Yough

With Mid-Atlantic weather yo-yoing between deluge and drought Henry and I had to suspend our annual pilgrimage to the smallie infested waters of the Juanita.  We thought we might make a go 0f it but when the river gauge headed true north we started making new plans.  

Fortunately we had the Youghiogheny on our list since by Great Allegheny Passage bike ride along its banks several years ago.  The 'Yough' you begins as a trickle trout
stream in Northern WV and then drains the western reaches of MD and PA and picks up flow as it journeys north for 134 miles until its now broad shoulders join the Monongahela just outside Pittsburgh and empties into the Ohio and Mississippi.  

The most picturesque portion of the Yough are the miles just up and downstream from the quaint outpost and outfitter town of Ohiopyle.  Ohiopyle is a mecca for white water enthusiast looking to hit the
rapids in Ohiopyle State Park, Great Alleghany bikers looking for a way point and serious fisherman excited to hit the cold water trophy section just east of Ohiopyle.   Hen and I thought about a downstream float through
the trophy section, but the float was 9 miles and we elected to fish more on a 6 mile section than paddling on the trophy slot.  

With Kayaks loaded we agreed to meet in Connellsville and fish from there downstream to the small town of Dawson.  After much trial and error I'vedecided that the best set-up for my casting style is stiff 6-wt over-gunned
with 7wt WF line so I can cast the weighted offerings small-mouth love. 

We arrived in Connellsville after 4+hr travel from Philly and NOVA and found the river beautiful twinkling blue in the late afternoon sun.   It has been spared from the rain which makes sense as we were about 30 minutes from
Pittsburg.    The Yough was 75-100m wide, rock strewn with deep runs, clear and flowing at a reasonable pool.    The water was pleasantly cool even 40+ miles below the bottom-release cold-water Yough dam.  It's easy to see how the Yough supports trophy browns upstream.  We slid quickly into likely water, I thought I'd catch 5 smallies immediately and were rewarded with casting practice!   





A local soon wandered smelling us up, he was spin-casting fishing for trout, and the story started to emerge that this was still stocked trout water which gets pounded after stockings.   After having very little luck, 3 smallies in 3 hours :-(  we chatted up a local police officer who confirmed that this is still trout water, but he thought we'd have more luck if we got away from the water immediately upstream and downstream.  Disappointed but with our catch, but excited about the coming adventure we repaired to a local haunt for wings (gr8), steak (littleflavor) and beer (hard to go wrong) and charted our course for the next day. 

After dropping Hen's truck at the takeout  in the Dawson, the land that time forgot, we slid our yaks into the river in Connellsville and began our 6.5 mile fish downstream....ah it's SO much better to only paddle downstream. We let the river carry us .5 miles downstream below where Hen had ventured yesterday and began to ply the waters...again despite great looking water...very few fish.  

I stood in my kayak much of my fishing time and where and when I'd expect to see AT LEAST pan fish follows the river was strangely barren.   This pattern continued, we'd catch 1-2 smallies an hour, with the exception fish-wise of Carp....lots of them and different species. We saw loads of standard carp and then one out of every ten or so was a some other more basslike-looking fish. it was far blacker and more basslike,  It looked like a bass-carp-walleye hybrid.   I caught one while site casting on a rock bed and it hit aggressively, like a kinda like a salmon, he moving about 2' to his left and walloping my home tied crawfish fly.  He didn't put up a huge fight or go on a crazy run and I was able to control him with my 5 wt.  When I got home and did some research I found that it was a white bass-striper hybrid.

Just down the river Henry told me to look up and a Helicopter was circling us and dipping down toward the water.  It stopped about 100 M downstream from us and then as best as  we could tell released some sort of
spray-pellets into the water and flew away.  I suspect we'd just witnessed river rehab in progress as PA continues lime the river to counter the slow release mining acid which has long troubled the water quality in the region
-- odd but fun to see.   I picked up a fish or two more, and we saw some random brown trout cruising and sipping something we couldn't ID from the surface the action was very slow.  Hen had two hot flashes where he picked
up 3 smallies in three casts, and then, like that, they were done.   

It's always fun to adventure into new rivers, but if I were to come back to the Yough I'll plan to hit it higher up probably between confluence and Ohiopyle and be prepared for trout as well.