Natural Reproduction on the Allegheny River

Has anyone seen any evidence of natural reproduction occurring along the Allegheny River??


I have caught small muskies in my traps that do not correspond with the sizes of recently stocked fish and I have seen smaller fish (5-8 inches) around heat sources during early morning or night time fishing trips, especially near the concrete of a few boat launches. With the relatively low commercialization of property along the Warren County stretch, ph levels around 7.2-7.5 and plenty of areas without siltration, I strongly believe we have some natural repro going on. The Ph for pure water is 7.0.

It sure would be nice to "officially" know how much is actually occurring.

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Originally Posted by PAmusky

Has anyone seen any evidence of natural reproduction occurring along the Allegheny River??


I have caught small muskies in my traps that do not correspond with the sizes of recently stocked fish and I have seen smaller fish (5-8 inches) around heat sources during early morning or night time fishing trips, especially near the concrete of a few boat launches. With the relatively low commercialization of property along the Warren County stretch, ph levels around 7.2-7.5 and plenty of areas without siltration, I strongly believe we have some natural repro going on. The Ph for pure water is 7.0.

It sure would be nice to "officially" know how much is actually occurring.

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Given the relative fertility or the water (definately alkaline) and that the Allegheny is one of the cleaner rivers in western Pa, and the plethora of spawning structure for the musky I would bet that there is significant natural reproduction.

I wonder if they have a way to "fin clip" the musky the stock, so we would be able to tell a native/wild spawned fish from a stocked fish?

Did you tell you tell me that you caught a wild tiger up in your strech Red? I believe you said it was a small fish as well, indicating it was either newly spawned (relatively) or had swam a great distance up stream from where they do plant tigers. If it was newly spawned it would have to be from natural reproduction, and a successful spawning between E. Lucius and E. masquinongy is a rare thing in and of itself which I would also take as an indication of the relative fertility of the water and the amount of natural reproduction that occurs in the upper Allegheny.

All of this is my humble opinion of course.

Other states do the fin-clipping/tagging gig so it should work fine in PA.....maybe some areas of PA do have fish with clipped fins, I am not sure.

Yes, I did say we caught a tiger but I have no way of knowing if it came up from the SW part of the state or not. I have also seen 1 other one that followed a walleye jig to the boat about 13 years ago and it was around 30 inches or so. We have caught sauger and saugeye within a few miles of the Kinzua outflow as recent as last Fall so I assume it is possible for a tiger to swim that far. I am not even sure if the SW part of the state gets stocked with Tigers or not???

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Originally Posted by PAmusky

Other states do the fin-clipping/tagging gig so it should work fine in PA.....maybe some areas of PA do have fish with clipped fins, I am not sure.

Yes, I did say we caught a tiger but I have no way of knowing if it came up from the SW part of the state or not. I have also seen 1 other one that followed a walleye jig to the boat about 13 years ago and it was around 30 inches or so. We have caught sauger and saugeye within a few miles of the Kinzua outflow as recent as last Fall so I assume it is possible for a tiger to swim that far. I am not even sure if the SW part of the state gets stocked with Tigers or not???

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I know Crooked Creek Lake does...and there are fish in the outflow there, Garrick's son caught a nice one a couple of weeks ago (While we were thrashing Tammarack to no avail!) and it flows in the Allegheny south of Ford City. But that would be a LONG swim for a musky I would think.

The sauger could be naturally working their way up, Saugeye I don't know.

Oh yea, I forgot about Garrick's son. I saw the photo last week, I think.


BTW...I think you guys will be up here the last Day of May.

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Originally Posted by PAmusky

Oh yea, I forgot about Garrick's son. I saw the photo last week, I think.


BTW...I think you guys will be up here the last Day of May.

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Works for me!

I got some Esox on me last weekend (Pike and chain pickerel) so I need some masquinongy to complete the trifecta!

I want one of these too:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2367/...16989e.jpg?v=0

3 or 4 years ago i seen a very small muskie about 4" under a big tree that hangs over the creek above the confluence of the river and the old wooden bridge hiding in some wood close to shore. This hole is a spot where muskies are usually always lurking.

I guess I should clarify that I did not take the Ph on this section of river. I was told by a guy who was told directly by our local biologist that it was in the low 7's. This information is about 12 years old.

I think pH of 7.2 is accurate for the river. More important for fertility would be alkalinity. Darters, stratification, night fishing, measure the pH and other water parameters (I'm a chem teacher)....

I've seined two sub four inch musky in the lower Allegheny (20 years ago+) and if they were reproducing there then, I'd say the whole river has reproduction.

Phil

Fishing the mid allegheny around where crooked cr. dumps in we see few if any of the tigers making it into the river, they generally stick to upper half of the creek from the spillway down to rt. 66. I know a few make it out to the river but we never seem to catch any and see very few, and i've personally never caught one. The one other lake in the area that stocks tigers is Mahoning dam and they could possibly make it to the river from here, but it would be a treck also. I was told by one of the conservation officers that they had started putting tigers in the river along with purebreds, i have yet to see it with my own eyes. Also was told at the last three rivers meetn that crooked cr lake was done being stocked because of low numbers of fish making it and cost of stocking the lake not being worth it.