Clarion River area

[LongWader]

Thanks FishIdiot and Hammertime, I was able to fish, but my casting accuracy and distance suffered. The Clarion did not fish as well as it had the last five years especially for big browns. We caught lots of smallmouth even up near Johnsonburg which was different. Lots of holdover medium sized rainbows and a surprising number of 13 to 16' holdover and wild brook trout. The water was clear, low, warm, and the bottom of the river was covered with this black stringy weed the constantly fouled our lures and weighted flies. I did get (3) 21" browns and one 22", but no submarines this time. I did see one and she chased, but did not take. The river was beautiful and the company was great as per usual. We did a lot of fishing in the trophy trout area and below Ridgway. We saw one canoe and one kayak in 5 days of fishing and basically had the river to ourselves.

 

[hammertime]

Sounds like a good time (4 fish 20+in!!) Thanks for the follow up LW.

 

[greenghost]

FYI-- Big brownies in that watershed often move up into smaller tribs starting this time of year to spawn. Just sayin'...

 

[LongWader]

I agree GG, but we did not see any pushes coming upstream this year or any evidence that they had started. I believe this is the first year that we were strictly fishing for resident fish and holdovers. The resident fish are even tougher to move and catch than fresh fish pushing upstream. The one thing we did not do which we had planned to do was fish the East Branch. Maybe the initial push was already past us, but we saw no evidence to suggest that. The fact that there were lots of smallmouth and chubs in the trout holding areas suggest to me that the browns had not come through yet. With the low, clear, relatively warm water conditions we had, and the lack of rain the end of this Summer it would kind of make sense. Those big chubs tend to get scarce when the bullies show up.

 

[Fishidiot]

Very interesting report and observations - thanks LW.

And the fact that 20+" fish aren't "submarines" puts things in perspective. :-o

 

[greenghost]

LW,
No. Now that I think about it, it's probably still a bit early. I haven't fished up there in years, but I always used to make a special trip up to actually fish some of the tributaries when the bullies came through. It was a real kick to see a 2-foot long trout in a 20' stream. Very, very difficult to catch though.

 

[LongWader]

Any other freestone stream and a 22" fish would be a submarine. In the Clarion our benchmark for a submarine is a brown over 26" and that is just our benchmark. The fish I missed looked like a 28-29" fish and it pushed a wake that initially made me think that there was a beaver swimming towards me.