Neshannock Creek, Mercer Co, 5-12-18

[Prospector]

Weather Conditions: Overcast, periods of rain, 60 degrees
Time Fished: 4pm - 630pm
Water Conditions: 59 degrees, slightly off color, decent flow
Insects: lots of cream midges, 1 March Brown dun, some small crane flies

No rain when I arrived but soon after there were periods of rain and some was really heavy. All strikes I had were during the rain. None before and none after it finally stopped. I caught 1 brown and had about 10 strikes on wets and streamers

One thing about the Neshannock in Mercer Co is there are water snakes everywhere. I saw 4

 

[Jlafko3]

I fished it this past Tuesday for the first time since it was classified at keystone select. I did decently well considering. I was so annoyed with trying to fight through the chubs, dace and shad I almost left after an hour. I hit the fastest, deepest water I could find and that is where I caught fish.(12) Small pheasant tail nymphs were my ticket. When I left I was not satisfied with the experience and it reminded me why I don't like fishing any of my once favorite DHALO streams anymore.

 

[Prospector]

I have never fished the DHALO. I was in the open water far above the dam. Nothing against the DHALO, I just favor stretches with less people since I like to move around a lot.

The Neshannock does have a lot of forage fish compared to other streams. That makes it a great fit for Keystone Select since it has the food to help fuel those big fish. When I fished it as a kid 40 years ago there were even more chubs than today. Some of them are pretty hefty. So yes the forage fish can be frustrating but they are a very valuable piece of the food chain.

 

[PennKev]

Jlafko3 wrote:
I fished it this past Tuesday for the first time since it was classified at keystone select. I did decently well considering. I was so annoyed with trying to fight through the chubs, dace and shad I almost left after an hour.

No offense, but if your are getting that many chubs and shiners and stuff you' were fishing the wrong water. As you found out, you need to fish prime areas with current and depth.

The DHALO on Neshannock is a mix of good water and shallow or slow junk water. You can't just fish it all and expect to catch fish everywhere. That's not to say there are no trout in some of these flats and shallow riffles, it's just a matter of it not being worth you time to try thoroughly fish large featureless areas of water and sort through the bait fish to get to the trout.

Even being selective of where you fish, you can't expect to never catch chubs and such. Again, that applies to any stream. Heck, there are times on Spring Creek when suckers seem to be everywhere and I've caught quite a few fall fish from good looking water on some of the state's better trout streams.