Our Mission: To Preserve, Protect, and Restore Pennsylvania's Cold Water Streams and their habitats.
Wilderness Trout Streams
There is an unimaginable solitude when fishing a wilderness trout stream that is a transformation of my perspective of trout fishing. First fishing in these places is not easy and it always requires a hike into the stream. Second trout in these places are always wild and often native to the stream. Third when fishing these streams an angler is often surprised by nature's secrets. The reward is memories of beautiful trout in remote settings where the only sounds are of the streams and the creatures along them.
Something special happens in places that you have to walk to. For instance the last millennium ended with me fishing a true wilderness trout stream for the first time. This stream was in an old growth forest in the Sisters Wilderness of Oregon. It gave up untold numbers of beautiful wild trout and salmon. It was also a long walk in the old growth, where the trees were huge and ferns and debris covered the ground and the ground was spongy from thousands of years of decaying matter.
It was a great day of fishing in a pristine area. The trout were small but they were beautiful and plentiful. Trout are seldom-selective feeders in these places but they are easily spooked. They usually strike at any fly that passes by and strike hard hooking themselves. Many times they are small fish but on occasion there are big ones that lurk under tree roots, under banks, and in the deep holes in all types of streams. They are why many anglers fly fish for trout. To make it the only reason to fly fish for trout is missing something important. That something important is the thrill of fishing in a remote area and finding trout in the thousands and the peace and solitude that comes with these places.
All of this motivated me to find more of these streams nearer to home. So I started my search and after a year have found some real gems. Even small streams have big trout. I found 14 to 18 inch trout in some very unlikely places. Once when fishing one of my favorite small streams I had just released a fine 9-inch wild brown and cast again into the same pool. Little did I know there was an 18-inch brown behemoth ready to take my fly, but there was. The head of the fish emerged from the stream and a great fight was on for several minutes that evening, it was an outing I'll never forget. Later that same evening the count became 7 trout, all wild and spanning several age classes.
Trout in these streams are sleek and strong. One of the reasons for their strength is the higher gradient that usually accompanies these streams; the other part is that they aren't caught very often because few anglers brave their waters. This is the allure of fishing remote streams, deep forests of pine and hemlock mixed with hardwoods, narrow trails, cold clear water, and serenity is easily found here.
Remoteness is more ofte
 |
Remoteness is more often then not a state of mind in Pennsylvania , where it is relative to twelve million people living within 43,000 square miles. It is hard to find but a good map and strong will, will get you to many remote streams that have trout. One such stream in Sproul State Forest yielded over one hundred trout in a day. A small stream, with a steep gradient, a wild area, solitude not often found in Pennsylvania , the first time I fished it, it was a revelation. |
We walked in 2 miles that June day and found a treasure. The first pool that we came to I could see several medium sized brookies resting. I cast into the pool and immediately caught and released and beautiful 8-inch brookie. The next cast landed me a fine 10-inch brookie and I was dumbfounded. I caught several more fish and released them into the pool and we moved on to the next pool.
As we fished the stream, there were over 3 miles of water to fish, we caught dozens of trout releasing them all, we found trout in nearly every pool and undercut bank. When we finally started our hike out near dark, and did so with a deep satisfaction that only comes after a day of excellent trout fishing on a remote stream. But there was one chapter to this day that we hadn't counted on, a heavy downpour. About a mile from our campsite the sky got very dark, and we heard thunder in the distance. The storm came quickly and soon the rain soaked us in spite of having on raingear and hip boots.
Soaked when we reach the camp and unable to start a fire, we climbed into bed and drifted into deep sleep. I didn't have to dream of trout caught, they were very real, and when morning came, birds were singing joyously as the sun shined brightly amidst the puffy cumulous clouds that drifted by. Today we would hike into another nearby stream and fish for the day in another wilderness area.
The trout did not cooperate as they had the day before. A cold front often does that, so our tactics were adjusted to compensate for trout's reluctance to take dry flies. I tied on a black woolly bugger and cast it to every lie and caught my share of trout in cloudy water. Some were larger then we expected and fought well while there were others that were barely the size of my little finger. While it was good to see several age classes of trout in a small stream I was disappointed at the number of trout we caught.
We knew there was more trout in the stream then what we were catching. The problem was we were not catching them. The cloudy water must have played a role. We sat and ate lunch then started hiking further up the watershed. Things settled down during the afternoon hours, the water cleared up some and the level dropped too.
The trout became more active with the clearing water and settling weather. During the afternoon hours they were actively feeding on Little Yellow Sally's hatching in the riffles. The imitation that I use for this hatch is a deer hair winged fly tied with a down wing. Trout selectively feed on this fly when they are available and on many mountain streams they hatch most of the summer. This pattern worked well in the clearing water and the trout fought well.
The day ended after dark. A long hike brought us back to camp; we skipped dinner again and fell fast asleep. Over night coyotes howled and the rustling of other animals and the wind in the trees accented added to the wildness of the forest.
The last day of the trip we broke camp and headed for a different watershed. We arrived at the trailhead; packing our equipment into our backpacks we started up the trail. After an hour 2.5-mile hike we arrived at our destination stream. This remote stream was to be the best stream of the trip.
We got our hip boots on, and donned the rest of the equipment and started fishing. Splitting up we each fished our own sections of stream and all caught brookies by the dozen, returning them to the stream as we unhooked them. The brookies ranged from 5 inches to 12 ½ inches and were fat from feeding on the supply of diverse insects that inhabited the stream.
The day ended again with a hike out but first there was a streamside dinner of store bought trout, steamed vegetables, and potatoes. The hike out was eventful for the sighting of a bobcat hunting along the far bank. We passed by silently and didn't spook the wildcat, but it did see us. We also saw several deer and signs of a bear. The hike under the hemlocks was cool, the big trees kept the cool air of the streams valley trapped beneath the canopy.
We arrived at a campsite and put up tents for the night. Then fell fast asleep when we hit the sack. The next morning was chilly and a campfire was going when I awoke so we made coffee and cooked breakfast. Cleaning up the camp, we decided to fish one more day. There was another trail leading to the creek that was a shortcut to the upper section of the creek, a section that we didn't fish the day before. The trail was steep and joined the creek 4 miles from the camp by the previous day's trail, but we had only hiked 2 miles to get there.
We separated and fished sections of the stream that had not been fished recently, there was no evidence of a trail a long the creek and no camps along the stream. The fish were all brook trout as they were the previous day, and there were some as large as 15 inches. Deep holes fast runs, under roots, in undercuts, the lips of pools, the heads of pools, and plunges held trout where you'd expect they would be.
Over the 3 days we caught and released over 200 trout and enjoyed every minute of the trek. Parting was difficult after fishing with 2 friends and finding secrets of streams not fished by us before. It is a memory that will go to my grave with me, beautiful trout, beautiful surroundings, and remoteness that kept all but the strong willed from reaching it. We will return and fish these great mountain gems again next summer.
Since then I have fished about forty wilderness streams in Pennsylvania some as near as 50 miles from home. I live near Allentown Pennsylvania . All of them had wild trout in good numbers and the surroundings were spectacular. It is interesting though that nearly every one had evidence of man's intrusion into the wilds of Pennsylvania . There were roads, and trails, and old logging railroads, and splash dams, and there were sections that had been channelized along the streams. These all have effects on the streams in one-way or another. In nearly every instance the effects were less good trout habitat fewer trout.
But the flip side of it is the good sections hold fantastic numbers of trout. These sections have bends, meanders, undercuts, fallen trees, root wads, and other obstacles that created the habitat that trout need to live and survive. Many of these sections also have channel splits where we often split up and each chose a channel to fish, catching trout in every one. These types of habitat are important for the diversity of trout streams, giving life to the rich diversity of invertebrates that trout thrive on. Streams need this diversity of habitat if they are to produce trout we all enjoy catching.
This season I started fishing in North Central Pennsylvania where there are hundreds of wild trout streams to choose from and many of them are remote. A section of Four Mile Run from its mouth to the junction of its branches is on the Wilderness Trout Streams list and a Class A Wild Trout Stream. This is a section that I have fished before and is very productive. The hike to the mouth is rugged and treacherous but the rewards are great, hundreds of wild trout and astonishing beauty.
The trout weren't very cooperative this year, I assume because of a late spring and cold temperatures. But trout were there and I caught enough to make a rewarding day on the stream. The weekend ended with fewer trout then expected but hours of enjoyable fishing and hiking. My next trip up there would be in a different watershed, and on similar streams.
The Loyalsock System is a large drainage beginning on the north slope of Red Rock Mountain . It joins the West Branch of Susquehanna River in Williamsport . It's many tributaries hold countless trout and some are quite remote, including 2 long sections of the Loyalsock itself. IT was mid-May when Dwight and I decided to explore some of the more remote streams in the watershed and the weather could have hardly been better. Bright sun greeted us every day and water temperatures were excellent.
We targeted streams on the Wilderness List, and some Class A Wild Trout Streams. The first stream we fished is a small tributary to the Loyalsock. It took a mile hike to get into where we wanted to fish and the trout were plentiful. Several hours later we hiked out, exhausted. Dwight fished the Loyalsock that evening near the mouth of Pole Bridge Run while I relaxed, I was too tired to fish.
The next day was planned when we returned to our cabin. We chose 2 streams to fish and decided to fish the Loyalsock in the evening. The 2 streams turned out to be real gems; they had falls and ledges, and plunge pools and plenty of wild trout, all brookies. Rugged terrain kept us from penetrate far into the headwater in the half day we spent on both streams but we decided it is worth a trip back to fish them again farther up. That would be another season.
That evening on the Loyalsock we went fishless. But it held surprises of its own. The next day we must have gone crazy, because we fish 3 remote streams and the Loyalsock. All the tributaries produced trout, but the great surprise was the Loyalsock itself. We fished a short section at the mouth of one tributary, because we had to cross the big creek to get to it. Here we caught a few brookies.
In the evening we fished the section near Ringdale, there were good hatches of March Browns that evening and a few trout were rising to the spinners as they fell on the water. I tied on a Great Red Spinner and caught a half-dozen brookies on the imitation. Dwight fished below me and caught several brookies too. The surprise was that this stream section had been a victim of both acid rain and Acid Mine Drainage.
The numbers weren't great but there were enough trout to interest us in coming back to fish it in the fall.
Wilderness trout streams are a part of Pennsylvania heritage; as such they require extra care by those who use the resource. They can be very fragile. The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission manages about 100 streams as Wilderness Trout Streams. These streams are not stocked and support wild trout fisheries of different qualities. These streams have no protective regulations and can be decimated if a few anglers fish them and keep their limit of trout. Fortunately they are not subject to heavy fishing pressure or they would be in trouble. Releasing most of the trout caught in these streams will help to project their future as Wilderness Wild Trout Streams.
