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You've probably caught used trout
Despite opening-day images of stringers hanging full of and creels packed with dead trout, a pair of newly released studies show anglers in Pennsylvania release most of the trout they catch. According to Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission/Penn State studies, anglers fishing stocked trout streams in the spring caught about one trout per hour and released 63.1 percent of those fish. Similarly, during the course of the legal fishing season on wild trout waters, average catch rates varied from around one fish every two hours for brook and brown trout on large streams to nearly two brook trout per hour (1.76 fish per hour) on small streams. Anglers released 92.7 percent of those wild trout. "In evaluating fisheries, we consider average catch rates of one trout for two hours of fishing time as 'good.' The fact that both wild trout fisheries and stocked waters averaged, and in many cases far surpassed, this measure is exciting," commission executive director Doug Austen said.
FALL FISHING DERBY GOES UNTIL MONDAY
OSWEGO - Erieville's James Huftalen, who caught a 38-pound, 14-ounce Chinook salmon in Oswego on the first day of the event, is still the grand-prize leader in the Lake Ontario Counties Trout & Salmon Derby. The derby continues through Monday in the U.S. and Canadian waters of Lake Ontario. The grand prize is $20,000. Huftalen caught the fish while on a charter with his friend Bill Bouck aboard Captain Ernie Lantiegne's Fish Doctor Charters. The salmon was caught using copper line on a planer board with a Hot Chip flasher and a Howie Fly. Lantiegne said they were trolling in about 120 feet of water west of Oswego. The fish was about 90 feet down, and was caught at about 3:30 p.m. The Chinook salmon was weighed at Larry's Oswego Salmon Shop, an official registration point and weigh station of the derby.
Fish hopping for hoppers
As a general rule of thumb, the insects that make up the trout diet tend to get smaller as the summer progresses. The most notable exception is the grasshopper.
These bugs are relatively long-lived, and they grow larger during the season. In the last week of July the hoppers made their appearance in the Sierra, and they have the trout looking up for chow. The most common color at this time is tan. The critters are young (1-inch long) and size No. 12 or 14 flies will be a close match.
The most notable hopper bite from an anglers perspective has been on the Walker River drainage on the east side of the Sierra. Jim Weil from Kens Sporting Goods in Bridgeport reports that on the West Walker river along Highway 395, hopper fly patterns are the No. 1 fish catcher.
The West Walker is just now getting down to fishable flows, and a big fly will get the trout to swim up through fast water to take an insect on the surface.
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