Size of Run, Size of Fish

Sitting at work, beautiful day, wishing I was on the stream, wondering...
 
Some of us postulated earlier in the year that this might be a smaller run this year with bigger fish.  It has seemed to me that fish are of a better size this year.
 
I expect that after today and the reports start pouring in, we'll have a better idea of the accuracy of our earlier predictions.   So what do folks think:  is the run about the same size as last year?  Smaller?  Bigger?   Size of fish?

I've had to re-think my early prediction.

it will be a decent run this season
(heck, even an "off" year in Pa is a banner year for everywhere else in the Erie watershed though)

as far as average size, i think they're  bigger.
At least the early runs.
Might be different later in the season.

It was like that 5-6(?) years ago.
larger than average size in Sept, but the rest of the steelies coming later were of average size


...L.T.A.

I'm still undecided on the overall number of fish we'll see this year. There are certainly plenty, but it's tough to judge against last year because they are spread out now, which they weren't at this time last year. 
 
As far as size goes, there is without a doubt more fish in the 9 to 11 pound range than there was last year. I still haven't caught, or seen any caught that were over 12lbs, but everyday I've fished I've caught fish over 9lbs, and usually 3 or 4 of them. That was not happening last year. I think it was due to the insane number of fish we had last year competing for food in the lake.
 
Here's the two I weighed today, I released 1 or 2 others without weighing them that I'm sure were over 9 as well
 
 
9lbs 15 ounces, short but huge shoulders on this fish.
 

 
 
 
Longer than the first, but skinnier. 9lbs 5 ounces
 

You gotta love the power that walnut and lower elk have on drawing people to it and the big parking lots to accomodate.  A saturday after the first good rain in October and we went off the beatin' path and hammered some true baby whales without making a hundred new friends.

sMal

After fishing a bit on sunday morning I would have to say that there wasn't much of a run and most of the fish I saw were small. I did see a couple on stringers that were decent though. I didn't make it south of rt5 so I some fish may be up further.