashed that popper like there was no tomorrow.

The hot spot I always catch fish from didn't produce. Initially, I thought it was strange, then I saw another angler stalking the area. I watched the HUGE heron for awhile, hoping to pick up some pointers.
When he finally saw me, he took off, squawking all the way up to Jones Brewery.

This day the Yough treated me OK...

 

[David]

sounds like a nice day... nothing quite like a big smallie smashing a popper!

 

[turkey]

Nice report. I fished the Smithton area once and didn't see much structure that would hold fish. I guess I didn't give it the proper attention and moved on to Layton.

 

[greenghost]

Structure in that area consists largely of seams, grass beds and runs between islands in the archipelago. I don't fish it that often. The fish are there but tend to be a bit smaller. There are better stretches in the river, but it's only 1/2 hour from my home, perfect for a quick getaway.

 

[LetortAngler]

I enjoy fishing that area in spring for the stockies, and I always see a great little black stonefly hatch almost everytime I go in April and I've seen decent sulfur activity in may. I've also seen a few musky taken from that area. The smallmouth fishing is great there at bear-*** beach and upriver, but the best smallie water that I tend to fish is upriver 1 mile from west newton fished along the rocky shores near the railroad tracks.

 

[greenghost]

I've never purposely fished it for trout, LA. Although, every now and then I catch them on streamers and even poppers! I always see bugs when I go. Saturday I saw tons of tiny BWO and even a few isos. No surface activity though.

I suspect many trout have held over this year, being generally wet and cool in SW PA. A couple years ago during a particularly hot spell in August, I saw many dead trout in that stretch. I remember one brown being around 22" with a kipe jaw, beautiful fish that had probably held over for a couple of years.