That's good to hear that young of the year populations are solid. Bass harvest is an issue. I'm not on the river enough to be definitive but in my most recent 10 trips over the past 5 years, I've seen over 300 smallmouth leave the Warren Dredge. Might not sound like much, but I'll bet that is a regular occurance. Fishing prior to that was nothing short of spectacular and harvest was pretty much zero.

Trout depend on water flows and temps and the river is marginal in the temp area many years. The Fish Commission has experimented with various management ideas of the years and I've spent way less time chasing trout so I can't offer an opinion there. I know it is different as the large numbers of 8 inch rainbows are no longer there in the early summer.

Less small trout = fewer big musky??? Just a thought.

I fished with Jeff Knapp (Keystone Connections Guide Service) in the Parker Area of the river this fall and fish were behaving differently this year. We concluded low water was allowing fish to stay spread out due to overall less current. The Oil City Dredge was full of smallmouth and fisherman this fall so you'd expect similar behavior in the Warren Dredge which returns me to my original theory about the bass....harvest is way up in that area in recent years, That's going to have an effect.

I'm going to try some less traditional locations for me to find walleye on the lower river as I said in my earlier post, they aren't in the usual spots in any numbers. Lower river walleye and sauger populations do some fluctuating for sure but this year has been a challenge thus far.

I guess this is what makes it fishing not catching. It certainly makes guiding more of a challenge I'd guess. It's fun to talk about too.