Yeah, TB is out of touch on the access and parking. If you find the TT section on a map and just drive to the closest areas to the stream you can park there is parking. As Mike said the lower end had/has an access issue in the fall but its usually clearly marked when its open and not.
Plenty of stream, plenty of fish. Unfortunately on the smaller side. I believe its due to the meager flows of late, Not sure what the flow regimes were in the good old days but over the past ten or so years its been below 50cfs as a norm and probably closer to 35cfs. That leaves for far fewer and less quality big fish habitat areas. Thats what I think the problem is. Not that the Codo has a problem. its a great little wild brown trout stream. I think people remember a 17"er they caught or a 20"er they saw shocked in a survey and expect that to be the norm.
Just because you find a part of the stream "hard to fish" doesn't make it a bad section. It makes it a nursery and refuge area for larger fish or smaller fish more vulnerable to predation. Even posted sections do that. Some mixture of posting, unfishable or difficult to fish areas is good for a stream especially if it holds reproducing populations of wild fish.
Its like taking the pediatric ward out of the hospital to make more beds for the old folks. sooner or later there will be no old folks.
But the biggest reason the pressure is "light" and people "fish the breeches more" is, wait for it....Its not stocked!!!!!!!!! most people, me included when fishing a stream outside of a hatch will gravitate to a stocked trout stream for the simple reason they have a better chance of catching fish. I am not saying the Codorus should be stocked, it shouldn't, But there is no need to over analyze why. Its simple.
My question about the current regs is, Is it the goal of TT regs to "Produce" Trophy Trout or is is an advertisement that they are there? I mean what is a fisheries manager saying when they check that box and get the signs printed? Yeah there are plenty of 14's in here, lets kill em? or Maybe if we harvest the 14's there will be bigger fish here? I guess I am just a dummy that must follow white trucks...Sounds like a good place to include in the keystone select program...You would get your big fish, lots of traffic and perhaps even MORE posted water.
Sometimes you just gotta leave some places alone. Micro managing these "relatively popular" rural streams under special regulation that run through private land is a powderkeg. Let the local stakeholders manage the access and just provide law enforcement services so long there are no population crashes, its all good.
To be honest, I have only bee to Codorus once in the last few years, I fished it regularly at the turn of the century,(see what I did there) and I found it too easy and predictable. I never got run off buy a landowner, never had toruble parking, and never found "too much wood or downed trees". I did get stuck in the milkshake tanks a few times. Mostly the upper tank tho.
Some great habitat work had been done on that section and CodorusTU has certainly been actively representing it. As opposed to the past when I think the meetings were the only activities going on besides fishing. But we should not be throwing stones at the hows of volunteers efforts. If you are a concerned stakeholder go to a meeting and make some suggestions rather than poking current management of a volunteer organization in the eye on a message board. Thats just sour grapes! Sheesh!
I am gonna make it a point to fish there more often before Mike transfers it to the Keystone Select Program. LOL. Good Luck with that Tom!
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