Dead Fish and Stressed Fish Valley Creek

[thedude1534]

In regards to what Jack said, keep in mind that Valley is an all tackle stream. It could be quite possible that bait fisherman are going in there, gut-hooking browns and tossing them back. Hopefully thats not the case, but its not that implausible.

 

[tomgamber]

I think hand fishing is illegal...

 

[thedude1534]

What about noodling?

 

[Wmass]

With regards to what THEDUDE said I have run into a few bait fisherman in my days there and I did see one guy clearly mishandling his catches. He was also likely catching the same fish over and over since he was fishing the same small pool and pulling alot of fish out.

 

[ian_brown]

Two days ago I fished the stretch of Valley Creek between the Route 23 bridge and the Schuykill. I only hooked one trout, and didn't see any evidence of a hatch during the evening. I know it's a tough creek, but I was surprised that I didn't see a single fish rise the whole time I was there.

Is this unusual, or was I just fishing the wrong section?

 

[vcregular]

Ian. That is normal. Valley really does not have any mayflies that hatch this time of year...let alone the rest of the year. Maybe some olives, and sulphurs, but they are few and far between.

I also stopped by Valley yesterday, no rod, but rather to just see what was going on. Took the temp above the Wilson Bridge, at 11:30am and it was 61-62F. Very nice and cool, but extremely low. Kinda normal flows for this time of year. I did observe a few fish riding very close to the surface actively feeding, not many, but a few.

Personally I rarely fish Valley during the summer, except for maybe a year with plenty of water, or air temps like had yesterday or today. Most of the time here in SE PA, I feel the fish are too stressed on that water to justify an angling outing.

 

[cwwbell]

I don't really fish Valley much in the summer either. Mostly it is because the water is so low and clear that the fishing is too difficult for my taste. But I have done well in the evenings lately. I haven't seen any dead fish. I did see one guy out there yesterday with a big noodle rod or something. Weird. It was like 11 feet long. He looked like he made a wrong turn or something. I forgot my fly reel so I fished with my spinning rod instead. I got three nice fish from 12"-14" and missed many many more. They were just sort of on the feed from 5-6, it sort of slowed after that. And don't worry, I was using single barbless hooks on those spinners so I didn't hurt them any more than I would have with flies.

 

[crs5942]

If the stream was low and had lots of algal growth prior to the rain the high water could have caused rapid decay of the plant matter and thus depleted the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water even though the temps are now cooler. It sounds a little out of bounds but a similar situation occurred last summer on a stream in Lancaster County.