Berks Co. Locations For Mid August

[Taimenpala]

Hello all! This is my first post on this forum after years of lurking so I hope this is in the right place.

I'm looking to introduce a friend from the Philly area to fly fishing. We will be going in the middle of August. Since it is his first time, and the middle of August, I was planning on taking him trout fishing in the morning, then smallmouth fishing in the afternoon, due to warm water temps (I have a thermometer and am mindful of water temps).

Because it is equidistant to us, and it has streams that meet that criteria, I picked Berks Co. as our location. Now I have fished Hays and the Tulpehocken and enjoyed them, but I'm worried about their temps at that time of year. Are there any other options, either spring creeks or small mountain streams that would fit the bill of what we're looking for for a trout stream in Berks Co. at that time of year? I'm aware of some in the area but I've never been to them before, and would prefer some places that have easier accessibility.

Likewise, are there any suggestions for wadable areas of the Schuylkill for smallies? I've been to an access point near Hamburg before but haven't fished it before.

 

[tomgamber]

Used to have a good time, during college, learning to fly fish below Blue Falls Dam. All kinds of willing stuff in there.

 

[pcray1231]

Most of the Skuke is wadable, since it's pretty low right now. Look for current to find the smallies. Anywhere below Auburn reservoir (Skuylkill County) is smallie water, the best stretch as far as numbers probably ends where it comes out of the mountains around Hamburg, as it slows down considerably, but there's fewer but bigger smallies as you go down from there. Could always hit the spillway of Auburn or Hamburg reservoirs, they are always hotspots. Or up from Port Clinton there's a lot of nice water, or the "chutes" areas are always good. I've waded around and hit some smallies closer to Reading too, namely Jim Dietrich Park, Felix Dam, and Kelly's overlook areas, there's some good riffs at the latter 2 there.

As far as trout. Wyomissing Creek is limestone and usually stays pretty cold, but very urban park like setting and mostly small browns. There's a number of freestone brookie streams up around Blue Mountain (Rattling, Northkill, etc.), and Cold Run in Skuylkill County is always a good one (mostly browns, but has brooks and even a few rainbows). But they are small streams, not sure if the rain hit or missed, but low flows make things tough, plus with the heat wave comin, take a thermometer! For bigger water, the Tully below Blue Marsh has some trout left (tailwater) and trico spinner falls in the mornings. I don't think they're out of cold water in the dam just yet, as the gauge is saying they are still keeping it below 70. Most years they will run out before too long, late July or August, depending on weather and flows.

Believe it or not it's actually been a COOL summer. I think we have had 35 straight days of below average highs here in my area of the state!!! It's been VERY dry though, and flows mean more than temps. And a heat wave is coming, not a great combination.

 

[Swattie87]

Unless you’re fortunate enough to fish the morning after a Tstorm, Trout fishing in Berks County in August is a pretty tough deal. And even then, Tstorms are a localized thing. One watershed gets a good shot of rain, and the next watershed over doesn’t sometimes. Gotta know where to look, and what to look for using rainfall maps. Even then, it’s not an exact science.

Small freestone streams in low/clear Summer conditions with spooky wild Trout probably isn’t the best bet for a FF newbie and their likely sloppy, errant casting, even if they are ok temperature wise, which they probably would be. Tully will probably be out temp wise by then and Wyomissing Creek is a tough, heavily pressured stream, that doesn’t give up fish easy in any conditions, nonetheless low/clear late Summer flows.

Unless we get a good shot of rain, I’d devote your whole day to warmwater fishing. More room for a newbie to work out their casting, and late Summer usually translates into generally good conditions on larger warmwater streams. Warmwater fish species are also much more forgiving and don’t spook as easily as Trout. Good advice above on where to look on the Skuke for that.

I think it’s generally good advice to start new FFers on WW fishing anyway. Tie on a small, easy to cast Wooly Bugger, and they’ll probably catch fish, even if they have no clue what they’re doing.

 

[Oregon_OwlII]

Try the West Branch of the Perkiomen and Bieber Creek/Pine Creek for trout. Smallish streams, both Class A. Access is hopscotch. Do your warm water fishing on the Perkiomen below the Green Lane Reservoir.

 

[Bamboozle]

Those three like most of the small Class A's in Berks are warm this time of year, a lot warmer than you would think being that they are Class A.

 

[pcray1231]

Yep, that 35 days in a row of cooler than average high temps is now busted, 2 in a row of warmer than average, lol. We return to around average on Monday, gonna be a real hot weekend first.

 

[Taimenpala]

Unless you’re fortunate enough to fish the morning after a Tstorm, Trout fishing in Berks County in August is a pretty tough deal. And even then, Tstorms are a localized thing. One watershed gets a good shot of rain, and the next watershed over doesn’t sometimes. Gotta know where to look, and what to look for using rainfall maps. Even then, it’s not an exact science.

Small freestone streams in low/clear Summer conditions with spooky wild Trout probably isn’t the best bet for a FF newbie and their likely sloppy, errant casting, even if they are ok temperature wise, which they probably would be. Tully will probably be out temp wise by then and Wyomissing Creek is a tough, heavily pressured stream, that doesn’t give up fish easy in any conditions, nonetheless low/clear late Summer flows.

Unless we get a good shot of rain, I’d devote your whole day to warmwater fishing. More room for a newbie to work out their casting, and late Summer usually translates into generally good conditions on larger warmwater streams. Warmwater fish species are also much more forgiving and don’t spook as easily as Trout. Good advice above on where to look on the Skuke for that.

I think it’s generally good advice to start new FFers on WW fishing anyway. Tie on a small, easy to cast Wooly Bugger, and they’ll probably catch fish, even if they have no clue what they’re doing.

You make excellent points that I hadn't thought of before about teaching a newbie to cast on the small streams and fishing in WW for beginners. I don't want to be spending the whole day tying knots lol (though I do expect to as this isn't my first rodeo with a newbie).

I'll still monitor the temps and weather, as I'd really like to expose my friend to trout fishing, but I may have to save that for another time. Especially since the consensus so far has been that even the spring creeks in Berks will be warm at that time of year. I thought from my experience on Big Spring and the Letort at that time of year that it would be doable, but I guess the spring creeks in Berks don't keep as cool as them?

 

[Taimenpala]

Also I really appreciate all of the warmwater recommendations! I'll probably take a prospecting trip out to Berks a week or two before my "guiding" trip to scout out the various places that have been recommended. And of course I'll report back here with my results.

 

[Taimenpala]

Try the West Branch of the Perkiomen and Bieber Creek/Pine Creek for trout. Smallish streams, both Class A. Access is hopscotch. Do your warm water fishing on the Perkiomen below the Green Lane Reservoir.

Out of curiosity, are these spring creeks, or freestone?

 

[Swattie87]

You make excellent points that I hadn't thought of before about teaching a newbie to cast on the small streams and fishing in WW for beginners. I don't want to be spending the whole day tying knots lol (though I do expect to as this isn't my first rodeo with a newbie).

I'll still monitor the temps and weather, as I'd really like to expose my friend to trout fishing, but I may have to save that for another time. Especially since the consensus so far has been that even the spring creeks in Berks will be warm at that time of year. I thought from my experience on Big Spring and the Letort at that time of year that it would be doable, but I guess the spring creeks in Berks don't keep as cool as them?

The limestone spring creeks in Berks aren’t exactly like the Cumberland Valley pure
Limestone springs. There’s a couple that are, but they’re tiny. Like baby step across. The others, like Wyomissing, are heavily limestone influenced, but don’t really have that classic spring look with the weeds and all. And yeah, they don’t stay as cold, but they stay pretty cold. The Tully, in Berks County, is a tailwater, something different all together. Its temp is determined by how much cold water the dam still has stored. Typically, about this time of year, the cold water runs out and you see a sudden spike in temps, until things naturally start to cool in the Fall. Wayyyy upstream in Lebanon County the Tully is a small limestoner with spotty access, more along the lines of Wyomissing than the Letort or BS.

 

[pcray1231]

I believe Bieber is a limestoner. Wyomissing sure is. The Tulpehocken is as well, though a LONG ways from it's source and after a dam too.

Big Spring and Letort are fairly unique/unusual in that they are not just limestoners, but they have very large single springs. They are PURE limestoners through and through. A much more common thing in the Berks region limestoners, and throughout the state really, is to have kind of hybrid streams. They start as freestoners, maybe pick up a small limestone spring, a freestone trib, another small limestone spring, etc. No one spring output on any huge scale.

The PFBC stopped publishing alkalinity ratings I think. But Big Spring/Letort and some of those SC streams were like well over 200 in alkalinity, nothing in the state really came close. The alkalinity of Berks County limestoners was in general, half that, give or take. And most freestoners are 0-20, maybe getting to 30 or 40 as they get larger and more fertile.

 

[JeffP]

Has anyone hit Peters in a while? That has to have super high alkalinity! It's so short that it's barely worth fishing but brooks in a less than typical environment.

 

[Swattie87]

Has anyone hit Peters in a while? That has to have super high alkalinity! It's so short that it's barely worth fishing but brooks in a less than typical environment.

That’d be one of the step across ones I mentioned. I’ve fished it, caught exactly one fish each time (from the dam hole). Next to impossible to fish.

 

[Bamboozle]

Out of curiosity, are these spring creeks, or freestone?

The may have SOME limestone influence but the are really freestoners.

I remember one time dropping a thermometer into the West Branch of the Perkiomen one day and it was about 75 degrees in the warm months. The others (Bieber, Pine, Upper Perkiomen proper) are not any different.

 

[Mike]

Peters now has reproducing RT as well as the ST if I recall the crew’s comments correctly. No, the RT did not run the ST out of town; the ST population has been failing for yrs due to sedimentation. Another small limestoner is Laurel Rn in Laurel Rn Park (Class A BT) off River Rd, which is one of the areas where pcray mentioned fishing for SMB. You could hit both waters. Spring Ck is larger and also stays cold in the Class A BT stretch, but will have to seek landowner permission.

 

[JeffP]

Peters now has reproducing RT as well as the ST if I recall the crew’s comments correctly. No, the RT did not run the ST out of town; the ST population has been failing for yrs due to sedimentation. Another small limestoner is Laurel Rn in Laurel Rn Park (Class A BT) off River Rd, which is one of the areas where pcray mentioned fishing for SMB. You could hit both waters. Spring Ck is larger and also stays cold in the Class A BT stretch, but will have to seek landowner permission.

I wonder how Peters got rainbows. Has it been surveyed? I remember talking to a guy at the old Brandywine Outfitters who told me how great Peters was and how many brookies he would catch during hatches. My success in a couple trips was the same as Swatties. There was no where to fish with all the watercress. It's so short with virtually no watershed that I'm surprised it's impacted by sedimentation but I haven't been there for 20 years.

 

[pcray1231]

There was a big brown under a bush just up from the road on Peters that was the worst kept secret on the board for quite some time, lol. Nobody caught it that I'm aware of, that was like 15 years ago, dang!! Like Swattie, I've caught brookies in the dam hole nearly every time I've went. I have also caught fish in the little "woods section", though rarely, they are super spooky. I once had someone walking a dog back there tell me they were rising under the bridge. Well alright! I hussled back down, and sure enough, there were fish rising under the bridge. Well here we go... They were bluegills. And I caught a big bass right at the mouth once.

Source stock for bows isn't an issue, there are wild bows in the drainage.

 

[Swattie87]

There was a big brown under a bush just up from the road on Peters that was the worst kept secret on the board for quite some time, lol. Nobody caught it that I'm aware of, that was like 15 years ago, dang!! Like Swattie, I've caught brookies in the dam hole nearly every time I've went. I have also caught fish in the little "woods section", though rarely, they are super spooky. I once had someone walking a dog back there tell me they were rising under the bridge. Well alright! I hussled back down, and sure enough, there were fish rising under the bridge. Well here we go... They were bluegills. And I caught a big bass right at the mouth once.

Source stock for bows isn't an issue, there are wild bows in the drainage.

I keep thinking I want to go back in the Summer and plop hoppers in the chutes between the weed beds and along the channel walls, but have never done it. I’ve never actually seen Trout in it, other than the ones I’ve caught (all small Brookies) from the dam hole. And one time I saw a larger, low teens fish in the dam hole. It was a Trout, don’t know what species though. I’ve seen plenty of Sunnies and LMB in it. And a large carp.

 

[pcray1231]

Looking up from the bridge, 100 yards or so up, the stream makes a left turn. On the right was an overhanging bush. There was a large, 20 something inch class brown that lived under that bush. Were you in on that fish? I remember several board members had said something about they knew where a big brown lived in Berks (without naming the stream or location). I didn't think too much of it, sure, we've all run across one right? One year at the jam we all got to talking and drinking, it came up, we all realized we were talking about the same fish, lol. Several excursions followed, by several people, with the intent of catching that very fish. I'm gonna try a black bugger, the next guy would want to dry dropper it, next guy would go at first light and put a hopper over it. We'd then relay our tries to the others via PM. All failed that I'm aware of, you'd cast, nothing would happen. Then when you give up you'd walk up and look, and sure enough, it was still there, and upon seeing you it'd casually slide under a weed bed, laughing at you. Occurred over a period of 3 years or so.

I feel free saying it because that was like 2007-2010 time frame, lol.