Surprise on the Yellow Breeches

[Beweav]

I was fishing way down towards the end of the Breeches, at the Yellow Breeches park on Sheepford road. I went out early this morning to try to fish a little before it got hot. The water was a little off color, there must have been some rain somewhere yesterday. I was aiming to catch some trout before the stockers all die off. I was fishing with a white wooly bugger just letting it dead drift mostly, when I thought I felt a nudge. So I set the hook and was disappointed to feel a snag. Then the snag gave a little and I realized something I had a fish on! To my surprise after a long, 4x tippet straining fight, I got this guy to the net. I was very surprised to see him. Although it makes sense now, I just always thought of the yellow breeches as a trout stream. I guess down here at the end you never know what you’ll catch.

 

[salmo]

As the environment warms I suspect that the warm water species will move into previously occupied trout habitats.

 

[Fish Sticks]

Isn’t there an impassible dam on the breeches in new cumberland from the river? I know smallies are in there already but wasn’t sure if much was really coming from susky into breeches?

 

[Beweav]

How well do sm and trout coexist? I didn’t really think about there being some overlap.
Also yeah there is a dam at the New Cumberland bureau park. So they aren’t coming up from the Susquehanna.

 

[TimMurphy]

How well do sm and trout coexist? I didn’t really think about there being some overlap.
Also yeah there is a dam at the New Cumberland bureau park. So they aren’t coming up from the Susquehanna.

Dear Beweav,

Don't be too sure of that. The Yellow Breeches floods every couple of years and fish can breech the dam during high water.

Regards,

Tim Murphy

 

[Fish Sticks]

How well do sm and trout coexist? I didn’t really think about there being some overlap.
Also yeah there is a dam at the New Cumberland bureau park. So they aren’t coming up from the Susquehanna.

I don’t know how well they interact. Brook trout evolved with them in some places in PA and Browns obviously had no exposure in europe. Rainbows did not evolve with them either. Would guess smallies would encroach more on browns first before brook trout because of more overlap. Not sure what kind of interactions between smallies and browns.

 

[caddisflyer]

I cannot think of many trout streams I fish that I do not catch bass out of. The only ones might be some true limestone creeks but I would not be surprised to catch a bass there too. I've caught walleye and bass from many trout streams.

 

[troutbert]

There is overlap of smallmouth bass and wild brown trout in Penns Creek.

 

[Fish Sticks]

There is overlap of smallmouth bass and wild brown trout in Penns Creek.

Yea tons of overlap in many streams i just don’t know if dominant species is completely thermally/habitat driven or if interspecific competition comes into play a significant amount or not at different temps/habitat conditions

 

[brookieteeth]

There is overlap of smallmouth bass and wild brown trout in Penns Creek.

Over the past 15 ears, I've occasionally gotten smallies from Weikert to the C&R section, upstream of the end parking lot and that pool with the meadow and the cabin (forgot what it's called.) Always in May or June.

The biggest one I hooked was the farthest upstream, near the head of a long pool- jumped clear of the water and shook my hook off, had to have been at least 4 lbs. The others have all been 7"-13". The 13" one was very green, not bronze like most of them. Down by Weikert in a shady section of the creek, above the cabins. Got one a few years ago at that pulloff right next to the creek by the cabin below Cherry Run, about an hour after dark. Thought it was a huge brown trout- turned out to be a 12" smallmouth, lol. I have to admit, smallies typically put up more of a fight than trout.

 

[3wt7X]

Plenty of smallmouth/trout overlap in the North Branch of Potomac, Conococheague, Antietam, Youghiogheny and many, many others.

 

[Prospector]

The reality in NWPA where I do most of my fishing, the smallmouth are the dominant “native species” and the stocked trout fill a gap for anglers for 2 to 2 1/2 months.

Streams like Neshannock, Slippery Rock, Oil Creek, Sugar Creek, Tionesta Creek, Brokenstraw, and many more. Expect the bass to get active starting about Memorial Day.

 

[Beweav]

Dear Beweav,

Don't be too sure of that. The Yellow Breeches floods every couple of years and fish can breech the dam during high water.

Regards,

Tim Murphy

Wow that’s a big dam to have water up to the top of it! It’s hard to imagine rain like that with the spring we have been having.

Thought it was a huge brown trout- turned out to be a 12" smallmouth, lol. I have to admit, smallies typically put up more of a fight than trout.

Same here! Last time I was at this place, I saw a semi-intoxicated spin fishermen haul out a slab golden trout. Looked like one of the trophy trout they stock. I was sure it was something like that! It went on runs that had my drag spinning. They definitely fight hard, and smart!

 

[Vaughn]

Used to fish that area of the yellow breeches 35 years ago as a teenager. Did a lot of wet wading in the summer months fishing for smallmouth and rock bass. In fact I preferred chasing smallmouth over stocked trout. This was all with spinning gear at the time.

 

[jifigz]

This is nothing unusual or shocking. SMB are a cool water fish and are often found in many of our larger trout streams. They are just usually not found in as high of an abundance as trout because the habitat still favors trout more than bass.

There are a couple of wild trout streams where I've caught smallmouth up to 18" and bass are present in these streams year round.

 

[Silent Ocelot]

How well do sm and trout coexist? I didn’t really think about there being some overlap.
Also yeah there is a dam at the New Cumberland bureau park. So they aren’t coming up from the Susquehanna.

Regardless of the destructive power brown trout unleash on habitats, I think smallmouth could easily out-compete the browns, plus smallmouth can live in dirtier (talking pollution) water. Smallmouth are freshwater Trevally.

 

[jifigz]

Regardless of the destructive power brown trout unleash on habitats, I think smallmouth could easily out-compete the browns, plus smallmouth can live in dirtier (talking pollution) water. Smallmouth are freshwater Trevally.

If the habitat was suitable for smallmouth bass more so than trout, then smallmouth bass would already be the dominant species. Since the smallmouth bass is less suited to a given waterway, or part of a waterway, than trout, then trout are the dominant species.

This isn't hard. In the Juniata River near me there are brown trout, but the habitat is so much more suitable for smallmouth bass and smallmouth bass dominate. In Kish there are smallmouths, but the water is much more suitable to trout and they dominate. The smallmouth have a 0% chance of displacing or competing with the trout that much because the stream is that much better suited for trout. The same is true in the river. The browns that are in there, and some are very large, have 0% chance of displacing the smallmouth in the Juniata.

In a stream like Penns it is trout, then a mix, and then mostly bass......

 

[Silent Ocelot]

So I set the hook and was disappointed to feel a snag. Then the snag gave a little and I realized something I had a fish on! To my surprise after a long, 4x tippet straining fight, I got this guy to the net.

I had this happen at Pickering. Thought I had a rock... then it moved. My smallie wasn't as big as yours, maybe 9 inches. It was at the point in the smallmouth's lifecycle before they start growing in girth. When I got into my "snag" I proclaimed to my fishing buddy "a snag, no, it's a fish!". I actually hand-lined the fish in because I was pulling on the line to free/break-off the snag. To this day my buddy still thinks this is funny and mimics my line when he gets a bigger fish before it shoots off.

I recently picked up a nice 10 inch smallmouth at Pickering on a nymph. This was the 30th of May. I'm glad the smallmouth are taking over as temps climb.

 

[Bamboozle]

While it warms up, Little Pine Creek does have natural trout reproduction.

That being said, on day late in May a few years back I caught about an 18" bruiser of a smallie on a size 12 bead head Prince Nymph near the shooting range...

I thought I hooked a big stocker... To say I was shocked would be an understatement!!

 

[6xAdams(Jones)]

While it warms up, Little Pine Creek does have natural trout reproduction.

That being said, on day late in May a few years back I caught about an 18" bruiser of a smallie on a size 12 bead head Prince Nymph near the shooting range...

I thought I hooked a big stocker... To say I was shocked would be an understatement!!

I got a big one up there as well... at the really nice flat upstream from the clay bank, with the deep water along the shore closest to the road. I thought I had a big, feisty brown until it jumped four or five times. Probably almost 10 years ago since we hadn't yet started taking the youngest boy along.