Small Stream Exploration Success Ratio

[troutbert]

JasonC wrote:
Interesting answers. One that sticks out is how the water gets better as you get closer to Central PA.

Montour and Northumberland Counties are close to central PA.

Much closer than the Poconos.

But there is very little wild trout fishing in those two counties.

Freestone wild trout fishing is best where the watersheds have a very high percentage of forested land.

 

[dryflyguy]

I'd say mine is probably about 75 % now
When I first started FF, it was probably more in line with the OP's stats.
But now - with all the info available in the internet, and recommendations from an ever increasing circle of friends - I just don't seem to find very many duds any more.

 

[Prospector]

Swattie87 wrote:
Be interested to see if the other small stream guy's experiences are similar:

I'd say about 75% of the small streams I've fished in PA, I'll never fish again. I call them "one and done's." Most have fish, and some even fish reasonably well, but the fishing experience doesn't justify the effort or more importantly, my limited time resource, in comparison to other options. The fun with these is exploring and trying new streams.

Roughly 20% I'd fish again, but aren't what I'd call destination streams. I won't specifically plan an outing around these. If I'm in the area, I'd gladly fish them again, but I won't necessarily go out of my way to do so. Many of these are simply convenient by location, in that I can get to them on a relatively short drive if I don't have a whole day or weekend to devote, or they’re in locations that I end up near a lot for one reason or another. Most of these I'd label as "good" streams.

About 5% are the really good ones that I'll specifically plan and schedule for. I'm willing to burn a day off from work to fish these in good conditions, and I usually budget about 5 days off each year just for that…to catch these streams in good conditions on short notice. If the drive is far enough, I’m willing to pop for a night’s hotel to fish these…that’s a good barometer if a stream is of this caliber in my book. In all honesty, there’s only perhaps a small handful of streams that I’ve found in PA that make this list.

Interestingly the PA Natural Reduction list has roughly 4350 streams and the PA Class A trout stream list has roughly 900. 900 divided by 4350 is 20.6%.

I’m certain you are regularly returning to some streams that aren’t listed as Class A but in your eyes you are getting Class A level satisfaction. However it seems 20% could possibly be the statewide average for streams that are gems. Personal experience and math are pointing to the same conclusion.

 

[afishinado]

JasonC wrote:
Interesting answers. One that sticks out is how the water gets better as you get closer to Central PA. Is this because of the generally mountainous terrain? Following that logic, would Eastern PA follow as the next best region due to the mountains? Again, interesting, and actually it’s what I expected. The streams that are documented and listed are there for a reason and a rational man would think to find a gem, it would take a whole lot of swinging and missing before you hit a homerun. I start my first scouting missing this weekend and I’m focusing on Carbon County, with a majority of tribs stemming from the Lehigh. I figure to start with one county and there’s a fair amount of listed streams I can fall back on if I strike out on some of the unlisted ones.

Open up the PFBC Trout map and check out where most of the blue and green lines are located > http://pfbc.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=65a89f6592234019bdc5f095eaf5c6ac

The center third of the state by far has the most wild trout streams but the Poconos mountain area in the east, which is closer to home, has a decent amount of wild trout streams, and Carbon County is a decent place to start. Carbon has plenty of public land along the streams detailed in the trout map, so access will not be an issue.

To be clear, is your mission to find a trout stream that is not listed, or is it to find a stream with good wild trout fishing?

I used to live close to and fish Carbon County all the time. There is some great wild trout fishing there, but given that the county was mined for coal back in the day, there are many streams that look great, but do have any wild trout at all because of AMD and other issues, including many Lehigh River tribs.

My advice is to fish the streams that are known to be home to wild trout first. You can spend a lot of time and effort checking out streams that are not suitable for trout.

I would venture to guess you could spend a whole year fishing Carbon County streams every weekend and never come close to fishing all the listed trout stream water. There are some real gems up there to discover for sure!

Good luck.

 

[JasonC]

Thanks! My mission is just to find good wild trout fishing. I’m checking out 2 streams that are listed and I know for sure one of them is fishing quite well right now. Even if I did strike out, the scenery up there is enough to satisfy my hiking itch without catching a single fish.

 

[Swattie87]

Good point raised about not writing off a stream on just one outing. As an addendum to my initial post, I should note that there are some streams in that middle category for me (the 20%) that did not fish very well for me for the first time, or ever. But for one reason or another, they intrigued or interested me enough to warrant a return trip. One of the things that attracts me to a small stream most is how “fun it is to fish.” Meaning, how nice is the habitat and how fun is that habitat to fish. I tend to like streams that are constantly producing good, interesting habitat to fish more than streams that have 200 yards of meh between good spots, even if I’m actually catching more fish on the stream with less “good” habitat – If that makes sense.

Actually, my #1 favorite stream in PA period produced 3 or 4 mediocre at best outings until I figured out the set of conditions that would dial it in. Since then, it’s produced many excellent days. It was the setting and interesting mix of water to fish on this stream that kept me coming back…And I suspected it had a good head of fish and would produce well once I figured out the conditions piece. Conditions matter a lot, more than any other factor, including the population of fish in a stream. My experience is a Class C or D in good conditions will generally fish better than a Class A in poor conditions.

A stream I have targeted for this weekend actually produced a skunk for me over about a mile and a half when I fished it for the first time in late April, earlier this year. (I believe this was my only skunk of 2018 with all the good small stream water conditions we’ve had actually.) Conditions were not ideal on that outing…a couple of very cold nights previous to the day I fished it, and the water was low and clear. The stream’s a Class A, it’s in a nice wooded setting on public land, and has a nice mix of habitat. So even though it didn’t fish well, I enjoyed fishing it that day and it made it on the list warranting a return trip. I’ll be in that general area this weekend, and am going to try it again.

 

[FarmerDave]

MKern wrote:
The only issue I see with dismissing certain streams after one shot is that the variable could have been you, or weather, or flow, or time of year.

I suppose that is true if one "dismisses" a stream because they didn't catch much, but for me, that rarely describes it. Oh sure, there are many that I only fished once, but it isn't that I dismissed them after that, it's that I wanted to explore others.

 

[JeffK]

I generally don't travel far for small stream fishing, but have years when I fish my local small streams a lot - like this year when the big waters are high or when my kids were little and I didn't find much time to travel for fish.

One thing missing in this discussion is year to year variations. Small streams seem to get clobbered by droughts more than larger ones and some bounce back quicker than others. Some of my small streams are great if we get a few decent rain years in a row, but will be fair at best for a period after a drought year. The crazy floods of the early 2000's certainly hurt some small streams I fish as well.

Beavers can also play a part. Some tiny trickles that have fair fishing for runts can change if a beaver builds a pond. There can be a few fabulous years, then often the pond can get shallow and warm as it ages with a resultant drop in trout fishing. When green sunfish and pickerel take over a beaver pond the banner days for trout are over.

I have to check out my local streams yearly to see which ones are up and which ones are down. I rarely see a static condition for years.

 

[HopBack]

Montour and Northumberland Counties are close to central PA.

The streams in these counties are heavily impacted by AMD and its a shame because there is some really nice water to fish. They do stock a lot of it will brook trout.

Some remediation methods are being implemented by trout unlimited to bring back the wild brook trout populations in streams like little Catawissa creek.