Western Pennsylvania Slabfest

My most recent blog post, which regrettably wasn't especially recent, was part of my countdown of 10 favorite fishing destinations. In that post. I mentioned being excited to soon be headed toward the destination that was featured, Lake Pymatuning, for a media fishing event. I've since made that trip and done some other productive fishing, so I figured it might be good to briefly stray from the countdown posts for a few updates.

The short version of the Western Pennsylvania report is that the crappie bite is sizzling right now, and fish can be caught many different ways. I fished three days on two lakes (Pymatuning and Shenango) and spent time in four different boats, using various techniques, with the only real common denominator being fast action from quality crappie. I spent time spider rigging with "Crappie Dan" Dannenmueller, drifting with Dale Black and Kenny Smith and casting with Darl Black. All produced good numbers and size, an we caught black and white crappie plus a mix of other species, including bluegills, pumpkinseeds, yellow perch, bass, catfish and more.

Of course, such a report is anything but surprising from these waters (which is part of why Pymatuning landed so high on my favorites list). When the spring bite gets going, the action tends to be fast, with plenty of good fish in the mix. We stayed in cabins in Pymatuning State Park, which offers fabulous lakeside access for boating and bank-fishing alike and spent a pretty good portion of our waking hours out on the water catching fish!

Favorite Fishing Destinations Countdown: No. 6 - Lake Pymatuning, Pennsylvania

It's hard for me to not get excited about Lake Pymatuning as I write this because I'll be visiting there in a little more than a week, staying in a lakeside cabin in Pymatuning State Park and splitting fishing time between Pymatuning and a couple of other Western Pennsylvania lakes. Lake Pymatuning might be the most user-friendly major lake I've ever fished, and it a fabulous destination for family outings. It's fairly large, covering more than 17,000 acres, but it fishes small in the sense that good fishing is widespread and you don't need specialized knowledge or a fancy boat to tap into great fishing for multiple species. 

In truth, you don't need a boat at all. Multiple tracts of Pymatuning State Park offer extensive shoreline access to much of the lake, plus multiple piers, and the lake's shallow margins lend themselves to good wade-fishing in several areas. Seasonally (some winters, anyway), Pymatuning is also an excellent walk-on ice-fishing lake.

From a boating perspective, motors of more than 20 horsepower may not be operated on Pymatuning, so there's no threat of big boat wakes from pleasure boaters. Most boaters are fishermen or paddlers enjoying the lake, so Pymatuning is great to fish from a canoe, kayak or johnboat. I'm actually bringing my kayak along on my upcoming trip and am looking forward to putting it to work on Pymatuning.

Adding to its user friendly nature, Pymatuning is a fabulous multi-species lake, and because it has a lot good shallow cover and structure around it's edges, those fish tend to be in predictable places. Crappie (both black and white), walleyes and bass are the headline species, but Pymatuning also offers great opportunities for catching catfish and a host of panfish species. A couple of years ago, I spent a fun spring day on the lake with my good friend Darl Black, and we went out with a real multi-species mindset. If memory serves me correctly, we caught 10 species that day.

Beyond offering great fishing access, the state park lends itself nicely to overnight stays, with nice cabins at a reasonable cost and plenty of campsites in two different campgrounds.

Area information: Visit Crawford

Park Information: Pymatuning State Park

Simply Fun Fishing

Darl Black and I see one another fairly often most years, being invited to many of the same media events. Many, if not most, of those events center around fishing, but most are pretty structured, and the fishing is in shifts with pros or guides with pretty targeted story- and photo-gathering objectives.

 

This weekend I was going to be within a couple of hours of where Darl likes to fish and runs guide trips, so we decided to get to get together for a day. And while we both always want to gather photos when we fish, there was no event dictating times or objectives. We'd just go fishing.

 

Because it was Memorial Day weekend, Darl chose Lake Pymatuning, which has virtually no fast pleasure boating traffic due to a 20-horsepower motor limit.

 

Because so many species are shallow and using similar types of areas during May at Pymatuning, Darl decided we'd make a game of seeing how many species we could catch. Using fairly light tackle for the most part and a variety of smallish baits, including Road Runners, hair jigs, grubs and the like, we ran from spot to spot, fishing weedbeds, stumps, downed trees, humps, points, rocks... Some spots were for specific target species. Others were just for whatever bit.

 

The light gear mult-species approach was just plain fun, and we ended up catching eight species. Interestingly, there were at least five other species that we could have just as likely caught doing the same stuff, along with a couple of other longshots.

 

If you're going to be in western Pennsylvania and want to do some fun fishing, I'd definitely suggest checking out Fishing with Darl Black.