Awesome Weekend

[jifigz]

I had an awesome weekend of fishing. Fished Spring Creek Saturday for a few hours and fished Kish ok Sunday. My buddy was up from Virginia and he misses living around good trout water so we were sure to spend several hours on the waters. We landed 8 trout from Spring and 8 trout from the Kish, but the size of the wild browns on Kish was much, much better. All fish taken from Kish were in the 12-14" range. The fish in both streams were right in the thick of some good current and riffles, especially on the Kish where the stream was up and had good flow and, given the gradient in the "narrows" section, holding in some downright rough water. The wooly bugger was the hero of the weekend and caught every fish that we landed. I also had a few takes on a size 10 closer minnow but we missed an unbelievable amount of fish that attacked our streamers. All in all great stuff and lots of beautiful brown trout. I encourage everyone to get out. The streams were dead and the fish were hungry.

 

[tracker12]

Sweet fish. Thanks for the report

 

[Swattie87]

Nice report. Good to hear Kish fished well. It's been trapped in that void area of precipitation that has seemed to get less than surrounding areas, even once the rain picked up this Fall. It was really low all Summer and Fall. The Narrows section is deceiving as you note...Gradient like that on a stream that size can make it look like there's more water there than there actually is. From the gauge, it's still comparatively low for the time of year. Hopefully it gets a few more rains like last week. It seemed to hold on to the water it got pretty well from that event.

How'd the fish like the Buggers being presented? Typical cold water deep dead drift, or were they chasing them?

 

[geebee]

the kish ?

 

[jifigz]

Given where a lot of the fish were holding they were chasing and quickly crushing the flies. Assuming you're familiar with that stretch you know how long some of those riffle and steep gradient sections are. Fish were stacked all through those little pieces of pocket water in those 2 very long riffle sections. The slower deep pools below that still had good current also produced some fish and there they wanted a slower and deeper presentation. The big, slow, and deep pools produced no fish.

 

[jifigz]

geebee wrote:
Yeah....the kish......there's only one! No, not sure why I say that, but I like it.

Note too that all fish caught were lovely wild browns. Kish does have a great population of wild browns so that isn't surprising, but what is somewhat surprising is that we didn't encounter any of the THOUSANDS of rainbows that are put in there each year.

 

[troutbert]

geebee wrote:
the kish ?

Kishacoquillas Creek

 

[Mike]

The narrows is ideal habitat for big Browns; most, but not all, of Spring Ck is not.

 

[jifigz]

Mike wrote:
The narrows is ideal habitat for big Browns; most, but not all, of Spring Ck is not.

Kish is, in my opinion, great habitat from the narrows down to the river for growing big browns. I know this to be certain.

 

[troutbert]

Kish Creek is a limestone stream, so fertile, with lots of food. And its habitat is much better than Spring Creek's.

Yet it's not Class A (40 kg/ha)?

While Spring Creek is around 150 - 200 kg/ha.

What's the explanation?

 

[Swattie87]

troutbert wrote:
Kish Creek is a limestone stream, so fertile, with lots of food. And its habitat is much better than Spring Creek's.

Yet it's not Class A (40 kg/ha)?

While Spring Creek is around 150 - 200 kg/ha.

What's the explanation?

tb - Kish from Reedsville (Tea Creek confluence more specifically) downstream through the Narrows and nearly to its mouth is Class A. Recently expanded and added as I recall. The Narrows is still heavily stocked however.

 

[TJones]

I think Kish has the potential to be a destination type stream if it was managed correctly... doesn't have the wilderness type vibe though aka Penns, big Spring etc.

Question, since it is now class A... does that mean fishing is open all year ( catch and release during extended season) or does it still close in February?

 

[jifigz]

TJones wrote:
I think Kish has the potential to be a destination type stream if it was managed correctly... doesn't have the wilderness type vibe though aka Penns, big Spring etc.

Question, since it is now class A... does that mean fishing is open all year ( catch and release during extended season) or does it still close in February?

I couldn't agree more. In fact, it's my favorite trout stream. And I'm sure the "old" class A section is open to fishing and the new class A section would be closed since it is still stocked. It mildly upsets me that Kish is one of two Class A trout streams in the state that the state decided to still stock.

 

[troutbert]

jifigz wrote:

TJones wrote:
I think Kish has the potential to be a destination type stream if it was managed correctly... doesn't have the wilderness type vibe though aka Penns, big Spring etc.

Question, since it is now class A... does that mean fishing is open all year ( catch and release during extended season) or does it still close in February?

I couldn't agree more. In fact, it's my favorite trout stream. And I'm sure the "old" class A section is open to fishing and the new class A section would be closed since it is still stocked. It mildly upsets me that Kish is one of two Class A trout streams in the state that the state decided to still stock.

Does anyone know when the new Class A section on Kish was added? It was pretty recently, I think.

But this is not just one of two Class A stocked streams in PA.

They are listed on page 20 of the 2017 regs booklet. There are 11 sections, on 8 streams.

Was stocking vs not stocking of the new Class A section on Bald Eagle Cr discussed and decided at the recent PFBC meeting?

 

[Pr0digal_son]

TJones wrote:
I think Kish has the potential to be a destination type stream if it was managed correctly... doesn't have the wilderness type vibe though aka Penns, big Spring etc.

Question, since it is now class A... does that mean fishing is open all year ( catch and release during extended season) or does it still close in February?

Are class A streams open all year? I thought the regulations mirrored stocked waters with the exception being C&R only during the extended season. I probably am wrong,hoping atleast.

 

[jifigz]

Troutbert, that section was just added at the end of last year. I guarantee the lower stretch would also classify as Class A too.and nice catch on more than those two Class A sections being exemptions in the state. I thought I remembered reading that somewhere. Maybe they've done more sampling since then and discovered more Class A's like Bald Eagle, that they refuse to stop stocking due to license sales loss.

 

[troutbert]

jifigz wrote:
Troutbert, that section was just added at the end of last year. I guarantee the lower stretch would also classify as Class A too.and nice catch on more than those two Class A sections being exemptions in the state. I thought I remembered reading that somewhere. Maybe they've done more sampling since then and discovered more Class A's like Bald Eagle, that they refuse to stop stocking due to license sales loss.

Thanks for the info on when the new Class A section was added.

 

[DGC]

I suggest interested anglers carefully check page 20 of the 2017 Regs booklet or its online equivalent. Previously, there was a great deal of uncertainty if you could fish stocked Class A streams from March to the opener. For the 2017 fishing regulations, the PFBC made a concerted effort to make this clear: you can't.

Further, and perhaps this also is not as clear as it should have been, unlike other stocked waters where you can continue to harvest at a reduced rate after Labor day, on stocked Class A streams it is strictly catch and release.

If it wasn't such a pain (for I of limited skills) to get the graphics lined up, I would have started a thread on this.

At the January 2017 commissioners meeting, the Bald Eagle stretch that surveyed as meeting Class A was voted in as Class A along with the other candidate streams. Further, they voted to continue stocking it, though at what rate was not discussed.

 

[Pr0digal_son]

So you can fish unstocked Class A streams after Feb. 28? I may have read the 2017 summary incorrectly,but it seems like you are not permitted to. The extended season for unstocked classA streams appears to mirror stocked trout waters.

 

[Dave_W]

Pr0digal_son wrote:
So you can fish unstocked Class A streams after Feb. 28? I may have read the 2017 summary incorrectly,but it seems like you are not permitted to. The extended season for unstocked classA streams appears to mirror stocked trout waters.

Yes, you can fish unstocked Class As on a catch and release basis year round.

The "extended season" only matters with respect to harvest. It is not a closure against C&R fishing.