What Creek gave YOU the best Stocked Trout Experience?

jifigz

jifigz

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Since we repeat the same cycle of threads all of the time (which makes sense. There is only so much to discuss around FF-ing), and since most of us are wild trout snobs (I know I am!), let's try a thread a little different. Which creek across PA has given you the best stoked trout fishing experience. Come on, don't say "I don't fish for stocked trout, or I would never waste my time fishing for stocked trout. I highly doubt that. We have all spent time chasing stockies at one time or another. I am a wild trout purist through and through, but there are times when I am on a stocked trout stream, too.

I think my single most enjoyable stocked trout fishing experiences have come on Kettle Creek. Why? Because the trout act like trout, and the hatches and spinner-falls are some of the best I have ever fished. I would never go to Kettle Creek without some rusty spinners in my box. Seriously, I have had some very great experiences where those stockies were being so selective and keyed in on a very specific bug, that if you didn't have the right imitation or lifecycle phase, you were screwed. The trout were well spread out. The fish were where fish are supposed to be. Kettle has repeatedly proven to be the best fishing experience for stockies that I have had.

I have caught a few rainbows there that were pathetic too, though. They had been caught so many times that they almost didn't even have a mouth. Poor fish. I guess that is proof that C&R works, though.

What stream has given you the best stocked trout experiences over the years?
 
In my area I would say the Brodheads fish are pretty honest. There are Stocked bows and wild browns, It gets all the major hatches. The stocked fish are selective at times, more so later on and wild browns are never easy. Good streamcraft and good drifts are important.
 
In PA there are a bunch of cricks where I have had memorable experiences catching stocked trout. But one doesn't stand way above the rest. Probably the best experience fishing for stocked trout was late 80s early 90s learning fundamentals and catching some risers on Beaverkill.
 
Best: Black Walnut Bottom downstream from Slate Run on Pine Creek. It was a short experience duration-wise, but three different bugs were hatching, including slate drakes. I had five big fish to hand in about an hour - before a really scary thunderstorm drove everyone off the water.
Runner up would be an evening hatch on Little Pine close to the gun range. The water was boiling with a light Cahill hatch and three of us were catching fish within yards of each other in the twilight, before we had to quit for the one-hour-after-sunset rule.
 
Dear jifigz,

Attending PSU from 1978-82 I will say Spring Creek. Back then it was stocked with 10000 fish per year. While the stream definitely had wild fish at that time most fish caught were stockers. I never really got to fish the prime season as the trimester PSU system was over by mid-May, but I had a lot of fun from September to mid-May. Many days I rode the fishing bus to where the Centre County prison now stands on Rte 150 and walked down to the crick. I'd hitchhike back after almost every trip since I often stayed longer than the bus schedule lasted.

Jumping ahead a bit from 1989 to 1996 the Lehigh River from White Haven to Mud Run was a favorite haunt. Trout season opened typically around the 14 to 18th of April. It was a rare year when the Hendrickson's started opening weekend, but by the following weekend thy were going strong. We used to drive down Hayes Crick through the railroad trestle and park at the abandoned bridge right on the riverbank. You could spend 4 hours casting to rising fish and never have to move more than 20 feet. That was kind of a good thing because the drop-offs around the old bridge pilings were pretty substantial!

My brother and I got to be very good friends with Bob and Mary Lou Sentiwany and their family who owned the AA Pro Shop in Lehigh Tannery. He showed us two Philly kids all the good access spots on the Lehigh that only the locals knew. We spent probably 20 weekends a year at their place starting out sleeping in our trucks parked in their backyard to staying in the house whenever we wanted.

The fishing was great, but the company was better. Bob introduced us to his local customers, many of whom are still friends almost 40 years later. It was literally the best of times.

Regards,

Tim Murphy 🙂
 
jifigz said:
Since we repeat the same cycle of threads all of the time (which makes sense. There is only so much to discuss around FF-ing), and since most of us are wild trout snobs (I know I am!), let's try a thread a little different. Which creek across PA has given you the best stoked trout fishing experience. Come on, don't say "I don't fish for stocked trout, or I would never waste my time fishing for stocked trout. I highly doubt that. We have all spent time chasing stockies at one time or another. I am a wild trout purist through and through, but there are times when I am on a stocked trout stream, too.

I think my single most enjoyable stocked trout fishing experiences have come on Kettle Creek. Why? Because the trout act like trout, and the hatches and spinner-falls are some of the best I have ever fished. I would never go to Kettle Creek without some rusty spinners in my box. Seriously, I have had some very great experiences where those stockies were being so selective and keyed in on a very specific bug, that if you didn't have the right imitation or lifecycle phase, you were screwed. The trout were well spread out. The fish were where fish are supposed to be. Kettle has repeatedly proven to be the best fishing experience for stockies that I have had.

I have caught a few rainbows there that were pathetic too, though. They had been caught so many times that they almost didn't even have a mouth. Poor fish. I guess that is proof that C&R works, though.

What stream has given you the best stocked trout experiences over the years?
Click to expand...
You're right, I think even us wild trout snobs started out fishing for stockies, I know I did. I started trout fishing (spin gear) waaay back around 1972. I fished Mill Creek more days than I can recall over a lot of years. I have many fond memories from those days! It is no longer stocked though, for reasons I won't get into.

I neglected to mention, I caught my first trout on a fly in Mill Creek.
 
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My favorite stocked stream shouldn’t be stocked. 😉

I fish a lot of stocked streams that shouldn’t be, and I’m usually there for the wild fish, and generally avoid fishing these streams from the stocking closure in February through Memorial Day or so.

That said, my favorite stream to fish where I’m knowingly fishing for stockies is probably Pine. The Pine. First Fork a very close second. If you’re gonna fish for stockers, it’s hard to beat the atmosphere of those two.

You could arguably lump Kettle in here too probably, but IMO Kettle has enough wild fish to differentiate it from Pine and First Fork. Most outings on Kettle, above Cross Fork anyway, I still usually expect to catch at least some wild fish.
 
jifigz said:
Well, Swattie, that is true of my favorite trout stream, too, and in fact is true of a ton of streams across the state, but that doesn't exactly answer the question...
Click to expand...

I know. And I know you know which stream in particular is my favorite. I didn’t want to count those as I’m not there to catch the stockers, other than to eat them, up to the limit.
 
falcon said:
In my area I would say the Brodheads fish are pretty honest. There are Stocked bows and wild browns, It gets all the major hatches. The stocked fish are selective at times, more so later on and wild browns are never easy. Good streamcraft and good drifts are important.
Click to expand...
That would be mine, too, for all those reasons.
 
@jifigz I would agree that Kettle is my favorite stocked stream right now. I like the size of the water, valley atmosphere, length of water and Deb's is three at Cross Fork. Way upstream is some good wild trout waters too.

Back in the early 80's, I preferred First Fork, but don't have as many places to stay in the area now.
 
Swattie87 said:
I know. And I know you know which stream in particular is my favorite. I didn’t want to count those as I’m not there to catch the stockers, other than to eat them, up to the limit.
Click to expand...
I know. And you know which stream is my favorite, too. And I agree. Those aren't stockie streams and not what I'm talking about.
 
Black Moshannon creek was probably my favorite stocked creek experience. Before they started stocking rainbows and browns only, it used to be stocked with big brookies. The water temps were good enough for holdovers. So we would wait till the winter after deer season to start fishing it.

We would wait and only hit it during Dec. Jan. Feb. after big snowstorms and backpack and fish. Throwing big flys and big lures for big colorful holdover brookies in the tannic tea colored water surrounded by the all white snow conditions was a blast. Most were 13-17” and thick and tall. Avg. was about 14-15”. It was such a blast getting to actually catch big brookies. And in all the years and all the camping trips, we never once saw another angler. We called it our annual poor man’s Labrador trip.

Big brookies, Tannic water, deep snow, big colorful streamers and not another angler in sight for days. For all these reasons I think that Black Moshannon gave me the best stocked trout experience.

~5footfenwick
 
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