Clarion River

Anybody fishing the lower Clarion River? I grew up on the river and used to fish it year round, but haven't for the last few years. I've seen several boats heading toward the dam lately, what are you guys catching?

Water level seems to be back up to "normal" they have fluctuated the level alot in recent years.

The Piney reservoir was drawn down about 6 or 8 feet for a while. I think the fluctuation impacts some of the spawning for perch and crappie. I was just curious as to what everyone was fishing for/catching. Seems like there's alot more fishing traffic on the river than there has been for years.

ORIGINAL: bulldog1

Anybody fishing the lower Clarion River? I've seen several boats heading toward the dam lately, what are you guys catching?

 
 
If by "lower" you mean down near the Allegheny, I fish that part of it very often. Usually go up about a mile or two, but never seen the dam. Lotsa big rocks in the Clarion there!
 
Catch plenty of smallmouth there. Once, I got a double of two 15"ers on a Lucky Craft topwater. Does that count as a 30"er, and a new state record? 

I haven't hit the river yet but once the warm weather gets here again it should turn the whole river on.

I believe the talk was to redo the lauch at Tobey access owned by the borough of Clarion.  Setup is not conducive to easy launch when a number of people are there.  Went down today and still no signs of any type of construction.  Went to Millcreek access and launched from there at noon.  Water temp was 42 degrees.

Steeler Fan, do you have a red and white boat? If you do, I think I saw you tonight above millcreek.

I wasn't sure, that was the only other boat that we saw yesterday. Did you do any good?

We put in at about 4:15 and didn't do any good until about 5:30 but I think thats 'cause of the wind. After that we did really good on the smallies, almost 35 or 40 of them, and thats because the guy I was with wanted to go for bass instead of perch or walleye (out of season, as are bass..... for others that don't know). Had alot of fun doing it though.

Plugs and jigs both for the smallies. They were really finicky once the sun started to come off the water. We caught 2 small eyes too. Might go try it thursday on my day off... weather permitting. Next time i'm going for perch though.

Where were you fishing Kis?  We fished until about 7:00 we caught 35. One was 20 inches, but not as fat as the one you and I caught. Caught most of them on a tube, wouldn't hit the shad rap.
Later

We went today and only caught 18 all day and they are getting smaller.

Did real bad, only caught 2 fish.  All the peole that caught them said they were practically on land, they were that close to shore.