I've never fished the wall for walleye but I fish a different part of the river alot closer to where it goes into the lake that seems to hold a decent amount of walleye. And guys seems to do ok at the weir in pymatuning every year.

python73
BTDT you been attending the ZelieSam school of telling us how you feel?  TESTIFY!  
 
In my book, there are SO many places that are lacking any sort of fishery that you should never need to screw with one that HAS a good fishery.  And that place has never been a secret, but has a healthy amount of fishing pressure throughout the years.  Fish off the walleyes and everything else and replace with pelletheads and what happens?  Wall to wall troutiots slipping on rocks and drowning in the spring instead of guys that know enough about the river to wade safely.  That's just dumb.

 
Now ya went and done it................
 
Rumor has it, new regulations will be submitted for recommendation at the next scheduled meeting of PFBC in Harrisburg, PA.  If approved, the new law is expected to go into effect early next Spring.
 
Personal Flotation Devices must be worn by all persons wading while........... fishing for trout or facsimiles thereof!
Since the rumor, there has been an addendum which would require anyone fishing for trout (or facsimiles)......  to wear PFD when close to any water.
 
As for attending "The School of ZeileSam"   
 
 

The PCB's have been a result of several factors. # 1 was the Sharon Westinghouse Plant in the 60's and 70's. # 2 is the old landfill atop the River Road area once again from the 60's and 70's. The river was dredged a few years back to remove as much sediment from past plant run offs. I was under the impression the removal went fairly well and successful. The cleanup was a huge cost mainly to the Westinghouse Company. As far as the landfill I don't know but it was shut down completely in the late 70's or 80's. What I do know is......... ALL OF OUR DRINKING WATER COMES FROM THE SAME AREA OF THE RIVER ! Now I find that odd that our drinking water is tested and treated and is safe enough to drink everyday  for all of the Shenango Valley but don't eat more than one meal of Walleye a month !!!! And we won't be stocking any Walleye till the PCB's come down they say !There is something fishy about all this EPA propaganda excuse stuff. How did the river get worse  ?  All those years they stocked Walleye the clean up was never done. They test that river water steady and there is no way that river is chemically worse now than ten or twenty years past. About a year ago I personally talked to a guy who monitors and samples that river water and he said it was as clean as it can get ! It passed all his testing he said . I don't know if he was a federal agent or a state agent but he was official . They grab a Carp or a Catfish that could have migrated all the way from the lower Beaver River and it gets a failure now the Walleye stockings stops ! It's a bunch of BS and I'm not buying that excuse. They are cutting back on stocking of Walleye in their program and the lower Shenango River is taking a major blow ! No stocking since 2007 so the Walleye fishing has a very bleak future for fishermen in the lower river. It's just about dead now so take all your Rapalas , and Stick Baits and pack them away.

You can filter PCBs out of water quite easily with carbon.  But it builds up in critters via the food chain.  The smallest food eat/absorb it, and it concentrates on up the chain to the apex predators that live for years eating polluted smaller animals.  So if you catch a 24" walleye and fillet it, then test the center line for PCBs you'll get a number.  Doesn't really tell the story, because most guys I know don't eat the center line or red meat anyway.  Also doesn't tell you at what point the walleye are bad... if 15-20" aren't polluted and only the trophy size are, then that's fine.  Just tell us that.  
 
Unfortunately bait and fish move quite a way up and down the rivers, so it is hard to say what parts of the rivers are safe and what aren't.  We let businesses F up our rivers for too many years, and we're still paying for it.  Such is life.

Send in the Zebras.....................

I quit worring about PCB 's,clordane and the like a long time ago since ive smoked a couple million cigarettes,drank a few thousand gallons of beer,ate enough hormone antiboiotic beef and sausage,and dairy products not to mentionmy share of Agent Orange. I do feel bad about the discontinued stocking of walleye

Why is it that when something seems to be working fine someone comes along and screws it up ! I defy anybody to show me pictures of stringers of Walleye caught on Shenango Lake like these from the lower river. These are just some pictures over the years that I took of only our catches. Like I said , I've seen years where a lot of guys would limit out several nights in a row. When you see action like that steady over the years that tells me your stocking program is not only working it's excelled with the limited number of Walleye you stocked. Pymatuning gets over 4 million fry every year steady year after year. I have no problem with that it's a great lake to fish. Ever wonder some years where the hell they all are ? Shenango River would get less than 10,000 every year and still produce big catch numbers every year. Sure the best fishing was the first two weeks of the season it's that way just about anywhere you fish ! You'll never see that on Shenango Lake cause most of those fry don't make it for some reason. I'll blame the large packs of White Bass that explode on the surface chasing bait fish up. Hundreds of White Bass roam in wolf packs all over that lake. Some schools are just unreal in numbers that I personally have seen. I guess I'll just give up talking about how great it was and head up to the lake in my boat and bounce in the wakes of all the speed boats. Makes for great jigging action !  After all this is where the Walleye get the highest angling use !   Quote....  " we have targeted our large reservoirs as the best place to stock Walleyes so that the largest number of anglers possible have access to them when they reach legal size. We stock Pymatuning Reservoir, Shenango River Lake and Lake Arthur with the maximum allocation each year.  I decided that the large reservoirs were a better use for these fish. We will not be stocking Walleye fingerlings in this area in the near future, unless new sampling from DEP shows a decline in the contaminants in fish flesh."     Shenango Lake it is Mr. Wilson  .........................


 

TELL ME I'M WRONG ! Welcome to Shenango Lake Walleye fishing.

 
I hear these are the new signs for Shenango River Outflow !

Don't have the time right now, but I'm about to go on a huge rant about the PFBC and the state of the Shenango fishery and everything else
 
Stay tuned.........

Alrighty, here we go....     Gonna try to keep this short and sweet
 
The PFBC has no idea how to manage their money and our fisheries.
 
First I'll start with current stocked trout program: As my username suggests, I love trout fishing. I do a crap ton of fishing for both stocked and wild trout(which I prefer, but there's more stockies where I live). They're my favorite species for a few reasons.....just the way it is. BUT the PFBC's world revolves around hatchery trout. They dump them everywhere, and many places where they shouldn't. There are lots of streams that get stocked but SHOULDN'T get stocked because they already have trout on their own!! (wild, naturally reproducing populations). So, quit stocking these places. This will save a lot of money.
 
At the same time, they are cutting trout stockings at places that NEED stocked in order to support a trout fishery(for example, they're no longer stocking Shenango in the winter, and they got rid of a lot of fall stockings around the state). Quit stocking the places that HAVE TROUT ON THEIR OWN and use that money/fish to stock places that NEED stocked. OR use that money towards warmwater species..........such as Shenango River walleye!!!!
 
Unfortunately the vast majority of "trout fishermen" are the opening day catch 'em and rope 'em type that don't give a darn about our fisheries or anything(they litter too). These are the people that keep the PFBC in business. Without the opening day crowd and the white truck chasers.........license sales and trout stamp sales will drop drastically. Many people would agree that trout don't taste that great compared to other species.........so why not have more special regulations encouraging C&R? The more fish that are released, the less fish are needed to be stocked.........which SAVES MONEY!!!! BUT, if these opening day fishermen can't keep their precious pelletheads for dinner or to hang that "trophy" 14in golden rainbow above the fireplace the PFBC will lose money. We need more serious fishermen who care about the sport. Bragging about a stringer of 5 trout fresh out of the truck on opening day with worm and powerbait containers on the ground is silly and sad.
 
If anyone saw the latest DHALO regulation proposal(which was dropped thankfully), the PFBC wanted to allow bait and move up the harvest date in these areas. They said it was to "get more kids into fishing" but in reality they wanted those fish harvested. If a hatchery trout isn't put on a stringer, it isn't properly "utilized." The PFBC only cares about the catch 'em and rope 'em crowd and wants the fish kept. More opportunities to keep pelletheads = more trout stamps/licenses. It's sad but true
 
Now onto the walleye. As of now, it looks like most of the walleye we'll be catching in the lower Shenango will be fish that wash out of the lake. And yeah, fish seem to make it through the dam just fine. How else do the hybrids make it into the river? The river doesn't get stocked with them and never has.....so they must wash down from the lake.
 
The thing about the PCBs is just an excuse. Plain and simple
 
Short duration of the fishery? Only lasts a couple weeks after the opener? YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! Yet another excuse. Walleye are caught there every month of the year(of course you can't keep them during the closed season). As you can tell from Captain Hook's photos, the fishing used to be great. "Wow lots of anglers are catching walleye out of the Shenango River! Time to quit stocking it because we need to stock some good wild trout streams to please the white truck chasers!!"
 
As for the lake.....I know some people that do really good with the walleye there. Just a big body of water, and it probably takes a while to learn. Not easy. With the river, it is/was fairly easy since they're concentrated in smaller areas. Great fishery...........and they had to go ahead and mess it up. So low angler usage was another excuse? How much ya wanna bet that more people target walleye in the outflow than hybrids or muskies in the lake. So why don't they quit stocking hybrids or skis? Of course I would never want them to quit stocking those fish.....but why quit stocking the river. Just stupid
 
Another thing...  Occasionally I see PFBC Officers crusing around Shenango and other places. Sometimes they just "drive by" and other times they get out and take a little walk. They need to spend more time and EFFORT trying to bust poachers and whatnot. This will bring in more money. Heck, set up camp at the Geneva Swamp, Woodcock Outflow, French Creek, etc. at night and bust all the bowfin and bullhead killer idiots. That'll bring in some bucks. Bust the litterbugs at the Shenango outflow too. Make sure the place is nice and clean first.....set up shop somewhere with binoculars, and once a group of "fishermen" leave with trash behind start writing tickets!! They'd make boatloads of money.
 
As for the catfish, after looking at the stocking lists I noticed they skipped some years here and there. Maybe they'll stock them again next year.....idk. Or maybe there's a good wild population?? I'm not sure. They don't stock the lake with them and there's still a bunch....so they're doing well there on their own. The river was always a fairly easy place to catch a pile of channels. I'm not sure how it's been this year.....haven't really targeted them yet
 
Done for now....