Penns Ck BT length distributions Sections 04, 05

[Mike]

Penn's Creek's BT lengths have been discussed here by some individuals in the past. I may have missed it, but I don't think that anyone previously referenced the bar graphs in the following presentation, which are much better than speculating on relative abundances of various one inch length groups. This info was not found in the biologists reports, although it may be there in another form. I was found in the section on "presentations."

https://www.fishandboat.com/AboutUs/Documents/PennsCkSec05-Feb2018.pdf

 

[Dave_W]

For those complaining about a lack of large BTs in Penns Creek...

Scroll down to the 21st slide and compare the numbers of fish in 2017 to 1977 in Sec 5: Far more fish in the mid to upper teens now than forty years ago. It's not even close.

Then take a look at the numbers for Sec 4 (next slide) just upstream and consider the fish in the mid to upper teens as a percentage of the total surveyed.

So much for the good ole days of forty years ago. :roll:

Penns has a strong population of large BTs as part of a healthy population structure.

 

[marcq]

Why continue to stock more fish when you have wild populations thriving? I’ve been to penns only a few time and have had a lot of successful trips. Can’t remember ever catching a stocker but I did catch a wild brook tout once. The amount of crayfish in that stream is unreal. Maybe that’s what the big guys are eating.

 

[krayfish2]

marcq,

Looks like a section previously stocked was removed for 2019 and managed as wild fishery. They then extended to stocked waters section a few miles below where it used to stop.

I'm curious what the PFBC position on regs was prior to survey of landowners....who wanted C&R

 

[vcregular]

The larger fish had to be there in the 70s in Sec 5. I could be completely off but I'd have to venture to guess sampling techniques and technology then was not as effective as now. Regardless Penns is one of a kind.

 

[Mike]

I was on a 1970’s crew for a couple of sites. The technology differences were not really all that great and I do not believe that they were enough to have a substantial impact on the catch. Limestone water is pretty easy to electrofish due to its very accommodating conductivity.

 

[Mike]

Regarding technology differences mentioned above, I should have added that the boats differed in that one was a jet drive and the other a prop job. The jet drive was a longer boat, used in the 1970’s, and had a three man crew. The prop job used more recently was a shorter boat of the same basic design with only a two man crew required based on the pics. Provided it would have been possible to get both rigs to the same site in modern times, what I meant above was that in a fish-off I doubt that catches would have been substantially different...could have been, but I doubt it.

Anyway, the important thing in all of this is what’s been found more recently.

 

[larkmark]

Mike- One of my favorite areas in the past was the lower part of section 2. It is right along road but has some great habitat. It was full of nice wild fish of all sizes that readily came up during hatches. Now I cannot count the number of times I have stood and watched and not a single rise. You will see a few down by the lower bridge but they seem largely gone from that part along road. And only bait fishermen seem to ever fish it now. Believe it or not I once caught 100 trout before lunch on that section one year on caddis.

 

[afishinado]

The presentation was posted on here for the discussion we had about Penns and the proposed (at the time) conversion of Section 5 to C&R and no stocking because of the numbers and quality of fish found in the study.

I really don't fish Penns that often given the distance away from home, the amount of days it is unfishable becasue of high and/or turbid water, as well as how short the season is because of warming temps of the stream. With that being said, Penns is still a quality fish stream for me. I fished it back in the 70's and 80's and I see no difference in the size distribution now vs then. In fact, I've caught some really good fish in the last decade or more. No real trophy size for me, but many solid mid and upper teens brownies. But like I said, I don't fish it that often. I would be interested to hear what the regular Penns FFers think.

 

[Swattie87]

larkmark wrote:
Mike- One of my favorite areas in the past was the lower part of section 2. It is right along road but has some great habitat. It was full of nice wild fish of all sizes that readily came up during hatches. Now I cannot count the number of times I have stood and watched and not a single rise. You will see a few down by the lower bridge but they seem largely gone from that part along road. And only bait fishermen seem to ever fish it now. Believe it or not I once caught 100 trout before lunch on that section one year on caddis.

If the data suggests the fish are still there in equal (or better) numbers and size, perhaps something else has changed that has shifted their feeding behavior to be more subsurface?

 

[Swattie87]

Addendum to my prior post...FWIW

Over the last 10 or so years that I've been fishing Penns, I've generally found plenty of rising fish during the big hatches...MB's, Sulphurs, GD's, etc. If the bugs were there, the fish were rising...Figuring out specifically what they're eating and catching them, as often is the case on Penns, is another matter.

Sometimes it's a swing and a miss and the bugs didn't show up for some reason on a given day/night...You end up either trying to nymph, or sitting on a log drinking beer hoping they'll start rising. Beats the heck out of sitting in my cubicle no matter how you slice it.

 

[Acristickid]

^

I have been to Penns when there has been clouds of sulfur’s, sick with bugs , and not one rise.

 

[blueheron]

I found Penns to be most active at twilight, you can fish it hard all afternoon and fool a few and then leading into dusk under the right conditions you’ll have fish rising in all the areas you just swung and missed. Generalization, I know, but happens more than a coincidence and more so on Penns than other creeks.

 

[afishinado]

blueheron wrote:
I found Penns to be most active at twilight, you can fish it hard all afternoon and fool a few and then leading into dusk under the right conditions you’ll have fish rising in all the areas you just swung and missed. Generalization, I know, but happens more than a coincidence and more so on Penns than other creeks.

+1 on Penns and other stream or rivers that are "bug factories".

You can nymph your heart out through a section without a strike, yet as soon as a hatch or spinnerfall happens, fish appear everywhere right through the area you fished through.

I believe the fish lay low waiting for when the water is full of bugs and feeding is easy and efficient.

 

[Paraleptalata]

Fish are really good at being fish. Especially on streams like Penns where they have available food 24/7. One thing we all need to keep in mind is that not one of us is really all that good at this thing we do. We are relaxing and recreating. For the fish this is life and death! Our anecdotal evidence is not sufficient for making decisions on the health or productivity of streams.

Example. I fished Penns yesterday as I do weekly and used to fish it multiple times per week. In 4 hours i nymphed and hooked, lost, landed somewhere around 40 fish. Great day right!?!?
No that is fairly pathetic considering there is like 1,500 per mile!

Numbers ebb and flow. Size ebbs and flows. Hatches are not as profuse as they used to be. Pressure from anglers and avian predation. Weather. To many factors to count. These are the good old days. “It’s never as good as it used to be and probably never was.”

 

[troutbert]

Paraleptalata wrote:

Hatches are not as profuse as they used to be.

Have you noticed a drop off in hatches on Penns Creek?

If so, do you remember about what year the decline began?

And if so, what do you attribute the decline to?

 

[krayfish2]

Eric,

You able to draw any correlation between the decline of insects and the amount of anglers shoes stomping around the riffs?

I'd have to think thousands and thousands of footsteps have to have some impact on the bug life.

 

[troutbert]

On May 27, 2010 a buddy and I fished Penns Creek and I saw the most amazing quantity of aquatic insects that I've ever seen on Penns Creek, and it was roughly tied for first for quantity of bugs that I've seen ever on any stream.

I'm not a Penns Creek regular but I've fished it some over the years, and thought I knew what a heavy Green Drake hatch/spinner flight was on that stream.

But this was CRAZY. It's hard to describe. There was a decent hatch of Green Drakes, but it was the Coffin Fly flight that was mind-boggling.

The Coffin Flies were flying strongly upstream over the stream, and in such numbers that my fly rod was vibrating from them hitting the rod and fly line.

It was painful being out there, because of being "sand-blasted" by all the bugs hitting your face.

A couple of times we got out of the stream and went up on the bank, just to get away from the pelting.

It's hard to imagine how it's possible that so many Green Drake nymphs can live in the stream. By the quantity of bugs flying, it doesn't seem like the stream has enough surface area of streambed to support them all.

It was an amazing thing to see. Everyone I talked to there was flabbergasted.

I don't know if Penns Creek hatches have gone down since then. But as of May 27, 2010 the quantity of Green Drakes there was truly astonishing.

We caught no trout, and saw none caught by the way. Too many bugs!!!

(The other bug event that was roughly tied with this one was a blanket hatch of Hendricksons on Pine Creek around the early to mid 1990s.)

 

[Prospector]

Troutbert,

I can’t speak for Penns, but on Kettle on June 3, 2008 I witnessed a coffin fly spinnerfall like you described. We caught just a few fish despite the stream going crazy. Fished that stream for 45 years now and never saw anything like it. The guys with me have fished Kettle 55 yrs and 41 yrs respectively and have also never seen a night even close to that. We estimated millions.

Although the years don’t match up exactly the relative proximity of those peak years (between yours and mine) is interesting considering the 40-50 years of history. In the years since then Kettle has had some very unusual high water events that likely altered insect survival in some way. Also contributing is we fish the same dates every year and the drakes vary by a week or two depending on weather. Other factors like a string of sunny day could push the hatch to a very concentrated day (cloudy day) where every nymph was ready to pop out of its case.

The largest BWO hatch was May 30, 1992. Same thing couldn’t catch any fish. Too any naturals.

 

[larkmark]

Top streams for crazy hatches I have seen would be Penns, Delaware and Kettle. Green drakes, Grannoms, Hendricksons, Sulfers... Years ago great sulfers on Falling Springs but not lately. I am talking level where you could hardly breathe.
I've seen fantastic Tricos on Tulpehocken but not for years now.
One thing that probably protects the Drakes from being smashed under boots is that they burrow.

Someone mentioned that the bigger fish might have changed the way they behave. I agree. the bigger ones get tired of all the constant harassment and go nocturnal and don't come up during good hatches. This wasn't the case years ago. Then you could almost count on some nice 14" fish and a good shot at an 18" one during any evening of dry fly fishing. Those were the days!

It is still a mystery about that section of Penns just up from Coburn though. Seems to be vacant of the wild fish. It was good for years.