North Central Stream Fall Conditions/Opinions

[dryflyguy]

Honestly, if it’s that significant of a trip, I’d head 2.5 more hours east and hit the big Catskill rivers. Without rain you’re wasting your time up in central

I spent 3 days this past weekend fishing central PA.
Had risers to fish too all the time, and caught quite a few fish.
Little J, Spring, and Bald Eagle.
FWIW

 

[CinnamonJoe]

Just wanted to drop a brief note expressing my appreciation for all your insights.

Right now, I am working up a plan-B trip to the UP of Michigan. With what you guys are seeing, its making more sense to me to leave your fish be, and come another time with more normal flows. That said, I come home to PA multiple times/year, so this trip will happen sooner or later.

 

[dryflyguy]

Just wanted to drop a brief note expressing my appreciation for all your insights.

Right now, I am working up a plan-B trip to the UP of Michigan. With what you guys are seeing, its making more sense to me to leave your fish be, and come another time with more normal flows. That said, I come home to PA multiple times/year, so this trip will happen sooner or later.

Not a bad plan B!

 

[Jessed]

I spent 3 days this past weekend fishing central PA.
Had risers to fish too all the time, and caught quite a few fish.
Little J, Spring, and Bald Eagle.
FWIW

No penns?

 

[dryflyguy]

No penns?

No
The weather was pretty warm last weekend
And Penns might well have been marginal temp wise

 

[CinnamonJoe]

Its official. I canceled the cabin reservation in Lycoming Co two weeks out; and reserved another cabin in Houghton Co; in the UP of Michigan.

Fished WI plenty of times, but never the UP of MI; which seems amazing to me sitting here thinking about it after living in the midwest 22 yrs now. This is a little bittersweet, because I was really looking forward to coming to fish PA this fall, but on the posi my drive time/truck fuel bill will be literally cut in 1/2: 7 hrs instead of 14 hrs.

It was a bit of a steep learning curve figuring Michigan's inland trout stream regs out, as I scrambled to work up this 'plan-B' trip: Class 1, 2, 3, 4 ; then there are 'Classes' with 'gear restrictions' that allow you to continue to fly fish, but catch and release only,after Sept 30th, when the Class 1, 2 trout seasons close down, period, til next spring. Since I had flexibility, I decided to go for the last 3 days of September since based on my understanding of their regs, I can legally fish all inland Class 1-4 streams before that closure date after the 30th.

With just 3 days, I will just scratch the surface of what's up there, but, with all stream options open since its before the season closure. Planning to target brookies, despite all the big stuff coming in from the big lake. I will resist the temptation to take my 20ga to hunt grouse &, timberdoodles: used to do that every year just south of where I am going on the WI side, and did very well; but as I get older, I find that I don't need to scratch every itch on every trip: I find it more relaxing to focus on one thing.

 

[sandflyx]

stay away from north central streams to low and warm. some brookie streams have hit over 70 degrees. might not see a spawn this year. If the PAFC was smart they would shut down some streams but we know that won't happen.. Catskills are almost as bad on some smaller streams. At least NY does something by closing some.

 

[Swattie87]

I’m betting we’ll be complaining about high water prior to Halloween. “The spawn is gonna be washed out!” Just sayin’.

Worry less about these things. I’m convinced we worry about it way more than the fish. I’ve hiked small NCPA streams so many times in flows similar to now. The number of fish alive will shock you. And they’re easy to identify and quantify because they’ll all be stacked in the places with the habitat to support them. If you don’t believe me, go do it, before posting back. When it rains, they’ll spread back out, and it will seem like there’s no fish there!

Edit: I’m not suggesting fishing for them is a good or terribly sporting idea. But, they’re fine.

 

[Swattie87]

For example, Kettle’s gauge is at 9 CFS. A few years ago, in October IIRC, I hiked (but didn’t fish) one of Kettle’s larger tributaries. Kettle’s gauge was 10 CFS or less at the time. Every good pool I came to had dozens, if not hundreds, of Trout alive in them. The riffles in between were barely flowing, and in higher flows many of those fish, especially smaller ones, are in the riffles or other broken water between the primo spots. But they know what to do.

It actually shocked me to the point that I was like…Wow, this stream should really fish better than it does during higher flows if it has this many fish in it.