West Branch of the Susquehanna

[IneFishent]

Anyone try fishing for trout on the west branch? I ran into some articles that were a couple years old discussing how the west branch was turning into a decent trout fishery between cherry tree and clearfield. Just wondered if anyone has had any luck. I plan to give it a try in the next couple weeks.

 

[dryflyguy]

I saw a piece about the west branch several years ago - and decided to give it a try.
Went out once in the summer. And found the water temp near 70 degrees - around Mahaffey - and didn't even try it.
I did find some rather nice WT fishing in several of it's tribs though.

I went back to that same area in late sept - and found better conditions
There were some flies hatching - BWO's and caddis if I remember correctly. And some risers taking them. The fish I caught were all stockers - that I assume worked in from the ATW tributaries.
Not bad fishing. But nothing to get real excited about IMO.

 

[duckfoot]

The smallmouth fishing is unbelievable.

 

[tyeager]

It's heavily stocked in Clearfield with good riffles at and below the lower stocking boundary and just down river from curwensville. The small mouth fishing is good from mahaffey to shawville anywhere there is current. For a good day float try mahaffey to camp corbly road or hogback road to Hyde bridge in Clearfield. Go when the water is up and a little dirty and anchor off every current break. Can easily get 30 to 40 small mouth and rock bass in 5 hours or so

 

[Fishidiot]

Can't say I've trout fished the this river but the WW fishery downriver has a great reputation. My guess is the trout fishery will get better every year. It wasn't that long ago that the WB was considered a dead river.

The recovery of this watershed is one of the best stories in PA. Just great news.

 

[IneFishent]

Thanks for the replies. I also found articles from 2009-2011 and was thinking the trout fishery may have had some time to improve further as the water quality gets better. It's close enough to my doorstep to give it a couple tries anyways.

 

[Chaz]

It's on my list.

 

[tyeager]

The trout fishery is what it always will be. The river warms to much in summer. There are some cooling springs and tribs but I would be surprised if more than 2% holdover. I can remember days in a canoe where the water was so warm I the summer it wasn't even refreshing

I'm sure some will disagree with me but I just don't see the pollution as an issue for the trout at all. The continued improvement of water quality can only help the small mouth though. It would be really nice if red moshannon and little Clearfield creek continued to improve