Déjà Vu And New Perkiomen Carp

After having an awesome few hours of carp fishing last weekend on the Perkiomen Creek, I decided to go there again this weekend. All week I was looking at Google Maps trying to narrow down a new section to explore. The Perkiomen has a lot of accessible water because of the trail, but parking can be an issue in some sections. If you’re not parking close to where you want to fish, then you have to suck it up and walk. That was the situation I was in on Saturday morning. I wanted to fish a narrower section of the creek just below Green Lane Reservoir and I had to settle on the Crusher Road trail access lot as the starting point for my hike in. One nice thing about the Perkiomen is that there are many small creeks coming into it and they can make great access points. This was the case yesterday as I found a feeder stream and walked it to the Perkiomen.

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Late August Carp On The Perkiomen

This past week I was traveling through the town of Schwenksville and I crossed a stream that looked like it would be a good place to explore for carp. I wasn’t too familiar with this part of Pennsylvania and did a quick Google Maps search to find that I had crossed the Perkiomen Creek. I did a bunch of online research on the Perkiomen and found that it is indeed a decent warm water fishery. The Perkiomen is a tributary of the Schuylkill River and holds a good number of panfish, bass, carp, catfish, and even musky. I found that the most accessible part of the Perkiomen Creek is below the Green Lane Reservoir to the Schuylkill River confluence. This portion of the creek is paralleled by the Perkiomen River Trail. This is a well-kept paved trail and you can find resources online that will explain where you can park.

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Carp On Lower Penns Creek

I still can’t kick this carp on the fly rod addiction. When I was up near Selinsgrove fishing for smallmouth I had taken some time in the afternoon to explore lower Penns Creek. The water on this part of Penns is deep and slow and large areas are covered with vegetation in the summer. It is vastly different than the portions of Penns that flows through Bald Eagle State Forest. I spooked several large schools of large carp when I was scouting this lower section. I couldn’t get those fish out of my head so on Saturday I was up at 5:00am and out the door heading north again. I got on the water around 7:00am and started wading my way through the thick vegetation towards some open water further upstream. This was the lowest I’ve seen Penns Creek all year. The water was slightly stained and I found one of the spots where I'd previously seen carp. This spot has a large tree that’s blown down into the creek and the branches make for perfect fish cover.

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Summer Smallies And My Favorite Crayfish Patter

When I wasn’t chasing carp in early August, I was chasing smallmouth bass on the Schuylkill River and the Juniata and Susquehanna Rivers. A majority of the bass I’ve been catching have been in the 8"-10" range, and their numbers are surprising. Like I mentioned in a post back in July, I think there’s a lot of promise for smallmouth fishing in Pennsylvania, specifically on the Juniata and Susquehanna. One recent trip that went against the small bass trend was one I made to the Susquehanna just south of Selinsgrove off of Rt. 11/15. There are many great access points along this stretch of river that follows the highway from Duncannon to the split of the river in Northumberland. One of these access points is the Hoovers Island parking lot at the confluence of Penns Creek. There are hundreds of yards of wadeable river here that don’t see a lot of fishing pressure.

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