Recently moved to Philadelphia looking for good trout streams

[teebs4140]

Hi all,

I am a novice fly fisherman at best. However I am dedicated to learning and becoming a better angler. I recently moved down from Vermont and I was hoping to get some insight on where to go and what dry flies/nymphs/wet flies etc work best for the area. I live in Manayunk and I have a vehicle so traveling an hour or so isn't a problem. Any advice on locations and or flies would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for your time,

Dylan

 

[JasonS]

Wissahickon creek is right there. It's stocked but fishes well for trout early in the season. Later into the summer it's got all of the usual warm water species. Nice stream considering the area, park off of Bell Mills road.

 

[teebs4140]

Thanks! Is the fishing better upstream or downstream from Bell Mills

 

[JasonS]

Either direction is fine.

 

[NedZeppelin]

Go west young man, to Valley Creek in Valley Forge Park, which is actually close to you. There be wild brown trout there, and its just about sulphur season - insane in the evenings. Search this site for what will no doubt be a plethora of reports.

Many travel up to the Little Lehigh in Allentown, there's the Tulpehocken in Reading to explore. This is a great site and others will chime in momentarily I am sure.

 

[JasonS]

Ned, can you take me out to see this insane sulphur hatch on valley? I must always miss it.

 

[Van_Cleaver]

Valley Creek is a great stream, but a tough one for the novice. It is the best local bet for stream bred fish though. There are a number of stocked streams that will provide easier fishing within an hour. Ridley and Chester creek in Del Co. both fish well with flies until it warms up, as do French Creek and White Clay in Chester County, providing they have good water. The USGS link here is handy for figuring out when the waters will be fishable. Takes a little time to learn what the flows mean on each stream but a great tool!

 

[teebs4140]

Thanks for the suggestions. Hopefully not a dumb question but how does one use the USGS site to determine if the water levels and flow are good for fishing?

 

[blueheron]

Get out of the Philly area , say towards the Pocono Mts, if you have a car and the time. Check the PFBC site for starting points, they give you stocked and wild options and also supply GPS points.

 

[Chaz]

In the PA Counties surrounding Philly there are hundred of trout water to choose from, my advise is to go to the PFBC web site and go to fish, check out the links there. PFBC lists all the streams that they know have trout, either wild or stocked. Then come back and ask about a specific stream, or PM me.

 

[marcq]

Only one decent within a hour and thats valley creek. You do have the skuke in your backyard. Thats probably my favorite stream in pa. You have a verity of species and most are bigger rhen what you will fine in valley and most trout streams in pa. Decent number of smallies and large mouth, stripers and big hybrids, monster carp and flathead catfish. I did see a twenty inch trout in it to but it had to be stock. For trout wiss and pennypack are the two trout streams that usually fish good till july. Wiss also has a good population of smallies. Id say dont limit you self to just trout the area has good fishing opportunities most of them are not trout fishing though. You probably have to drive at least an hour to get to some of the better trout streams in pa.

 

[Van_Cleaver]

RE the USGS site. You can click on the dots to see stream flows and their median flows. If you see sharp spikes in the graph you know a major event has just happened, the result being high and likely muddy water. Most streams around the Philadelphia area require a at least a day and often two after a heavy rain to reach good fly fishing levels. Around here Ridley always cleans up faster than say Chester or French as it is smaller and drains less area. The standard unit of measure is cubic ft. per second but different streams will not always fish the same at a specific cfs. I look at the site frequently to have a handle on what is happening and the color coding is good for a quick scan. You usually want to see a flow some where around median flow which is often way better than average since some of the record are kept over many years and water levels now are almost always considerably lower than twenty or thirty years ago. Keeping a log of the flow is helpful but just having a mental note of the levels will help as well. Hope this is useful.....

 

[teebs4140]

All great stuff guys, Thanks! I got out to the wissahickon today and caught a rainbow near the falls upstream of valley green. Going to valley creek on sat any advice on which sections of the creek will be best for someone who isn't exactly an expert? Also parking locations would be great.

 

[teebs4140]

Also the next streams I am planning on going to are little Lehigh, Ridley creek, and monocacy. Any tips on those would be much appreciated. Thanks again

 

[marcq]

basically all of valley holds wild fish above the bottom dam in the park. personally I like to stay away from the park. I usually park at the iron bridge and walk a mile up stream. under what ever highway there always seems to be rising fish. I like to start there and walk up. I know I am passing water with fish in it but I have always have had better luck. fish tend to be small so anything above 14 inches there is a great fish. probably some of the nicest colored in the state as well.
the only flies you probably need now are BWO's, caddis and midges.

 

[mikephl]

Get Dwight Landis' book "Trout Streams of Pennsylvania". It lists the streams, has maps, special regs areas, parking spots, what flies, etc. It's perfect to get you started.

 

[SNJChef]

Either Ridley or Valley for me tomorrow, haven't decided yet.

 

[teebs4140]

Pros and cons between the two?

 

[PhilllyFlyGuy]

All the above mentioned streams are good. The one thing I'll say is if you spend time right in philly like on the wissahickon or the pennypack they can very productive. Their a little different in the sense that the other anglers your gonna run into down there can be a little wacky but they both fish pretty good for awhile after the stockings One thing I would recommend though if your gonna hit the wissahickon or the pennypack is try to get down there on a stocking day. Or hook up with someone who knows the stream well enough to know where they stock. The thing is with these streams is there will be a lot of spots that look like they would hold fish but both are pretty much put and take streams. What I mean by that is when they stock they generally only stop at certain spots and dump fish. Granted you'll have some move up or down but most times they stay loaded in the holes until they get fished out. I've personally watch the fish commision stock and have seen them dump 10 buckets in one hole and then 100ft down dump another 8 buckets and then nothing for the next half mile. It's kinda good and bad. Sucks when everyone is loaded in the hole and it gets cleaned out. But it's nice when you hit a couple holes and your cleaning house.

 

[teebs4140]

if I was planning on going out this Thursday and these were the streams I was considering which one would you guys recommend for someone who isn't a beginner but still has lots to learn?

Saucon
French
Ridley

thanks