I spent several hours chasing trout with a retired Calculus teacher. I have spent more time with him hunting big trout than anyone over the past 25 years.

He and I have experienced the great years as well as the fair years of Allegheny trout fishing. We now both agree that the trout numbers are lower than we have ever seen them. Over the past 5 years, the numbers appear to have been cut in half (at least). Trout stocking info is scarce for this trophy section because it has been virtually neglected over the last few years. My main guess for this is the lack of accessibility along Rt.59 and I can understand this point as it has been an issue since the trophy regs were first instituted.

Anyway, our goal was for both of us to land a fish over 18-20, something that used to be pretty dang easy considering the near perfect conditions we had today. We ended up hooking/losing 2 decent fish and that is acceptible under the new norm we are dealing with these days.

Don’t get me wrong, there are still some nice specimens out there and we have seen and caught a few this year but the trout haydays are and have been over for several years. It is what it is.

————————————————————————

ppalko,

Guess what our largest fish was today while chasing trout?

A 3.75# smallie