I Hate to Even Ask

[Swattie87]

I don’t pretend to know exactly where they go or how they do it. But they do, and I’m grateful they understand it, even if I don’t.

Penns in particular is a tough thing to figure out. One of the common theories is they run up the tribs in the “Wilderness” section…Cherry, Swift, Panther. I don’t buy that. By the time Penns gets low and hot enough to warrant movement those streams are barely trickles. Even though they probably could be navigated, they don’t have enough water, food, or habitat to support a massive annual influx of relatively large Brown Trout from Penns. (And if it was happening, people would know about it and it’d be open season on them.) Some fish will sit at their mouths, or in the underwater seeps of their mouths, yes. This is well documented. But again they’re trickles at this point, and their flow discharges can only support so many fish jockeying for position in the cooler water.

I think some significant number of fish do end up in Pine/Elk. They stay cold enough and maintain flow better because of their heavy limestone nature.

I personally think a lot of the “Wilderness” area fish between Coburn and Cherry Run find the deepest holes and go deep.

But most of all, I think Brown Trout are just far better at tolerating mid and even high 70’s water temps than we think. (Again, this does not mean they can handle being caught, released AND high water temps, but without the added lactic acid production that comes from being caught, they can make use of the available DO very well, and know where to find it.) My guess is that the vast majority of the biomass in Penns between Coburn and Cherry Run is there year round.

 

[nymphingmaniac]

don't mean to be a contrarian, but this is among the hottest summers I remember over the last 25 years. Not the worst, but among it. The hot temps have persisted longer than usual and the nighttime lows have been high. We will have typical days Fri-Sat-Sunday-Monday, but coming up:
T 85
W 88 intense sun
R 94 sun
F 88
S 87
S 88
M 87
Only sparse showers predicted

The little J is absolutely terrible and fish are stacked up over cold water inflows/seeps
Spring creek is normal water level wise, but struggling with thermal issues across most of it- below bellefonte ok
Bald eagle is too warm, except next to spring creek

Reading this forum converted me to summer SMB fisherman 4 years ago. If you haven't give it a try! (BTW thanks guys)

 

[Mike]

Trout adapt. Lower Penns, meaning the Cherry Run vicinity and above, gets warm. Based on a major study in which I participated in doing fieldwork yrs ago some portion of the adult fish move out of that area and are recovered as far upstream as Coburn where it is cooler. Tagged fish recovered at Coburn are also recaptured down near Cherry Run again in fall. Given the number of SMB that show up about a mile above Cherry Run, which is also suggestive of warm water, it would not surprise me if large numbers of adult trout move upstream with timing, rate of movement, and number moving dependent upon flow and water temp. If you are concerned about Penns temps, even at Coburn, then why not just fish in the reaches upstream from the Coburn vicinity or in Pine or Elk, or is all of that posted now?

 

[Mike]

don't mean to be a contrarian, but this is among the hottest summers I remember over the last 25 years. Not the worst, but among it. The hot temps have persisted longer than usual and the nighttime lows have been high. We will have typical days Fri-Sat-Sunday-Monday, but coming up:
T 85
W 88 intense sun
R 94 sun
F 88
S 87
S 88
M 87
Only sparse showers predicted

The little J is absolutely terrible and fish are stacked up over cold water inflows/seeps
Spring creek is normal water level wise, but struggling with thermal issues across most of it- below bellefonte ok
Bald eagle is too warm, except next to spring creek

Reading this forum converted me to summer SMB fisherman 4 years ago. If you haven't give it a try! (BTW thanks guys)

Context: Summer, 1991(pretty sure it was 1991) 31 days of 90 deg max temps or higher in a National Weather Service known cold spot in upper Bucks Co. No summer since then has approached that number of 90 deg days at that location. That means Centre Co and Union Co were warm too, not that warm, but probably warmer and for a longer time period than 2022.

I would add that with respect to the Ltl J and any other overpopulated limestone or limestone influenced special reg waters, periodic warm temps are one of nature’s ways of “thinning the herd,” improving the condition of the remaining fish and likely improving the size/weight of fish that anglers catch. Some of these streams have an abundance of smallish fish and the Ltl J in particular has a number that are thin, particularly in certain reaches, suggesting the impacts of overpopulation and warm temps.

 

[Mike]

Regarding leaving wild trout streams alone, ie do not fish, that’s unnecessary. As mentioned, take a thermometer and use 66-68 deg F as a cut-off if you’re looking for a number. I would certainly use the lower number for ST if you like that range in general.

Here’s my experience….As for temps in wild trout streams of small to medium width ( not wide ones like lower Penns and Ltl J), I had only once in 42 yrs of surveying wild trout streams throughout the summer run into a Class C or better biomass population where water temp may have been too warm to fish C&R and that was at a downstream site on a 2 sampling site stream. On the other hand, it’s common in stocked trout waters.

 

[Wild_Trouter]

2 weeks ago, some buddies and I drove an hour+ to the Cherry Run parking lot very early on Sunday morning to catch some cool water before it warmed up. The water was 69 when we got there, and I wished we hadn't gambled, but we fished for ~2 hours. We caught chubs and small mouth, no trout. My conscience is clear.

Last Tuesday evening, after Mondays rain, I drove to White Deer Creek FFCR section. When I released a Rainbow, the water seemed kind of warm. It measured 70. Last year I had never seen this creek over 68. I fished and explored some more, but never had another hit. That was OK with me. If I didn't have to burn 5-6 Gal gas for the round trip, I would have left as soon as I measured the water temp. Some may think I should have left immediately, but these are stocked fish, and many will be taken by one predator or another. Hell, the lower section was poached out before the regular season started.

I'm now putting together a kayak to fish the Susky when the trout waters are warm.

What you state has been my experience over the years when I used to fish it more. The poaching problem there is way out of hand. If/when I fish it, I just head way upstream for brookies.

 

[Wild_Trouter]

I don’t pretend to know exactly where they go or how they do it. But they do, and I’m grateful they understand it, even if I don’t.

Penns in particular is a tough thing to figure out. One of the common theories is they run up the tribs in the “Wilderness” section…Cherry, Swift, Panther. I don’t buy that. By the time Penns gets low and hot enough to warrant movement those streams are barely trickles. Even though they probably could be navigated, they don’t have enough water, food, or habitat to support a massive annual influx of relatively large Brown Trout from Penns. (And if it was happening, people would know about it and it’d be open season on them.) Some fish will sit at their mouths, or in the underwater seeps of their mouths, yes. This is well documented. But again they’re trickles at this point, and their flow discharges can only support so many fish jockeying for position in the cooler water.

I think some significant number of fish do end up in Pine/Elk. They stay cold enough and maintain flow better because of their heavy limestone nature.

I personally think a lot of the “Wilderness” area fish between Coburn and Cherry Run find the deepest holes and go deep.

But most of all, I think Brown Trout are just far better at tolerating mid and even high 70’s water temps than we think. (Again, this does not mean they can handle being caught, released AND high water temps, but without the added lactic acid production that comes from being caught, they can make use of the available DO very well, and know where to find it.) My guess is that the vast majority of the biomass in Penns between Coburn and Cherry Run is there year round.

I know for a fact that most trout in Penns seeking thermal refuge in Summer, head straight to Pine and Elk. I have seen Penns trout stacked up in both streams in especially bad hot/dry years.

 

[JeffP]

I remember 1991 well. I had just moved out of my house after getting a teaching job. I spent the summer at the apartment pool and kept checking the gages as the upper 90-100 temps and no rain hit Penns. I think it was also bad in the early 2000. I have a friend who has a cabin up there and said the mouths were black with trout. Guys at the cabin on the other side described the same thing. I tend to agree with Wild Trouter but these descriptions would tend to contradict that. Then again they stocked back then. Was 1993 bad as I kind of thought that was the year of the terrible floods Spring (1994)? Had 30 plus inches of snow in Exton and I was stranded at my fiancées house with 5 pounds of Pork Barb-B-Q for an Eagles playoff party that never happened.

 

[Wild_Trouter]

I remember 1991 well. I had just moved out of my house after getting a teaching job. I spent the summer at the apartment pool and kept checking the gages as the upper 90-100 temps and no rain hit Penns. I think it was also bad in the early 2000. I have a friend who has a cabin up there and said the mouths were black with trout. Guys at the cabin on the other side described the same thing. I tend to agree with Wild Trouter but these descriptions would tend to contradict that. Then again they stocked back then. Was 1993 bad as I kind of thought that was the year of the terrible floods Spring (1994)? Had 30 plus inches of snow in Exton and I was stranded at my fiancées house with 5 pounds of Pork Barb-B-Q for an Eagles playoff party that never happened.

I've personally witnessed this on both Pine and Elk over the years. The sad part is people will still fish over stressed trout in Pine/Elk when they are in survival mode and stressed. I've seen that too. I literally live 15 mins away and fish it often. Here's an article from 2016 that sheds even more light on how dire things can get there. https://www.altoonamirror.com/sport...ng-dcnr-pfbc-close-penns-creek-to-save-trout/

 

[pcray1231]

The last 2 weeks have been hot, but, overall it's been a well below average summer as far as temperature, We had 39 straight below average high temperature days in a row which ended mid-July.

Water, on the other hand... lol. But it's very spotty, it's been really dry where I am. Even last night, storms all around, just went poof over top of me, got like a "I think I felt a drop" sprinkle and that's it. 20 minutes to the north they got POUNDED. A half hour to the south they had flood warnings. My parents are visiting from western PA for the week, and complaining about how wet this summer has been. I'm like, what?

Point is, yes, you should be mindful of where you fish and under what conditions. But I'm not going to sit here and say "if you fish for trout you're an ____." Conditions are different everywhere. That's part of the game. Pay attention. You can never settle on the "I fish this stream/river" and these are the conditions, you gotta look at conditions and get where the gettings good. That's year round, but especially true in the dog days of summer.

 

[Facemelted]

I remember when I was a kid, having a solid week of 100 degree weather in south central PA, accompanied by 90s and heavy humidity was never out of the realm of probable. The trout know what to do, don't worry.

 

[pcray1231]

don't mean to be a contrarian, but this is among the hottest summers I remember over the last 25 years. Not the worst, but among it. The hot temps have persisted longer than usual and the nighttime lows have been high. We will have typical days Fri-Sat-Sunday-Monday, but coming up:
T 85
W 88 intense sun
R 94 sun
F 88
S 87
S 88
M 87

We did have a hot stretch, but to be 100% clear, in Coburn June was one of the coolest June's in 20 years. And July as a whole had sightly BELOW average historical temperatures.

The temperature stretch you outline is only a couple of degrees above average. And pretty much every summer ever is going to have a warmer than average stretch. It is nothing alarming.

It has been dry, and yes, the amount of water often does more to affect water temperatures than air temperatures do. Hot AND dry is a bad combo. But I think things are gonna be ok.

 

[jifigz]

A stream very similar in nature to Penns that I know well has many seeps coming directly from the bottom of the stream. These seeps cool a small area of water (and obviously contribute to the overall temperature of the stream) and I am sure that many trout gather near the stream bed seeps. I am sure that if you were to wet wade around Penns right now very carefully you would notice spots where your feet are significantly colder than surrounding waters. This can be very hard to pick up with the insulation of neoprene and wading boots, however, so I recommend wading in regular shoes, crocs. We are in limestone country around here so.....

But just a few more weeks and nighttime temperatures will start to be far more agreeable. Also, day lengths are getting considerably shorter. We are now a month and two weeks past the longest of our days. Those trout are fine......until next year when we have this conversation.

 

[riverwhy]

Looks like storms through Tuesday then low 80's. Let's just hope that weird pattern changes. Seems like storms that form over the higher elevations in places like Cambria County fizzle before they hit Penn's. South Central Pa and York/Adams have seemed to get a few as has the area North around Lamar.

 

[Sylvaneous]

THis is a complicated issue. I wonder how the trout in the lower Madison below Innis Lake survive. THat flat, wide-open water gets really warm. They survive. Rainbows survive the Firehole and Gibbon all summer.
One thing to remember is that the Central limestoners are past their worst offenses and assaults. Penns and Spring have had many impediments and degradations removed and remediated since 'the good old days. So, with all the doom and gloom that is so popular, especially on Spring, stream conditions haven't been better in a generation. Little J isn't a sewer anymore, nor is Spring. Lower Spring is several dump truck loads of strip mine overburden away from being an outstanding trout (maybe rainbow?) fishery. It lacks only habitat, now free of Bellefonte's sewar spillage. The cleaner the water with a good flow for oxygen, cover to hide in and deflect that necessary current, the warmer the water the trout can survive. I think we all knew that. As they say, the devil is in the details. How far that goes to fish movement , or staying put and being able to survive the heat and where they can do that is of interest to us fishermen.

 

[PennKev]

THis is a complicated issue. I wonder how the trout in the lower Madison below Innis Lake survive. THat flat, wide-open water gets really warm. They survive. Rainbows survive the Firehole and Gibbon all summer.

You are correct. it is complicated and you can't really compare any western waaters to the ones here in PA due to environmental differences.

The night time temps experienced in the western states give the trout a significant daily reprieve from high water temps. Even in big rivers, the nightly dip in water temps is significant and while it doesn't necessarily make for good fishing conditions, the fish get a break. To address the specific example you gave, a quick check of the USGS gauge below Ennis lake shows that temps didn't exceed 68 degrees until mid July and did not get particularly high until the past week of really hot weather that area experienced over the past week (and have since dipped significantly). In short, The Madison, even below Ennis lake, does not see the extremes that some of our "large" waters do.

Our night time temps on PA are brutal. High elevation, western states see night time temps consistently under 60 degrees, even during their warmest days. On the other hand we often have an 80ish degree day with 70ish degree nights. If our nights cooled into the 50's with consistency throughout the summer, all of our larger streams would be significantly cooler.

Also the cooling effect of those western nights cools the entire river in a somewhat uniform manner. On the other hand, our spring fed waterways (or tailwaters for that matter) are cooled from a source and that water needs to travel downstream to have an influence on other areas. That only goes so far before that cool water heats up and no longer moderates downstream temps.

For those interested, check out the following USGS link for the Big Hole River. I use this USGS gauge as an example for a couple of reasons. First, the Big Hole is an un-dammed freestone river, and secondly this particular USGS gauge is on the middle to lower river. Above Melrose there are more miles of trout water than on the main branch of the Big hole than on any single creek or river in PA (almost 90 miles). You'll see on the graph that even in a recent week of 90-100 degree heat, the water temps dipped below 65 each night.

Big Hole USGS for the last 90 days.

I know this has been long-winded but water temperature discussions, particularly ones that invoke comparisons with western states, miss these critical considerations.

 

[troutbert]

Penns Creek, in the stretches where most flyfishers fish, gets much warmer than Spring Creek and the LIttle Juniata. In extreme conditions of drought and heat, Spring Creek and Little J will go to 76F. Penns will go into the 80s.

I took a temp of 86F above Weikert during a drought, and a guy at one of the cabins there said he took a temp of 87F the day before. I've seen smallmouth bass as far up as Poe Paddy, and others have reported them up near Coburn.

Trout do survive by gathering near the mouths of tributaries. But during the worst summers, I think the trout population on Penns Creek takes a significant hit. Then when you get a few good water years, the population bounces back.

But the temperature situation on Penns Creek is close to the edge. A few degrees warmer could have a big effect.

 

[Weikertgal]

Penns is low, as low as recent memory. Yesterday I could have walked across it on my tip toes and not gotten my ankles wet at our favorite spot to put in. There were a few showers here and there but it has done little for the water level. I’ll take a temp Friday.

we were shocked to see two fishermen driving Their gear out in the Cherry Run parking lot yesterday. Unless they laid down and rolled around to intentionally get wet, I can’t imagine how they got so soaked. It was absolutely sweltering and the fishing had to be horrible and ill advised.

 

[troutbert]

I just checked the gauge on Kettle Creek at Cross Fork on the USGS website and the flow is 7.4 cfs.

That's really low.

Is the gauge above or below the confluence of Cross Fork Creek?

 

[tomgamber]

I just checked the gauge on Kettle Creek at Cross Fork on the USGS website and the flow is 7.4 cfs.

That's really low.

Is the gauge above or below the confluence of Cross Fork Creek?

Not sure if this helps you.