Clarion River - 2009

nice smallie

Here's a beautifully colored Brookie from up around Portland Mills I landed this morning..
 

That's great that you can get alot of time on a great piece of water like that. I love the pics too. Thanks.

very interesting stories and pics doc congrats on alll the luck i wish you lots more.46

Can you give me any info on some of the better areas to fish the clarion within cook forest, i'll be returning to cook forest the weekend of july 24th, we rented canoes right there at the canoe rental that is next to the bridge where the park rangers office is & toms run empties into the clarion, now i've been told that the fishing is supposedly better down past the bridge at the canoe rentals? Can you offer any suggestions or helpful hints, what are some of the better lures to use? colors, etc, etc??? If you using bait, what type & prensentation is succsessful??? I was using nightcrawlers with a splitshot rig with a pencil bobber the last time i floated the clarion camping, did manage to get 1 nice smallmouth doing this, but unfortunately storms ended up moving in & pretty much took care of both the fishing & the enjoyable aspect of canoeing as well.

week-ends are bad ... and I do not think my saying it is under-fished is going to create and problems..

It's a big and long river and most folks I see fishing it are not what I call "real" anglers.. most seem to be beer drinkers that have a fishing rod in their hands as they drift down stream.... 

I do not fish much below Clear Creek so can not really sure what the fishing is like down that way...

The best bet is still drifting nightcrawlers or 1/2s along the bottom.. or live minnows which are hard to find now... bobbers sometimes work ..but it is really hard to "guess" the correct dept... it will change quickly..most fish seem to be laying near the bottom and scooping up what comes drifting by...  If you are fishing an area that has trout.... waxworms will do the trick too.. but again.. along the bottm bouncing along...

GOOD LUCK...

Just had some bad storms last night and today.. .. so you might find it a little muddy tommorrow...

Thanks for the info, I think Sunday would probably be better. We have decided to just fish the reservoir tomorrow. 

Thanks for the warning, I hate snakes.  That is the primary reason I like to fish from a boat.  I have seen 4 water snakes so far this summer while on the water.  The last one about 3 feet swam out from under my boat.  Even though they are in the water and not poisonous, they still set off an uneasiness in me. 

Thus far (knock on wood) I have never seen a Rattlesnake or Copperhead along the river or anywhere else that I've ever fished in my 30+ years of fishing.  I'm sure my luck will run out at some point.  I did see a water snake this year in Portland Mills.  The river does make me a bit uneasy because of all of the big rocks and tall grass.

if fishing northfork this time of year
be carefull as i have seen rattlers several
times in past years.

I might be taking a old pickle jar or urinal for BR timeouts instead of pulling up onto the bank , lol. Or even just to stretch out for that fact.

It is very sporadic.

Anybody??? any news on the clarion within the cooks forest area???

your copperheads are northern banded water snakes, copper heads are more rare than mt.lions, describe the difference in you are sure they are cpheads..copper heads don't hang around water..they like old buildings,log piles,and so on..they are very similar in collor but heads and tail are different..search goggle for pics.