Thedrift
 
I will agree with you on that fact that fish are not coming in. It's due to low water and odd fall weather.
 
 

 
 
nope
Not from my observations over the years anyway on west side Pa and Ohio tribs   .
I crossed the Pa  line and started fishing  Elk regular in the mid/ late '90s
I was fortunate to be able to fish every week (and as often as not, twice a week) from  Sept to May  for 12-14 years.
Fish start coming in in  late August/early Sept ...I put the first fish on the bank every year the first week of Sept
 
water conditions and temps had nothing to do with the runs .
if there was enough water to enter the mouth, they came ....
Their internal bio clock tells them when to roll.....period
 
There were several drought years the years I was regular.
and several unseasonably warm Falls .
 
I recall swatting mosquitoes at Girard Boro park in late Oct over a bazilion fish in 60+ degree water
 
i recall one drought year,  unseasonably warm as well as dreadful low, no flow and gin  clear .
There was a tree down across the creek just below the rt 5 tubes ...fish couldn't move past.
The whole month of the Sept   the fish kept coming in and stacking.
the creek water temp was  SEVENTY + DEGREES!!!!but every week there were more and more fish stacking up
 
Before a big rain came in early/mid Oct and moved the tree over, every small shallow depression or pocket deep enough to cover a dorsal fin  from the tree to the mouth had fish stacked it.
 
Dry Falls are more common than wet ones .
The only thing different in the runs on wet falls are the bitty creeks like Raccoon get good runs .
But no more or less fish run in Elk ..and no sooner or later either...they're just able to move up earlier and spread out  is all
 
 I recall one wet Fall the girls here were complaining there weren't no feesh .
But there was a billion ....It was simply due that most of the jamokes that fish Pa have have never fished anything but clear shallow ditches ...and if they can't SEE the fish...there ain't nun
 
 
 
 
lastly, as mentioned, there's never been a lot of second time  spawners in Erie.
We could make it C&R only all season long and we'll maybe see 10-15% more fish next season at best .
The vast majority of drop backs don't recover and  die in the lake in the summer 
 
 
..L.T.A.

Completely agree genie. While I have no proof that's is specifically the walleyes, there's gotta be more predation/death in the lakes, than fish getting put on stringers. Somebody should trow up one of those old pics of two full rows of a hundred guys in front of trout run. The were lots of fish in the creeks then, soooo.

Like I said earlier where are the back up runs ? They ain't stuck in the lake ! The mouths have plenty of water with the high lake conditions this year. Those tributary mouths from Ohio to NY.are all holding good water. The creeks are all super low upstream. I agree with genie those fish migrate no matter what the temps, or water flow. They are coming on nature's time clock. Besides if Elk Creek was too low and fish couldn't get up into it I would think another good flowing creek would receive that amount of fish in time. Creeks like Conneaut or Cattaracus should be teaming with Pa. fish if that were the case.
 
Hammer time !  No catch and release in these days !  24/7 on the beach

 
 

Thedrift
 
 
Don't you think if more fish were released there would be more fish in the creeks for the people who make the drive?
 

 
 
I don't know how far  back you go, Drift
but C&R has been the mantra from many WAY back when  the creeks were literally black with steel
 
C&R isn't the answer to the collapse that's happened.
I don't want to sound all PETA like, but I'm not sure how ethical it is for the same 30 fish in the hole (that have NO PLACE to hide) to be hooked fair and foul hundreds of times by thousands of anglers .
 
 
With  these low numbers , most will be swimming away sideways 'fore too long and end up lifeless in the bottom of the hole or washed down stream.
  Most will be dead LONG before the ice over.
 
I've said it before...these   fish (in particular Pa fish where there's no place to go or  hide) get pounded so hard the most "humane" thing to happen to them IS being clobbered and put on a rope.
 
C&R isn't the answer ..that's a temporary thing just to feed our selfish desire to  hook dozens of fish every outing with little to no effort
 
 
..L.T.A.

How about we dump a couple thousand gallons of pheromones from Salmon into the creeks to bring in all of the steelhead?