July 31, 2019 – Take a Look, It’s in a Book – Laurel Highlands of PA Adventure

The iconic shot.

The family and I went west for a few days this week, visiting the Laurel Highlands of Southwestern PA.  Tami has always wanted to see the Frank Lloyd Wright house on Bear Run, so she booked a few days in an Airbnb in the Seven Springs Resort for a little family vacation before she goes back to work this week and the boy has to enroll in “Camp Dad” for a couple weeks before he goes to real camp.  Our last hurrah this summer as a family was a good time.  Fallingwater was impressive, all the more so with a tour guide who was cross-trained to do a tour of the art within the home too.  I surely took enough art history classes in undergrad to count as a minor had I thought to declare such a thing, so I was in art nerd heaven.  Like me, Tami loves the woods and Wright’s philosophy of living in and with nature, so she too was overwhelmed with the beauty of the place.  The boy, I think he enjoyed it too.  What’s not to like about a house with a waterfall and a creek running under it, plus a snack bar and gift shop onsite?

Living the hillbilly high life!

We also visited Ohiopyle on Monday at the height of hillbilly high life season.   I wanted to show the boy and perhaps take part in the natural water slides I had read about, and I wanted to see the mighty Yough.  I did not realize that midday on a summer day in Ohiopyle would be like visiting Wildwood, NJ.  We did get to see the Youghiogheny River and the have ice cream at the general store, even drove up to scope out another Wright home on Kentuck Knob for another visit another time, but we had had enough of all the people by 3 PM, so we did not drive to Confluence or any other nearby spots.  I prefer my nature without the crowds.  Let’s just say Ohiopyle is a well utilized public resource, ground zero for many overlapping outdoor pursuits.

Alpine slide, boy.

It was convenient to stay within the Seven Springs resort, however, as we spent Tuesday within a mile of the place, riding a chairlift, running down the alpine slide a few times, playing mini-golf, and so on.  We had a nearly private pool in the condo development and views of the stars from atop the ski slopes out our back deck.  The resort is full of ponds and lakes stocked with fish, but I didn’t feel like paying for the boy to catch sunfish when so many state parks were around.  I also had a terrible experience with the Orvis shop in the resort.  Dude wanted no parts of talking fishing or conditions on any body of water outside of the resort.  He seemed miffed that I wouldn’t know to go to the outfitter that offers clay shooting at the other end of the resort instead of a fly shop for information.  I think I just asked about water temperatures in some of the nearby freestoner, and we were the only people in the shop.  Needless to say, even if the boy wanted to fish, I was not buying a daily pass from this mitch.  This was not a fishing vacation, so I didn’t do much planning around fishing, but I was in a new region with a lot of fishing possibilities, so I had to go fishing at least one day.  I brought along the Keystone Fly Fishing book to help me wing something if conditions at the end of July warranted a short fishing trip with or without the boy, warmwater or cold-. 

Some small stream sneaking in late July.

Instead of going with big water, I found a nearby spot that I could hike into and possibly find some holdovers and wild fish.  There were thunderstorms throughout the day on Tuesday, and some more violent storms woke me up in the night.  I remember thinking that a bit more water may be a good thing—but not too much please!  We were leaving today, so I got up early and drove to a cold water tributary of Laurel Hill Creek very early this morning.  Perhaps fueled by fears of Ohiopyle-sized crowds, I arrived at 5:30 AM, so under the canopy of trees, it was nearly dark when I started the one mile hike up along the creek.  Since it was too dark to fish yet, I just hiked up to a dam, itself sort of a design marvel, scouting the creek along the way and enjoying the cool yet humid conditions, the rushing of the creek, the water dripping from the lush trees, the reanimated mountain rivulets flushing the surrounding woods. 

Another man-made natural wonder.

When I reached the dam, sort of the end of the line for any coolwater fishing, I took advantage of the additional light that the clearing above the small pond behind the dam provided and made my first casts.  I had on small bugs, a size 16 frenchie as my anchor fly and a smaller caddis pupa on the dropper.  I expected to find a few fish home in the hole and wash below the dam, but I was really happy to land at least seven fish here.  I started out with some stocked browns and brookies, but I ended with a pair of browns that looked wild.  I even dropped a brookie that was under 4 inches long, so I was now pretty excited to work some of the pocket water and riffles I had passed on the hike upstream. 

Some fish before sunrise.

The Keystone book said the creek held over fish each year and also had wild and natives in the watershed, but knowing how wet it’s been and how the creeks close to home have benefited from the rains, I was expecting to find a few more fish than a normal year if water temperatures were still okay.  Thankfully, I was very right!  I only fished for about 2.5 hours with all the walking, but I lost count after a dozen fish.  I ended the morning with about 15 or 16 fish, which is pretty fun on a new piece of water.  Once I had landed all those fish at the first spot, some before the official sunrise time, I was content to hunt for them in tougher spots downstream even if they were not there.  Although I had a hunch, I was still grateful that there were fish in most of the little plunge pools and deeper runs, especially the ones farther from my parking spot.  As is often the case, the further from access points, the better the fishing, especially on public land.

The longtime residents noticed the early caddis hatch and took small bugs on the dropper tag.

While releasing the first few stocked fish, I began to notice a caddis hatch and began to notice a few fish noticing the caddis too.  One fish that rose ended up being the little brookie I mentioned above, but I also targeted and landed two really pretty, likely wild browns before I left the first hole.  I hiked downstream to a small footbridge below a long set of deeper riffles, and I began to work every little spot as I moved slowly upstream.  I was holding my 10 foot 3 weight, so I was doing a lot of bow and arrow casting, but I did catch a good number of fish in this stretch as well.  A couple of the browns were fat and colorful, even parred up, and could have been multi-year holdovers if not wild fish, but a few more were definitely wild too.

Parred up plumper.

Even with the rain overnight, the creek was small and shallow.  It was also beginning to clear up as the sun rose higher.  For July 31 on a freestone creek, however, conditions were rather good.  The water was not even 64 degrees.  To support the fact that this creek stays cold year round, in addition to the wild and likely holdover browns, I found a handful of brookies, none over 7 inches long, but fun to catch.  The water was getting skinnier and narrower.  With a dry dropper, I would have fished a few spots differently, but I was content to target the high percentage heads and plunges of the pools, eventually changing tactics and moving pretty quickly to the better spots I could spy up ahead, perhaps maximizing my time too.  We had to check out at 11 AM, and I had to contribute to the cleaning list and the load out before that too, so while I was relaxed and having fun, I also knew that I had a 15 minute hike back, provided I didn’t make a wrong turn anywhere.  The trail was well marked, so that did not prove to be a problem, but I had made the initial hike in false dawn conditions. 

Cold water confirmation.

Now that it was getting brighter, I stopped to take a few creek pictures and take in the scenery.  If we return to this area, I would certainly take the boy on a hike and wet wading experience along this creek.  The trails were well-maintained and easy to hike, so even Tami’s knees would not suffer too much here.  The nicest thing was seeing almost the entire riparian buffer intact and no dog beaches or even litter of any kind.  The only footprints I saw on the path were my own today, too, so my fears of Ohiopyle crowds were unfounded.  This little creek was not as sexy as the mighty Yough or Casselman, certainly not as exciting as the water slides of Meadow Run, but it was what I needed today, a quiet, beautiful place away from the summertime crowds.  Even just a few fish would have been perfect.

Some sunlight to show off the colors finally.

I found a few more fish, wild, native, and holdover, in the last set of runs I fished, but conditions were changing.  The bottom was sandier with more down timber, and deeper water seemed harder to find.  I decided to take a walk towards the car and then, after checking the time, decide if a short downstream hike was worth my while.  When I reached the car it was 8:45 AM, so I decided to call it a morning.  I took my time and broke down my rod for the drive home to Philly.  I even took another water temp reading while I was taking off my waders and packing them up for the long drive home.  The water, even at the parking lot, was still under 65, so I felt lucky to get in a very productive small stream trout fishing day on the final day of July and the final day of our mini vacation. 

Another small stream plumper in some sunlight.

I remember having mixed feelings about the Keystone book when it came out because it shared some carefully guarded secrets about some of my favorite creeks and shared information it took many of us years to acquire.  However, I also saw the value of the resource when visiting a new region of the state and trusted the accuracy of the info because the streams I knew already were covered accurately.  I am still of the mind that too much purely logistical information is covered in sometimes minute detail, but since the grump at the Orvis shop was useless, I was glad I brought the book with me this week.  Without it, I may have been chasing pay to play sunfish or atrophied spring stockers instead of having a fun adventure in the Laurel Highlands.  

Just the escape I needed before a 4 hour car ride home.