Pickering Creek, Chester County PA, 5-18-09

90 percentile? I don't know what that means. I was fishing there today - caught a tiger trout and a couple of wild browns smaller than 10". There were bluegills, rock bass, smallmouth, pumpkinseeds, and yes, a sucker or two. There's also the big carp. But there's trout. I don't fish in the tournament area. There's other places where they hide out in the deepest section of long pools. They like to stay in the shade. I caught the trout in the picture here this week, but there were others bigger I saw in the pool. The bottom two are tigers, the top, a brown.
 

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Mike- your brief comment about Pine Creek got me interested enough to go check it out today. Caught my best wild brown ever-11 1/2". Had a bigger one chase!

The other day I also checked out Broad Run, saw a few trout but couldn't get any.

I can't thank you enough for pointing me to these two beautiful streams. good luck with the electrofishing, hoping you find plenty of wild trout!
 
This Pine Creek doesn't appear on any of the State classification lists. Easy to find on the map and a park by the same name is located just off of Yellow Springs Road. I imagine there's access there. Is the State missing something here? And I'm sort of amazed that, if these reports are true, they made their way onto this forum. LOL.
 
Yeah Mike mentioned it but it is not on any of the state lists. I only saw a few trout in Pine Creek Park but they were all pretty large. I guess there are just not enough of them for it to be Class A. I think total including the one I caught I saw only five trout on at least half a mile of water and one of these was a stocked brookie, I guess from Pickering Creek. Did not see any fingerlings but being on the lower stretches of the creek that didn't surprise me. Also caught a nice smallmouth and a ridiculous amount of chubs. and somehow a 2" bluegill LOL.

Any trout would have to reach a decent size just to compete for food with all of those chubs. That would be my guess as to why there are so few trout but they are all good size.

If anyone goes to the park and tries to fish the weed-choked pond, there is a huge hornet/wasp nest hanging from one of the tree branches. Luckily I saw it before I got too close.
 
Rookie: Glad you read my post and trusted it enough to give Pine a try. ( I would not lie about these creeks that I mention, whether positively or negatively. What would be my incentive to do so)? Again, glad that you tried those streams and that Pine worked out for you.
 
English prof: PFBC biologists know of many more wild trout waters than those that appear on the lists.
 
Mike.

I also thank you for your input and certainly didn't mean to imply you were lying. I simply meant it's very unusual for anyone on here to give info on "secret" streams. Not sure how Pine could be a secret though given its location. It's about a half hour from me, so I'll give it a shot. Thanks again and sorry if I offended you.
 
Mike, I'm glad to see that Pine Creek bounced back from the turnpike spills in 2005 and 2006! I am going to try and fish the confluence on up sometime. I've never been up that far. Do stocked browns join the wild population sometimes?
 
There are MANY streams not on any of those lists that have wild trout. Exploring PA waters is amazingly entertaining and comes with its rewards.

I have seen amazing looking streams that held no trout but had great populations of black nose dace. If you are willing to make trips that yield no trout and others that lead to gems that not many people know about, then exploring PA's streams are for you. I love it, some people between all the complaining forget just how good we have it. ;-)
 
What would be my incentive to do so)?
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only reason i could see would be to keep pressure away, but when you go talking about wild trout streams that aren't on any list, obviously you aren't doing that. So obviously you are telling the truth! I realized that immediately, which is why I even bothered checking those two out.

Thanks again.
 
English prof: I was not offended by anything Rookie or you had said. My comment about lying was written with a smile since many sportsmen have expressed doubts about what we biologists say. But I often wonder what they think our incentive would be to fib. I think it was somewhat unusual for an angler (Rookie) to rush right out and try a stream that I had mentioned in passing. Most anglers don't seem to trust biologists enough to do that. That having been said, my having mentioned Pine shoud not suggest that its private riparian lands are open to fishing. I would recommend seeking permission from landowners.
 
Not sure how Pine could be a secret though given its location.
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Well, secret's out! lol I should note the lone trout I caught came after two hours of endlessly catching and releasing chubs. if anyone else wants to go through that to catch one trout (even a really nice one), be my guest. I had nothing better to do :-D

Seriously though, I agree, I have no idea why it's not more well-known. didn't even see a footprint and I was in a public park! Even if it was more well known, I think the population would be just fine, since, as Mike said, most of Pine is on private land.

I guess everyone in that area just fishes French, Valley, or Pickering.

A better question is, with the development that has occured in that area, how were they and ones in other Chesco streams not wiped out?

Mike, as I said, I had nothing better to do! So why not go explore a "new" stream? especially one that flows through a park. i have done tons of exploring this summer, you just gave me one more place ;-)
 
Valley Creek is a limestone spring-fed creek, which naturally carries colder water that supports a trout stream without stocking. French Creek drains miles of forested and protected lands that provide cold headwaters and tributaries for trout sustainability. Pickering Creek has a continuous riparian buffer, less developed watershed, and some healthy tributaries that allows for trout sustainability and reproduction. The Pickering Creek watershed also has no malls, shopping centers, or large commercial developments. This helps wild brown trout. Each of these waters also has special regulation sections which helps prevent anglers from taking all the fish.
 
Even though the watersheds are naturally healthy, it still amazes me how humans have managed to do so much with the land yet the trout survive. by doing so much with the land I mean not making huge cities like Philly but building towns, highways, farming, etc. Really makes you wonder how good the trout fishing was before any of that stuff was built, if wild trout can still be found in healthy populations. Of course it was brookies back then, not browns.

Chester County is pretty overlooked IMO. People look at Lancaster farmed areas, Philly, and Delaware county, and think all of extreme SE PA including chester county as just urbanized areas and streams that are too warm for trout. they see Valley and think it is just a huge exception. But there are quite a few wild trout streams, brown and brook, that are just completely overlooked because people think for some reason all of the little streams in Chester County are dead like most of the ones to the east and west.
 
chuckytown wrote:
Valley Creek is a limestone spring-fed creek, which naturally carries colder water that supports a trout stream without stocking. French Creek drains miles of forested and protected lands that provide cold headwaters and tributaries for trout sustainability. Pickering Creek has a continuous riparian buffer, less developed watershed, and some healthy tributaries that allows for trout sustainability and reproduction. The Pickering Creek watershed also has no malls, shopping centers, or large commercial developments. This helps wild brown trout. Each of these waters also has special regulation sections which helps prevent anglers from taking all the fish.
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I would be amazed if French Creek had a decent population of wild fish. It has some holdovers, but not many.

It is sourced by a top release dam in a warmwater lake, and has a few dams along it. The FFO stretch of french creek has those regs due to a landowner agreement.

I've never really fished pickering much, so no info there.
 
Rookie wrote:
Even though the watersheds are naturally healthy, it still amazes me how humans have managed to do so much with the land yet the trout survive. by doing so much with the land I mean not making huge cities like Philly but building towns, highways, farming, etc. Really makes you wonder how good the trout fishing was before any of that stuff was built, if wild trout can still be found in healthy populations. Of course it was brookies back then, not browns.

Chester County is pretty overlooked IMO. People look at Lancaster farmed areas, Philly, and Delaware county, and think all of extreme SE PA including chester county as just urbanized areas and streams that are too warm for trout. they see Valley and think it is just a huge exception. But there are quite a few wild trout streams, brown and brook, that are just completely overlooked because people think for some reason all of the little streams in Chester County are dead like most of the ones to the east and west.
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Nearby berks county has plenty of wild trout opportunities, so I don't think it's that exceptional that chester has some. The geography and populations are similar.
 
Mike wrote:
English prof: PFBC biologists know of many more wild trout waters than those that appear on the lists.
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Mike,
Could you explain a little more how this works? When you find a wild trout stream, how is the decision made whether or not to put in on the reproduction list?

And is there more than one list, i.e. a published reproduction list vs a non-published list?

I would think that DEP, EPA and other agencies involved in environmental protection, and university researchers etc. would want to have access to information on ALL streams that are found by the PFBC to support wild trout.
 
I am curious as well.

I have a friend that works as an engineer on the gas lines up north, and he said that he has a list of streams with wild fish. All I know is that they need to take special precautions around these streams.

Would this be the natural reproduction list? If so, it may be terribly insufficient.
 
Nearby berks county has plenty of wild trout opportunities, so I don't think it's that exceptional that chester has some. The geography and populations are similar.
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Absolutely true. But lots of people think Chester county is much worse since it is farther south and closer to Philly.

Not that that's a bad thing!
 
I do know of one stream, not on the state list, that has a great brookie population (although probably not Class A). A few years ago they started building a large development in the watershed and I believe the DEP made the developers take extra measures to protect the trout. They had to put up silt fences everywhere and were not allowed to build an exit road where they wanted to.
 
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