Conodoguinet Conditions

[klingy]

I took my son out fishing the Conodoguinet north of Carlisle earlier this week. He was using spinning gear, and I was working with him on his casting and where to target. He had a great time, and landed somewhere between 15 and 20 smallies on a green tube. I thought I'd share some observations that I noticed since this isn't really a fly-fishing report.

- LOTS of YOY bass. Everywhere. Easily saw hundreds in about 4 hours in the creek.

- Lots of bass travelling in schools. Almost every fish he caught would have two or three "trailers" - other bass coming along for the ride checking out what all the commotion was about.

- Nice size structure of fish. We saw a lot of fish in many different year classes. 4-inchers all the way up to 20+ inches.

- Fish were active. Had several fish chase and hit multiple times.

- Find the structure/depth and find the fish. Any run that was a few feet deep (which can sometimes be tough to find on the Conodoguinet!) had fish in it. Best luck of the day came from a downed tree that created a scour hole behind it.

Go get em!

 

[troutbert]

klingy wrote:

Find the structure/depth and find the fish. Any run that was a few feet deep (which can sometimes be tough to find on the Conodoguinet!) had fish in it. Best luck of the day came from a downed tree that created a scour hole behind it.

Interesting. Woody debris is important on smallmouth streams too.

I've only fished it a little bit, but I agree there is quite a bit of water that "lacks structural diversity." Or, call it "flat and shallow." Means the same thing.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

That is a good stretch of water north of Carlisle.
Lots of different neat stretches.
Nice to explore honestly.

Klingy is spot on and to boot it has larger fish too.
And a few surprises :-o

 

[larkmark]

That is good. I always caught nice Fallfish in that creek with my boys when they were young. It must be fairly clean which is surprising. And of course you get the cooler tribs helping temps in places.

 

[Wild_Trouter]

Really like the Connie in North Middleton Township. Several places there come to mind that have produced some trophy sized smallies and musky on the fly for me.

 

[scs]

I fish it a few times a week, since all I have to do is walk across the street. The stretch between Carlisle and Plainfield is just loaded with grass right now. Time to move down stream a little. I've fished downstream from where the Latort dumps in without much luck. Fish below the dam at the water plant sometime. Those weed beds hold some nice fish!

Steve