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Thread: 8/24

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Location
    Pennsylvania
    Posts
    3,917

    Default 8/24

    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
    Allegheny Guide Service
    Red Childress

    E-mail - RedChildress@gmail.com
    Web Site: http://www.alleghenyguideservice.com

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Posts
    171

    Default

    The river has definitely changed. I used to catch trout in pretty good numbers even in the riffle above the pool at the old power plant. No more.

    The Fish Commission would stock at various sites between the dam and Warren so the fingerlings were pretty spread out. Not sure if they still do that.
    Even though the stocking list indicates both browns and rainbows, I never caught a stocked fingerling brown but caught hundreds of rainbows. And to boot, they were in the 7-8 inch range by July most years. Some years they would add a fall stocking which was usually 9-10 inch rainbows.

    Last time I fished in June (and I've mostly stopped making the trip in the summer) we saw no signs of the fingerling trout in any of the usual places we'd catch them. It basically went from seeing hundreds of fish to zero despite the fact that the fish commission website stil lists a fingerling stocking, it was as though the stocking never happened.

    Another change that seems to be occurring is the availability of bass upstream from Warren. When the trout were plentiful, bass of any size were super rare from the bridge at the refinery up to the dam. I haven't attempted to examine temp data from the USGS, but I'd guess that in the past few years, summer temps have either achieved a higher value than in the past, or are higher on average. A similar thing happened in the 1980s with some really hot summers and a decline in trout. It also did not help in the 80s that there was a major fish kill during a summer when the only discharge was from from the powerplant at the dam due to repairs to the dam itself.

    Another complication is the source of many of the larger browns. I'm convinced they are born in the few tribs of size (brown run and hemlock run). If anything is affecting those streams then so goes the trout as well.

    So, the cause of the change is probably complicated. I'd love to talk to the biologists about what they think but I'm pretty sure they are ignoring this area. I once had a biologist flat out tell me that there were no trout in the river after they turned up none during sampling. I sent him a few pictures to sway his beliefs and it really did take awhile for him to actually believe me that the fish came from the river!

    I still think the river will continue to be a viable trout option. The ups and now downs of the population are part of the puzzle.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Location
    Pennsylvania
    Posts
    3,917

    Default

    Hopefully, we are just in the middle of a downswing with an upswing on the horizon. The 5-9 inchers are scarce and not piled behind every rock and tree trunk like they were 5 years ago. The decline in the number of followers and slashers are the most obvious. I am definitely seeing waaaaaay fewer trout out there and this decline has been happening for several years.
    Allegheny Guide Service
    Red Childress

    E-mail - RedChildress@gmail.com
    Web Site: http://www.alleghenyguideservice.com

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