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have been pretty good if hooking a bunch of muskies only to have them shake off before netting them is considered good. I think we had 7 fish shake off between Saturday and Sunday (if you can believe that) with 2 of them being VERY nice fish plus 3 other follows!
Wednesday was a tough day with only 1 blow up on a Big Tube with no other sightings of any Esox.
We had 2 more muskies hooked and lost, of course, with 2 more follows on Saturday plus a decent pike. Then, on 'sunny' Sunday, we did not see any Esox whatsoever.
We scratched out 6 legal walleye (all between 19 and 23 inches) and lost 4 more on Saturday with one being a very nice one plus 4 trout between 17 and 23 with 2 lost. Sunday we chased muskies with 2 hooked and lost and another good follow. The Fall of 2015 should be titled "How many fish can we NOT land". I have never seen such light hits from all species of fish this Fall. I know one thing for sure, I doubt there is anyone out there with sharper hooks than we have! I have been opening up the gaps of our hooks a tad and that has helped some (I think) but WOW. In the last 4 days of musky fishing, we have hooked 13 fish and lost 12 of them!
Happy Thanksgiving and good luck in the woods or on the water!
Thanksgiving report.....Fished from 9am until 7:30pm on Wednesday and finally landed a good musky at 6:51pm under the full mooon. On Friday, 3 of us worked hard for muskies and I had a REAL big fish hooked up (in an area that I really do not fish too much these days) and after 5 seconds of headshaking, she shot to the surface and threw me. We also landed a nice pike about 1 hour later and that was it after fishing until 9pm. Saturday was another day with another lost musky (making the total 3 landed and 12 or 13 lost....losing count now) and 1 decent pike landed with only the rear hook stuck in the thin skin around the outside of her mouth. Sunday was trout/walleye day with 2 walleye and 2 trout landed and 2 lost walleye. Largest trout was 22" and full of eggs.
That's it! Still losing fish but still grinding out long days just to get a shot at 1 or maybe 2 musky bites. Frustrating.
Well, we had a rough day on Saturday with no Esox sightings at all but Sunday was much better as we put 1 in the bag and 3 other blow-ups/lost fish with 2 of those nippers being around 45" and 1 positively in the 50-inch class. The big fish we encountered were between 10:45 and 11:30am and the actual caught fish was around 4:15pm.
3 more trips for the winter then it will be time for shoulder surgery on 12/22.
Highs near 60 next weekend with rain on the way.....hard to believe!
Good Luck!
Saturday was a strange day. We saw you at the Refinery Dredge in the morning. We caught some decent bass and walleye early but had little action as the day went along. Things in that pool have really changed. Does anyone know when the Ramp at the Dam opens back up? We made a change in plans Saturday and launched downstream which resulted in fishing a completely different area. Would also explain the weekend water releases as they are working on the ramp on weekdays.
By the way, walleye action on the lower Allegheny has been pretty good lately. Anyone else noticing that?
I agree. The refinery stuff has really changed over the years for sure but I think one of the reasons is that you guys on the lower river still have some of "our" winter fish down there as they have yet to move up this year. With the river temperature hardly dropping over the past 3 weeks, I think there is a ton of fish hung up somewhere South of Warren. Just my .02.
The ramp should be completed this week, I hope. Getting tired of the up and down outflows!
Launch is open now but big outflows coming as we speak.
I do agree that the water temps have been higher than normal but don't think the fish are hung up other than on stringers on buggeys. The fall migration of bass begins when water temps reach the lower 50's. In the past, that would correspond to early October. Typically when the temperatures were hitting the 40's as now, one could expect catches of larger bass in concentrated low current areas (wintering holes which the Warren dredge is a classic). I think the fish species distribution in the river around Warren has been changed significantly and as a result, so has the fishing. I'm catching more walleyes now (not long ago, I'd catch very few in the Warren Dredge) and I'll bet musky location has changed as those species move in to replace the missing bass. Just a theory but I do know that what I catch around Warren in both numbers and species is not what is was five years ago.
I'm hoping to have a few shots at floating the area for trout before winter actually arrives for good.
I understand all the migration stuff and actually have logs that help me remember these things over the years. After talking to a very good local bass hunter this year, he had to travel a significant distance to find the larger bass that had "hung up" in 2 areas South of Warren when they should have (based on the calendar) already made their way to Warren. IF the bait is not moving up due to slowly falling water temps, neither will the predators whether it be muskies, pike or walleye. The reason you may be catching more walleye is because the numbers of bass are not there competing for your offerings. As far as the straw hat fishermen, there has not been an increase in that pressure either this year.....there are actually fewer of them because the big bass (and tons of smaller bass) have not shown up yet. The only difference from this year and all the other years is a 6 degree temperature difference this year as compared to most years dating back to 1997. Water temps below the dam are usually 39-41 during Christmas holiday.....they were 46.7 last weekend with 60 degree temps and rain coming this weekend. 3 weeks ago, we actually gained 1.5 degrees in temperature which has not happened in 11 years or so.
The number of bass hunting boats in the 2 dredges has really dropped off this year too as the word has spread that the bass fishing has just not fired up yet in the "normal" areas.
The number of transient muskies certainly are not here (Warren County) yet this year either and that is a fact, unfortunately.
Good Luck with the trout and bring spare battery with you as you will be fighting some serious current for quite awhile according to the Corps of Engineer guy I spoke with this morning.
Thanks Red for the engaging conversation....I'm giving quizzes at school today. I have never really run around enough on the river in the fall (October-December) to find those spots where the bass hang up although I can guess where they are. I've been stuck around the Warren Dredge since up until recently I fished from a canoe. It would be a fascinating study to actually tag a few and track them. I'm really curious to see if the bigger bass actually ever show up in numbers this year. I totally agree about the walleye and I've had increasing success catching them as they have somewhat replaced the bass in that particular area. Many years ago, that area had a much greater population of walleyes (at least based on what I caught), for what ever reason. I really do think though that the straw hat guys have really impacted things. The number of fish I saw on stringers in the last few years has really skewed my opinion. The same issue comes up on a few local lakes in my area so it really is a sore spot with me. It does look like I'll have to wait awhile to have lower flows which means more time on the Lower River. It was interesting to see the USGS gage at Warren have a lower value than the dam output at one point today. Enjoy the heat wave.
Red, Wendy and I wish you good luck and a speedy recovery for your shoulder surgery. One of these days, hopefully soon I will get my boat out. Been kept busy, since I retired and new puppy arrived.
Thanks, Bob. It is time to get this thing fixed and the only way I will rest it is if it is too cold to fish. El Nino has thrown us a curveball this year and I almost cancelled the surgery in order to fish longer but decided that was not an intelligent decision. :)
Merry Christmas guys and see ya on the water!
Most likely will put in at Tidioute, nice launch. I will have to explore some. Again Good Luck, speedy recovery !!
I wish I lived closer to Tidioute/Tionesta......some really good fishing down that way for sure.
Be good....Santa is watching!
Saturday....We hit a couple of pike and 4 follows (from 3 different fish) with a very big gal following 2x over the course of the 5 hours. After dropping off my party at the launch, I went back after the biggun we saw earlier but could not get her interested again.
Sunday.....2 more pike and 3 more follows with only 1 being a musky (at least from my vantage point). We did see a GIANT brown trout surfacing a few times....it looked like a cross between a brown and a carp because it was so fat/round. (I am still in awe of what we saw.) Water is very clear for December and definitely having a negative impact on the musky fishing. 1 trip left for 2015 coming up this Saturday.
Good Luck and safe travels!
We moved 4 different fish on Saturday and only got the hooks into 1 of them. 2 were in the 30's, 1 low 40's and 1 big shovel head in the mid to upper 40's with a big girth.....my client described her as "the widest head he had ever seen". Anyway, the net stayed dry and the weather was pretty rough but we fished until dark.
That's a wrap for 2015. Time to take some time off until March-ish and see how things look before launching the boat again. The weather looks favorable for some nice days of fishing over the holidays!
Good Luck!