Little Juniata River, PA

Barree - Campground section

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Outing Information

Date
Start/End Time
7:30 to 10:30
Best Fishing Time
8:30 to 10:00
Rating
Great
Classification
Public
Water Temp
52.0°F
Water Clarity
Clear - 5'+ visibility
Water Level
1.87 - 74cfs
User
Herb Yost

Fish Caught

Brown Trout

Caught Avg Size Pattern Optional Fields
30 11" #2 Silver
30 11"
Total: 30 fish Top Patterns: Unspecified (30)

Weather

SkiesMorningAfternoonEvening
Mostly Cloudy X
Precipitation
None X
Wind
Very Light - <5 knots X
Air Temp High/Low
60.0°F / 48.0°F
Wind Direction
-
Weather Front
-
Barometer
30.02 rising
Moon Phase
54% Full (Waxing gibbous)

Other Patterns Tried

No other pattern information for this outing.

Hatches

No hatch information for this outing.

Insect Seining

No seining information for this outing.

Fishing Partners

No fishing partners were saved with this outing.

Waypoints

No waypoints were saved with this outing.

Notes

MCB, TMM, & BD:

I fished the campground section of the LJ this morning. I parked where the State Forest road comes out on the road to Barree and walked downstream from there and fished to above the campground. It was a really nice morning for fishing. It never got very sunny, but the temperature was high enough that it was really comfortable.

For the first hour I fished, I only caught 3 or 4 trout and I thought it was going to be another 8 trout day, and that was only if things improved. By that time I was right below the campground and then it began. I started to catch trout after trout and I'm not talking about mini-trout. The smallest trout I caught were a couple of 10 inchers and most of the trout I caught were in the 11-12-13 inch range. I caught two 16 inch beauties, the last one was one of the most beautiful brown trout I have every caught. The colors on that fish were really intense, deep, dark brown, and bright spots and red fins, what a trout. I also caught a 15 inch trout and two 14 inch trout. In about three hours I had caught and released 30 trout. That may be my best November morning ever.

Location, location, location! I think that people in the campgrounds feed those trout all summer long, and so there are a lot of trout in that section and they tend to be big trout. That's just my theory, but I'm sticking to it. I don't usually fish this section more than once or twice each year. I don't like to fish it when the campground is full of people, so I either fish it early in the Spring or late in the Fall, like today. I was the only person fishing in that area this morning, but when I got back to the truck and was sitting there eating my lunch, two other guys showed up and were getting ready to fish. They were both old retired guys like me, but both had physical problems that limited their mobility, so they weren't going to cover much of the stream. I guess I'm lucky that I can still wade around and cover a lot of stream in three hours or so. Who knows how long that will last??

Tomorrow morning is supposed to be warm also, so I may have to fish somewhere. I haven't fished Spruce this Fall, but I'm fairly sure there won't be much water in Spruce, but maybe I'll give it a try any way. It's that or drive up to Spring and I know by checking it online that Spring is really low and it's tough to spin fish it at those water levels.

O&O:LJH