Oak Orchard

my father and i fished the oak on the 5th and 6th.  both days were extremely slow.  landed 5 throughout both days.  the guys arounds us were not faring much better.  just does not seem to be the amount of brown trout in the oak as there used to be.  the stream conditions were not exactly favorable, nor were they horrible.  the oak was running a bit clear and still did not see many browns.  i will say that there were a couple beauties landed (over 10#). 
spoke to a local angler and he concurred that for the past 4-5 years, the brown trout numbers have been diminishing.  not sure what is going on out there.  we were not disappointed that we went because you never know...one good drift could bring you the fish of a lifetime. 

boy, that's a beautiful brown!!  just love those spawning colors.  not sure what we are going to do next year.  we have been making an annual trip to the oak for the past 7-8 years.  18 mile gets plenty of brown trout, but it is very difficult to enjoy that type of shoulder to shoulder fishing.  if the reports do not get any better, we just may have to seek out another state....michigan comes to mind.

steelie guy,
 
i heard one angler speak about catching them close to shore about 3 years ago.  this is something that i would definitely be interested in.  i had no idea about the charter boats.  i do see fish being hauled out of the oak.  it seems that there precious few in the oak and it is sad to see anglers taking every one they land.  don't get me wrong, i still see alot of catch and release anglers, as well.  is there any way i could coax some information out of you on where to fish in those summer months??  is it even possible for a fly rodder to fish the lake effectively??

Neversink   Nice fish. Even if the numbers are slightly off this year; so far, where else can we land such nice Browns within a days drive of most places? Makes us yearn for the next trip and what just might be the fish of a lifetime. Had a pleasant suprise when I got home. The Rapala scale that has been in use for years has been inaccurate for some time. We weight the fish in the net and then deduct the net for a less stressful released fish. The 12lb.2oz. fish was rechecked at home on a legal meat scale and really weighed 13lb. 4oz. Plus the fish had been dead for almost 2 days on ice waiting for the tax. shop. Most fish are returned to swim again; but a few are now on display on a wall. Again, nice fish!!

You got that right, Fellas!   But now you've got me planning a Friday night drive from Albany...
 
Jeeeezus- I guess the browns are in!
 
Toss up some Oak Orchard Brown pics if you find any fish this Fall!

just got back as well. was not impressive landed some fish but not as many as past trips and people were insane. I hope I never get used to the attitudes of people up there.
 
We normally walk well away from people and we forgot some stuff in the car. I went back to retrieve it and rejoin my group. I followed 4 guys from ohio (hope they read this) down to where we were fishing. Before they got there they were nice enough to ask if we were fishing in this location and said they would go somewhere else, yah right. One guy replied I didn't walk all this way to not fish. So 3 flyfishermen got surrounded by 4 pinners using bait. Got to watch them kill a steelie for it eggs, to bad it was a male so they tried to release it about 20 minutes later. Watch them take every female they caught to use their eggs for bait. Great group of guys. Stuff like that is what depletes runs when they are killing all the 1-2 year old fish.

heres some pics from our trip last week...

 

 

 

 

 

hey glad to hear uns did good i talk to mark last nite and he said u stop in and said you did well i heading up this weekend  send me and pm if you would    thanks   zach

For those of your who plan to make a long trip, be sure you have a local connection giving good reports.  We headed up and fished Friday and Saturday (Nov. 20-21) and only had one fish on the reel on Fri.  Sat. was better with us landing 7 and losing a couple between the two of us.  There are some fish, not in any numbers though.  Still sad to see trout fisherman snagging and lining. You would think with the salmon snaggers out of there, there would be some ethical fishing.   I did see a couple of guys just below the dam on the parking lot side who were centerpin drifting eggs and they were connecting.  Fly fishing guys did not have as good action and as I said, from what I witnessed, most fish were foul hooked, landed and quite a few killed. Three guys on the old bridge structure just below the dam on Sat. afternoon were rediculous; lining, snagging.  The guys from the Potter Co. camp that fished above me, thanks for a fun late afternoon Sat.  Hope you are as successful on your PA bear hunt. 

Winter fishing is here. 

a

HH, Ya jigs work well on browns and kings, thats all i used on our trip up in Oct. and did really well, white and peach were the 2 best colors. And Koke ill have to stop up and be ya for some of those jigs, lol