New guy here

[FarmerDave]

No-nameCreek wrote:
FarmerDave,

Sounds like I live a little south of you. I am aware of the place the ODNR talked about a while ago on the brookies. About the place you found- that's really fascinating! I would never thought to look anywhere else besides the one that is a little more public knowledge. I'll just leave 'em well enough alone though. My luck is I'd probably accidently kill the little bugger!

I've also seen on the OH forum I belong to, some pics from the guys that fish the Mad and the others around there a lot. They catch some pretty big browns in there. I think a club owns a some of it, but other than that I know zilch about it.

In the time it takes me to get to the more fishable areas of tribs in OH, I can be in Tionesta which is more my speed. I know the area a little, but not all the little creeks yet. I know a lot of the guys on here know that area really well, but it's all new to me! I really look forward to hiking into some of them places. The Tionesta tailwater looks like it's worth a go in winter, maybe this weekend. Gives me the chance to snoop around a little!

The stream I found is almost as well known as the one you are talking about, and ODNR had little to do with both of those at least initially. Both are in the Chagrin water shed, and the one with Quebec strain was used for comparison when determining the other was truly native (genetic study). The Quebec strain was put there by a rich school that had their own hatchery, and they also used egg boxes. The water was clean enough that the trout started reproducing.

I used to stop periodically and targeted the little panfish and toss them on the bank.

I can give you more details in a PM if you like. I just don't like posting it on a public forum. Besides, you probably wouldn't want to fish there anyway. I certainly have no reason to. It is just interesting that brook trout can be found there.

There is another trib of the Chagrin that I found that I am pretty sure I saw a brook trout dart under a rock, but I can't prove it. That stream is so small I doubt anyone knows about it. It might not even have a name, but it is fairly close to the other one, so those might have come from the same source.

I've never been to the Mad river, but I've also seen the photos. I’d fish there if I was closer. My post was more along the lines that it wouldn’t e worth a trip for a PA guy to fish it. I’m only 5 miles from the PA line, and I can probably be at Penn’s creek in about the same time as Mad River. Maybe less. And I have only fished Penn’s twice. The brown trout stream I visited over here was in Mohican state part I think. It was awhile ago. I used to have a travel trailer and was looking for a campground where I could put it for weekends. I was not impressed. The area was way too crowded for me.

There is another trout stream (a spring creek) out by Castalia, but I think it is all club owned. Plus the ODNR has a hatchery out there. It might be the same stream, I don’t know. Of course there is the blue hole, but I don’t know if they are all the same stream or not.

Some years, the ODNR stocks legal size rainbows in Payne Creek. It also gets some steelhead. I’m sure my chops would get busted for mentioning that one if this was one of the steelhead sites, but it is hardly a secret.

Tionesta. I’ve fished the spillway a few times (with bait, jigs, and/or hardware), and always catch something. But it has been a very long time. You never know what you will catch there.

 

[No-nameCreek]

Coincidently, I was poking around up closer to Penn's over the holidays, takes just over 3 hrs for us unless you're haulin'. Sad to say I have family up there and visit a lot, but never bring my stuff with me. Thats going to change, but I guess I just want to go so I can cross Penn's off my list of creeks. Not really interested in really crowded areas either.

I didn't know that a school put those brookies in there. I figured that after you said there were more streams with 'em, that the ODNR just moved the native strain, or they "migrated". You definitly have a way of sniffing them out.... sadly, I don't ever really see the fish doing much, and I don't have a reason to fish for 'em either. I don't really ever see them able to populate the trib, or it's feeders in any real substantial way. Really cool to see 'em and know they're there.

Yeah, those steelheader "unmentionable" tribs....Steelhead 101- tribs of tribs, feeder creeks, those little blue lines coming off the lakes. I use atlases, gazetteers, field guides, google earth for all my scouting for hunting and fishing. They show almost everything. Then it's just a matter of taking a look.

 

[FarmerDave]

I sent you a PM.