RustyHooksFishing Posted April 8, 2019 Author Posted April 8, 2019 10 minutes ago, WVU-SCPA said: If anything the amount of pressure on some of them is a bigger issue. A certain lake will have had 4 tournaments on it in 3 weeks when the season goes out Saturday. There could have even been some club tournaments I wasn't aware of. 40 boats and say each boat gets just get half a limit of 2.5 fish. That's 100 fish each week being brought into weigh in. Add that with a solid amount of recreational fishing and that's a lot of stress to the population on a 400 acre lake. I agree completely. Our lakes just aren't very big and we don't have very many. I am not against tournament fishing at all, I have fished several before, I just think jamming 5 fish in a small box all day seems counter productive to making a better fishery. I love the whole BP Tour format. I hope some people try this format even on a small scale at some point. Much better for the fish. Of course you better have some trustworthy anglers if you go this route but I think it would be a really cool way to fish. Plus you can still hold lunker tournaments to allow guys to try and get the big fish. I also think maybe going down to a 3 fish limit for tournaments would be helpful on these smaller bodies of water. Quote
WVU-SCPA Posted April 9, 2019 Posted April 9, 2019 Had about an hour to fish last night so hit up a local state park. Was disappointing that they still had areas closed and gated that were open this time last year. These two came on back to back cast on timber in about 3 FOW. Really starting to heat up. 2 Quote
Super User Gundog Posted April 9, 2019 Super User Posted April 9, 2019 On 4/7/2019 at 8:53 PM, Quarry Man said: Who would contribute to an Eastern PA Fishing Reports thread, similar to the east ma one? I could put my .02 in on a thread like that. 1 Quote
Super User fishballer06 Posted April 9, 2019 Super User Posted April 9, 2019 22 hours ago, WVU-SCPA said: If anything the amount of pressure on some of them is a bigger issue. A certain lake will have had 4 tournaments on it in 3 weeks when the season goes out Saturday. There could have even been some club tournaments I wasn't aware of. 40 boats and say each boat gets just get half a limit of 2.5 fish. That's 100 fish each week being brought into weigh in. Add that with a solid amount of recreational fishing and that's a lot of stress to the population on a 400 acre lake. I have never saw a tournament on any of the lakes when the season is out. We have the same issue in western PA as well. Pymatuning in particular gets pounded because it's half in PA and half in OH (which has a bass season that never goes out). All of the clubs and series have their tournaments there whenever the PA bass season is out because this lake is an exception. April, May, and the first half of June, there is no joke 4-7 tournaments on that lake every weekend at a minimum. I remember a tournament we had their last May, we learned from talking to guys throughout the day that there were 5 boat tournaments and 2 kayak tournaments on the lake that day. Despite the heavy pressure, the winning 5 bass limit is usually 18-22 pounds. Lake Arthur is another lake around here that gets pounded and it's significantly smaller than Pymy. It's the closest lake to the city of Pittsburgh, so it gets a ton of traffic. Each weekend there's 2-4 tournaments on it. Add in the Wednesday night tournaments every week that usually draw 30-60 boats each, and you'll quickly see why this lake is dubbed "The Dead Sea". Despite the pounding that this lake takes, every year you see guys pulling some 6 & 7 pounders out of it. All tournaments with more than 5 boats in them are required to be approved by the PAFBC, hence why you will never see any tournaments whenever bass is out of season. Quote
WVU-SCPA Posted April 9, 2019 Posted April 9, 2019 16 minutes ago, fishballer06 said: Despite the heavy pressure, the winning 5 bass limit is usually 18-22 pounds. That's another thing that bothers me a bit, a few of the buddy trails I fish have 6 fish limits. Putting 6 fish in a sub par livewell in 90+ degree heat is just asking for dead fish. Seeing poor handling of mature class fish is disappointing. In the 3 years of fishing tournaments I've yet to have a dead fish, but there has been days of jumping through hoops to keep the water cool and aerated even with a solid livewell. Quote
Super User fishballer06 Posted April 9, 2019 Super User Posted April 9, 2019 23 minutes ago, WVU-SCPA said: Putting 6 fish in a sub par livewell in 90+ degree heat is just asking for dead fish. Seeing poor handling of mature class fish is disappointing. In the 3 years of fishing tournaments I've yet to have a dead fish, but there has been days of jumping through hoops to keep the water cool and aerated even with a solid livewell. We have a guy in our club who ALWAYS has dead fish at weigh ins. And if a fish barely has moving gills but is clearly going to die, he will argue until he's blue in the face that the fish is still breathing. The saddest part is he's a good fisherman and he's in the money more often than not, and there have been quite a few tournaments through the years where he's fallen out of the money due to his dead fish penalties. Quote
RustyHooksFishing Posted April 9, 2019 Author Posted April 9, 2019 6 hours ago, WVU-SCPA said: Had about an hour to fish last night so hit up a local state park. Was disappointing that they still had areas closed and gated that were open this time last year. These two came on back to back cast on timber in about 3 FOW. Really starting to heat up. Love seeing that! Gonna get my annual day of fly fishing in on Saturday then i'll be getting the Lowe out. Quote
Jeff Browning Posted April 10, 2019 Posted April 10, 2019 Just saw this. I'm in Western PA too. Fish a local club circuit when work schedule permits and try and hit the Tappan Tuesday Night for fun. Mostly though, I fish the river. Don't have a small engine boat to can't fish limited HP lakes. Quote
RustyHooksFishing Posted April 12, 2019 Author Posted April 12, 2019 I was on the PA Fish and Boat website and found these really interesting lake improvement maps. The map will show you locations with gps coordinates of different nesting structures and other habitat related additions to the lake both past and future. Could be useful to the bass angler looking for some hot spots around the lake that bass will relate to. Lemme know what you guys think. https://www.fishandboat.com/Resource/Habitat/Pages/LakeImprovementPlans.aspx 1 Quote
Super User fishballer06 Posted April 15, 2019 Super User Posted April 15, 2019 On 4/12/2019 at 10:31 AM, RustyHooksFishing said: I was on the PA Fish and Boat website and found these really interesting lake improvement maps. The map will show you locations with gps coordinates of different nesting structures and other habitat related additions to the lake both past and future. Could be useful to the bass angler looking for some hot spots around the lake that bass will relate to. Lemme know what you guys think. https://www.fishandboat.com/Resource/Habitat/Pages/LakeImprovementPlans.aspx I use these all the time when scouting before a tournament. They can be very helpful. Quote
RustyHooksFishing Posted May 14, 2019 Author Posted May 14, 2019 How is everyone doing on the water so far this spring? Had a really good day last Wednesday on the Keystone Power Dam. Caught a lot of males up shallow getting ready to make some beds. A few females were found in the 8-12 ft of water range. Quote
WVU-SCPA Posted May 17, 2019 Posted May 17, 2019 I've been seeing fish on beds the last 3 weeks on south central PA lakes. Have caught some really solid fish holding in prespawn areas. Already have more fish in the 5 pound club then all of last year. Same around here with a lot of males up shallow, last night saw a few females move in and out so I would believe this weekend may lead to another wave. Muskies have been active as well. Quote
WVU-SCPA Posted May 23, 2019 Posted May 23, 2019 Things seem to be in a bit of a funk around here the last 2 days. I've been able to get out for at least 30 minutes the last 11 days except for the weekend. I've saw new fish on beds and other beds go empty. Until the last 2 days all it took to catch them was hit the nearest point to spawning grounds and it was bang bang in 10-12 fow. That bite cooled down and only have been able to pick up random fish. Hoping the rain pattern stays this way and the Susquehanna is ready come June. Quote
Dogface Posted May 30, 2019 Posted May 30, 2019 On 5/23/2019 at 4:26 PM, WVU-SCPA said: Hoping the rain pattern stays this way and the Susquehanna is ready come June. I crossed it Monday and it looked great. On the high side but clear for the Susquehanna. Then the rains came. Not good!! Quote
Hodge Lyons Posted June 13, 2019 Posted June 13, 2019 New member to the site and just got back into Bass fishing last summer. So still very new to it all, right now I am looking for good places to fish in the south western part of PA. I live just outside the city of Pittsburgh. So far we have hit up Cross Creek a few times and Peters Lake and Lake Arthur. I don't have a boat or kayak so as for now we are mostly bank fishing. Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.