Muddy Creek, York County, 11/6/20

[McSneek]

Thought I would chase stocked fish while the wild ones are doing their thing. Typical November day. Sunny with air temps around 70 in the afternoon. lol. Fished from the lower end of the FFO to the wire at the upper end and back. Saw 0 trout other than a wild fish I foul hooked until I got to the mouth of Tom’s run. It appears they dumped a bucket at that spot. There’s another pile of trout about 100 yards above that. I caught a few fish on a San Juan worm and also caught some wild browns on the SJW and a cdc caddis. Other than those two spots that were full of spooked fish, I broke off a large fish in the hole at the wire that denotes the upper end of the FFO and had one other trout swipe at, and miss, my white wooly bugger just downstream of that. The water is low and very clear but certainly fishable. I am sure I would have seen fish elsewhere in the usual spots and did not. Thinking the fall stocking amounted to a few buckets being thrown in at a couple of spots in the upper end and that’s it. Maybe a product of Covid. My honest assessment is fish somewhere else.

 

[drakeking412]

I went to a stocked stream the day after stocking and results were similar, at the top end and the bottom were a few buckets of fish but nothing at all in the middle. Bummer

 

[Sharknado5]

They usually put a lot of fish in Oil Creek Venango county at Petroleum Center, its a Keystone Select area. This year during the appointed week the streamflow was < 50 cfs clear as a bell and there weren't any trout in the usual spots. That was a month ago. I figured they were waiting for some more water and I've been there at least 5 times since then and no fish. This past week after rain and snowmelt the stream looks as good as it ever does, was 300 cfs a couple days ago, still no fish. Guess they put them somewhere else...

 

[dryflyguy]

Sharknado5 wrote:
They usually put a lot of fish in Oil Creek Venango county at Petroleum Center, its a Keystone Select area. This year during the appointed week the streamflow was < 50 cfs clear as a bell and there weren't any trout in the usual spots. That was a month ago. I figured they were waiting for some more water and I've been there at least 5 times since then and no fish. This past week after rain and snowmelt the stream looks as good as it ever does, was 300 cfs a couple days ago, still no fish. Guess they put them somewhere else...

Thanks for posting this!
I was actually thinking about going up there tomorrow.
But now I think I'll just forgo the 1.5 hour drive to find out if anything has changed.

Last time I was up there - in april - I hit a tremendous grannom hatch that lasted all day long.
And caught lots of nice size fish, several of them close to 20 inches long.
But I doubt if any of them survived the long hot summer

 

[Mike]

With the Covid situation, I would expect that PFBC trout have been bucket stocked only at the easy access points. If a co-op stocks the stream, then better distribution may occur with co-op fish. If you have the itch to fish Muddy Creek, but don’t like the present distribution of stocked trout there, then I would suggest fishing the South Branch for wild trout.

 

[fritz]

And with all due respect I would suggest you stay off the wild trout streams and go look stocked trout.

 

[McSneek]

Mike wrote:
If you have the itch to fish Muddy Creek, but don’t like the present distribution of stocked trout there, then I would suggest fishing the South Branch for wild trout.

Thought the first sentence of my report was pretty clear Mike. Trying to avoid wild fish I fished a stocked stream. Why would I go to the South Branch of Muddy Creek? As for the two locations in the Muddy Creek FFO that have an abundance of stocked fish - someone worked their behind off to get them there. They could have dumped some in the stream along the way for far better distribution. I did my best to scatter them but like typical hatchery fish they freaked out and went right back to their holding spot after I walked through the middle of them.

 

[Mike]

And your last sentence recommended fishing somewhere else. I provided a local alternative.

 

[Sharknado5]

You're welcome. I checked Oil again today, at the usual place but no fish visible and nobody fishing. But I did see 2 guys walking up the bank from way downstream. Didn't talk to them but curious maybe they know something about a secret stocking spot. Will have to check down there sometime. You're right, they do put big fish in there.

But I can't imagine the FBC guys going to some great effort to put fish in a semi-inaccessible spot.

 

[Mike]

McSneek,
See the thread under general forum titled Wild Brown Trout Spawning if you have concerns about fishing while trout are spawning.

 

[barrybarry]

I've been finding the same thing in several steams. (including Muddy) I believe the streams are too low for the fish to want to disperse. Stockers being stockers tend to stay in the same place normally. The low stream conditions just contribute to that.

 

[DaveKile]

McSneak,

Thank you for sharing your stream report. It is a big part of the community in providing data like this about the water you are fishing over and helps others before they go out.