Tag: PA

Lagniappe

PA Perfection

By Tom Burnett

A recent Trout Unlimited article posed a question like, which lower 48 state has the most miles of trout streams? Montana?  California?…. nope, Pennsylvania!  We have to admit, when we first read the Trout Unlimited’s Guide to America’s Greatest 100 Trout Streams and saw that PA had the most trout streams of any state listed, we were surprised.  We’d traveled to Philly and Pittsburg, but, never to anywhere in PA that was trout country.  When we finally started fishing our way through the state, we were amazed.

Our first stop in PA was near Carlisle (PA) on the LeTort Spring Run.  The LeTort is a famous trout stream rich in history.  It’s also apparently not the trout stream it once was and fishing was very hard.  In fact, we spent an entire day and never even saw a fish.  They were all embedded deep in the cress beds that line the bottom of the stream, happily eating the cress bugs that live in the beds.  Nothing was rising…. nothing was venturing out of the cress beds…. so, no fish on this stop.  BUT…. our guide, Jake Villwock, self confessed Spring Creek Junkie, called us a few days later and said “come back!  I’ve found a spot to fish!”.  Unfortunately, we’d already traveled up into Connecticut.  However, we had to come back to the LeTort, since it was the ONLY river we’d not caught fish on.  So, we came back in 2017, fished with Jake and caught our LeTort trout.  As tough as the LeTort was, we also fished Yellow Breeches and Big Spring several times, finding many more trout than the LeTort shared with us.  Not to be missed in this area was the Boiling Springs Tavern, our favorite spot for a post-fishing beer or hanging out with Appalachian Trail hikers.

After our initial 2016 swing through Carlisle, we went to Connecticut and then New York before heading back into PA.  Our next stop was in Slate Run (PA) to fish Cedar Run and Slate Run.  This stop became one of our Ramble favorites of our entire trip.  We had the pleasure of meeting Tom and Deb Finkbiner, owners of Wolfe’s General Store/Slate Run Tackle Shop, who befriended us and showed us such incredible hospitality.  We also were blessed to fish with Julie Szur and Brookie (her beautiful dog) who showed us “Run & Creek Fun“.  In addition to fishing for gorgeous native brookies in the two Runs, we fished Pine Creek, which is a gem of a fishery due to the efforts of the Brown Trout Club, headed by Tom.

From Slate Run, we drove down out of the Pine Creek valley, and up the next valley over to Kettle Creek.  We didn’t find a guide for Kettle Creek, but a local fly shop was enough help in putting us on fish in several locations around the area.  We stayed in the local state park which was right on Kettle Creek.  We ventured to several different tributaries of Kettle Creek with great success as well.  When we needed a bit of local flavor, we went into Cross Fork to Debs Cross Fork Inn for wings and beer.  Awesome!

Then came our time in and around State College (PA), home of Penn State University.  Montana State U calls itself “Trout U”, but I think Penn State has the right to use that moniker as well.  There are trout streams in every direction and we tried to fish them all.  We found ourselves on Spring Creek, Fishing Creek, Spruce Creek, Penns Creek and the Little Juniata…. and those were just the TU Top 100 streams!  We also discovered several other fisheries that were equally deserving of Top 100 status nearby.  Our guides along our State College area journey were Lance Wilt, JD Vera and Andy Wagner who were great.  Andy was a gem taking us to visit The Shanty along Penns Creek and then to “Disneyland”, better known as Spruce Creek.  We sampled Otto’s burgers, PSU ice cream (a must), Spruce Creek Tavern fries and many other spots here.

Our final TU Top 100 stop in PA was near Scranton to fish the Lackawanna River.  This is truly an “Urban Oasis” fishery as it flows through Scranton and its suburbs.  We fished the river in town, but you’d never know it, as you are surrounded by high banks on both sides and a beautiful tree lined river.  If you pop up over the high banks, you might find a restaurant, a lumberyard or anything.  We simply spent our time walking up river back to where we parked our cars.  After fishing the Lackawanna, our guide Adam, recommended we head to Smilers for lunch and he was spot on with the recommendation.  Great little neighborhood bar and grill in Dickson City (PA).  Oh, and if you stop by A&G Outfitters (Adam’s shop), make sure to say “hi” to Fly Dog Lucy!

We hope you enjoy the music video above of our time in the Keystone State.  We were surprised, amazed, humbled, and blown away by the fisheries and the people we met there.  If you haven’t fished in PA before, we highly recommend it.  On our Ramble, we were blessed to spend a full month in PA fishing its streams, enjoying its beauty, sampling its food and drink and meeting its gracious people.  We promise we’re coming back again…. and again.

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Lagniappe

487 x 34,585 x 95 x 149

By TB

For much of the past two years, we’ve been on our River Ramble, exploring trout streams across the USA.  All total, we’ve been on this journey for 487 days and have visited TU Greatest 100 trout streams in 26 different states.  In fact, we’ve now fished 95 of the Top 100 streams and 149 different trout streams in all.  I know what you’re thinking, you’re still 5 short, and indeed we are.  There is one more state we’ve yet to visit, Alaska.  While we are looking forward and already deep into planning our Alaska adventure to fish the final 5 (and a few more of course) of the TU 100, we wanted to take a moment to look back on this past two years.

As we’ve continued to discover, Its Not About the Fish…. its about the people we continue to meet along our Ramble.  We’ve been blessed to have fished with some of the best guides in the world on the best trout streams in the world.  In small villages and communities, we’ve met some great local fly shop owners and staff who’ve sent us to some off the beaten path fisheries that, while not TU Top 100 streams, easily could have been.  What we’ve enjoyed most have been guides, shop owners and community members who’ve befriended us, shared their stories with us and allowed us to see the rivers through their eyes and experiences.  We feel so lucky to have met each and every one.

Our tagline for our blog, “Fly fishing, food, friends and fun” has been just that.  We’ve sampled more than a few local brews, pubs, diners and dives along the way.  We’ve also had a great time visiting family and friends in Arizona, Indiana, Missouri and Montana…. rafting, zip lining, pickle ball, baseball, hiking and of course, fishing too.

Our “mothership”, the SaraLinda, has performed like a champ, taking us nearly 35,000 miles along this journey.  We’ve camped in state forests, state parks, national parks, Corps of Engineers campgrounds and even dry camped in amazing, remote locations.  The 180 sq. ft. we’ve been living in is dwarfed by the incredible outdoor expanse we’ve called home these two years.  Our backyards have been the Tetons, Yellowstone, Great Smoky Mountains, Appalachian Trail, Maine wilderness and stream side campgrounds in most every state we visited.

2016 was a great year and we posted up a “Year in Review” video for it last December.  We’ll be fishing numerous streams across the country in 2018 as well as the streams we’ll fish in Alaska, but for now, we wanted to share a look back at 2017.   We hope you enjoy this short music video and a few highlights from our 2017 River Ramble.

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Guide Talk, Lackawanna

Urban Oasis

By TB

Through the middle of coal country, right through downtown Scranton PA, flows the Lackawanna River.  As we read the section on the Lackawanna in the TU Guide to America’s 100 Best Trout Streams, we were a bit concerned given the description of the fishery.  However, when we arrived in the area and drove to A&G Outfitters, we parked in the lot and climbed a levee to see this beautiful stream flowing right through Dickson City, a ‘burb of Scranton.   We read the Lackawanna River Heritage Trail sign at the top of the levee and were impressed with the history, and more so with the conservation efforts of two organizations, the Lackawanna River Corridor Association and the Lackawanna River Chapter of Trout Unlimited.

The next day, in that same parking lot, we met our guide for the day, Adam Nidoh.  Adam and his father own and run A&G Outfitters with Adam doing the largest share of the guiding.  We got in our Crosstrek and followed Adam through downtown Dickson City, into Scranton, parking across from a pallet company warehouse.  As before, we climbed a levee and there was the Lackawanna.   We crossed the river on an old train bridge and walked on the levee downstream a bit before wading into the river.

At river level, with the levees framing both sides of the stream, tall trees swaying in the morning breeze, we were so far removed from the city, it was truly an urban oasis.  We tight line nymphed our way upstream, picking off fish at each riffle and deep hole.  Fishing inside a metropolitan area of well over 100,000 people, we caught beautiful, wild brown trout and never saw another person.  Amazing!

For our guide talk, we went back to the river, just over the levee from the A&G Outfitters parking lot.  Adam did a great job of explaining how this fishery came to be and how TU and the Lackawanna River Corridor Assoc. continues to improve the river.  Adam is President of the Lackawanna Valley TU Chapter and is passionate about protecting this urban stream.

 

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Fishing Creek, Guide Talk, Penns Creek, Spring Creek

Lance & JD: Background

By TB

We had the pleasure of fishing with the founder and owner of Outcast Anglers, Lance Wilt along with JD Vera who is working with Lance this spring.  JD runs a guiding operation in the Central Patagonia region of Chile.  We fished three different “creeks” in the State College PA area with them:  Spring Creek, Fishing Creek and Penns Creek.   We had a blast and caught fish each day, including a few big ones!  Please enjoy Part 1 of their interview in which you learn about how they got into fly fishing in the first place.  Both are very interesting stories… one from a very local perspective and one that spans from Patagonia to Minnesota.  Stay tuned for Parts 2 and 3 coming soon!

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