Chub and Sucker Spots

With this years flathead season about to start up and musky fever kicking in I will have to start focusing on catching some bait. Recently, my favorite bait spot was turned into a children's fishing area soo ive been on the search for new spots ever since. Lock 3 and North park both occasionally have suckers but they usually go fast and as far as I know wont be available this early in the year. Anyone have any suggestions or spots they could spill the beans on? Not looking for anyone's honey holes but general areas around the city would be great. Feel free to pm me...looking to go out this weekend and would love a few big suckers in the bucket!

freshwaterdrumR
dirty girtys

I would but I heard if you touch the water there you get herpaderpasyphalaids

Snag there are chubs and suckers  in every creek in PA. You just have to start trapping and fishing to find them. walk up or down the creek where no one else will walk and you will find plenty. I have to do the same thing for the same reason!!!!   Hope this helps ya

Dirty Girtys is Pittsburgh's finest Class A wild chub waters

Peters creek in Clairton and Jefferson Hills.

"how big are the biggest suckers you've seen there?"
 
At Duck Hollow, mostly caught chubs. They were in the 4-7" range--but lots of them. Again, this was 4-5 years ago and since then there has been ALOT of construction. I'd personally still give it a try.

Any creek that you think might have chubs init will. Look for semi deep holes with ledges and crap they can stay under use any protien things like bits of bacon or even hotdog on a size 16 hook u should have a couple dozen in a haour or less u can also use berkly gulp maggots usually one will catch me at least six chubs before it falls off.

Anyone have any good sucker spots during the winter? Just geared up for  musky and would love some help as my local streams/holes are all empty somehow. 10"-14" bait would be ideal. Not looking to rake anyone's spots, just need half a dozen or so to throw in the bait tank for later use...
 
On a side note ive tried contacting several fish farms to possibly purchase some larger baitfish but either they dont have any or they never got back to me. Surprised that there arent more options for buying larger bait locally...frustrating to say the least...

Any luck getting those suckers to bite this time of year Divemaster? Seems like as soon as the cold hits the streams around here turn into a ghost town.

Ol' Divemaster asking for musky/steelhead spots and locations on the northwestern message boards but tight lipped when someone asks you about good bait spots in the area . 

Just bustin' Yer chops divemaster. Starting to think this freakin bait is harder to get than the musky!
 
I have some really good spots for in the summer but they apparently dont hold fish in the winter...starting to think i need a bigger bait tank to load up with fish in the summer before the cold hits.

Divemaster

Snag_826
Ol' Divemaster asking for musky/steelhead spots and locations on the northwestern message boards but tight lipped when someone asks you about good bait spots in the area . 

Woah woah woah man, I asked for fishing spots, not bait spots haha. If guys don't want to share their favorite spots for redside dace and tippecanoe darters (there r some good 'ins I know of 2!) then I get that. I'm happy to point anyone out to the few local musky fishing spots though.

LMAO.  Only on fisherie do you read that someone is more than willing to give up all their musky spots, but redside dace and tippecanoe darters...WHOA off limits
 
 

python73
Nobody carries big baits because they don't sell for enough $$ to be worth getting/raising and then keeping alive.  Creek chubs are hardy little bastriches... some cold water and a bubbler and they'll outlive most aquarium fish.  But suckers are another story.  They really need current, and they need clean cold water plus a bunch of food.  I've caught some pigs in my nets over the years, and none of them did very well despite several attempts to keep them lively.   I'm a summer guy and you won't catch me near a stream until I can wade in with tennis shoes and shorts.  But my pappy always said suckers were a winter game.  I suspect there were much better numbers back in his day, what with all the BS dumped in our creeks.   Good luck out there.  

I've kept both in aquariums long term and that's fairly true. Creek chubs are tough as nails and will survive in most conditions. I kept 4 adults in a 30 gallon tank with a green sunfish for about a year just fine before the sunfish got too aggressive and eventually killed them. But water quality wise, they'll be fine with warm or cool, you just need to keep it oxygenated. Suckers on the other hand are a bit more difficult but still not hard to keep. I've kept white and northern hog suckers and the key is a fine sandy substrate that they can sift through and to feed them frozen or live food like blackworms and bloodworms. They occasionally do all right without a substrate but then other fish can come steal their food before they have the opportunity to graze for it. I've kept them without a lot of horizontal flow too and just like the chubs, they simply need oxygenated water which can be accomplished with an air pump. However, for both fish, one must be sure to have enough nitrifying bacteria built up in a mature system in order to eliminate NH3 and NO2 build up which is highly toxic and the cause of death for 90% of captive kept fish. With the bacteria, those two chemicals will instead nitrify in to NO3 which is much less toxic and is easily removed by changing part of the water.

Don't know where you guy's live, but Brush creek is full of them. So you can catch them with red worms and.small hook.You can seine them year round with chest waders.All sizes from 4-18 inches,white,black and hog.It run along the turnpike in ,Beaver and Butler close to Cranberry.

landed some decent guys over the past few days but still falling a little short as far as musky bait goes...Busted my**** resetting my trap daily over the past two weeks, just to get 3 dam fish. Oh well, I guess thats how it does...Hopefully it will pay off...