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| A young old man. |
The first trout I even caught on a dry fly came on a Quill
Gordon from the Little Pine Creek near English Center, PA. I could not have been more than 12 or 13 years
old. For what felt like many years to a
kid, but probably five to ten, my dad and Wardman and I—along with some guests
like Charlie and even a couple summer visits with my whole family of six—stayed
at a cabin near the banks of the creek above Little Pine State Park, where
Josh, Brian, Larry, Clayton, Brendan, and I camped this weekend. The cabin of my youth belonged to an archery
buddy of my dad, and I guess Dan did not fish, so the place was open in spring
and summer to rent on the cheap. The
photo above is of my old man as a young dad tuckered out after fishing for a week in the spring cold and rain in Lycoming County.
That rock was not so easy too find some two decades later, but I did make
sure I caught some stockies in that general area, hunted for the cabin, and took a
moment to thank my father for indulging my still enduring passion to chase the trouts. I would have killed to have Dan's warm cabin to return to a couple times this weekend!
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| Some stockers on Little Pine Creek for old time's sake. |
I did not know what to expect years later with floods, fracking,
population explosion, outdoor recreation of all sorts along Big Pine. A lot has changed in that time, but a lot has
not. There have been some devastating floods,
most recently in 2024, so the landscape has changed drastically in places. At one time the creek slowly meandered and braided
through thick woods into the lake. I know this because my brothers and I tried to tube to the lake from English Center. Imagine parents giving kids that kind of freedom to explore these days! We did not make it, and had to bushwhack towards the honks and shouts from my dad out looking for us as dusk was approaching. That wooded land now looked burned and machined, perhaps to make it safe enough to
replant. The Ash Borer has taken down
countless ash trees, which dominated some of the woods, and now means deadfall
hell while bluelining on certain stretches of tributaries throughout the
region. What has not changed is the
beauty of the mountains, clear and cold running freestoners, all kinds of
wildlife, including wild and native trouts holding strong, even in stocked
streams. Three days full of fishing means
a lot of pictures and stories, so there will be many collages and abridged anecdotes
in what follows. Let’s begin with Day 1.
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| Slate Run was beautiful and nearly fishless for me on cold bugless morning. |
I worked an art show for graduating seniors at my college
on Thursday night, so I did not get to sleep very early or sleep that well (a
lot of hors d'oeuvre and mini desserts, I guess, plus a lot of talking kept the
mind and body active later than normal).
I set the alarm for 3:30 AM, but I got up at 2:30 AM. What’s a guy to do but caffeinate and get on
the road for a 3.5+ hour drive north and west.
I wanted to fish the famous Slate Run on a Friday before potential weekend
crowds. I was rigged up and sliding down
a mountainside to the creek by 8 AM. Turkey
opened on Saturday, so many vehicles were heading to camp, and the crowd on
Pine Creek at Wolfe’s General Store was forming early. Plenty of dudes waist deep in Pine hoping to
hook a massive stocker. By the time I
quit at 2 PM and went into the store to get a bag of ice, there were no less
than 20 cars parked at the store. Slate
is beautiful, and I am glad I saw it again, decades later. I know the fishing is not what it once was,
and it was a cold, bugless morning, so I did not expect to devastate the fish. I did expect to land one, however! I had my chance at a daymaker at my very
first hole, probably my second cast into a perfect plunge pool. This was not Slate but the Manor Fork. This fish was about 15 inches and angry. It hit a jigged bugger and actually pulled
drag in a hole not 15 feet wide but 4 feet deep. I did not have my big net and fumbled with
the one I brought for brook trout, even leading with the net handle instead of
the basket as the fish got close. That did
it. One more run right into a sunken
blowdown in the middle of the hole, and he was gone.
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| A lot of crick pics, more than shown here. Manor Fork and Slate Run. |
This fork got small pretty quickly, and I wanted to see
Slate proper, so I moved spots shortly after this disappointment. I was expecting a good day after that, even
if the first fish encounter ended so poorly.
Little did I know that all I would have to show for 5 hours of fishing
and another spot change were a lot of gorgeous creek pictures. It was a heck of a workout getting out of the
gorge too. On three hours of sleep and
some Cliff bars, I was wheezing and swamped by the time I got to the level road
and the ‘Ru. It was pushing 2 PM before
I left the general store with ice, but at least the campground was only 25
minutes away. Josh, Brian, and Larry had
arrived to set up camp around 10 AM, and they had fished the morning too. They had some success with very small trout
at a couple Class A creeks, and were hanging at camp. They watched me barely beat the incoming rain
storms while I put up my tent. I should
have done a practice run at home this week since it’s been two years since I put
it up. I am sure I was entertaining to the boys, at least.
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| Josh found a decent brookie on day one. Yours truly missed another good fish that evening ;) |
That Friday
evening, everyone split up into different pairings and groups. Brian and I checked out a Class A brookie
creek not far from camp. It had many
dead trees to climb over and around, but we found some brookies in each likely
spot. I even stuck a big brookie that Brian
claimed was 8 inches or more. It had
been a long day, so I have to get a pass on not landing this fish. I did land about 5 more before we quit that
creek and used the available remaining daylight to scope out a few more
creeks. I needed a destination for the
morning since Larry and Brian had to explore Larry’s namesake creek, and Josh
was tasked with guiding Clayton and Brendan, both pretty new to fly fishing and
very new to creeks this small. I would
be solo again, which would give me a chance to make a tour of Little Pine Creek
and my old stomping grounds.
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| Brian and I fishing a Class A on Friday night. Deadfall hell at times, but some fishes caught. |
Friday night
was raining and near freezing all night.
I actually could not hydrate enough before passing out in the tent by
9:30 PM. Before midnight, I was up sensing
incoming Charlie horses in both legs (did I mention Slate was a lot of climbing?) so I had get up and drink a ton of
water. I even took a shower to warm up,
and then fell back asleep finally around 2 AM.
Brendan had it worse! He did not
pack enough warm clothes and was car camping in a RAV 4. So as not to wake up the rest of the
campground, he spent some time idling in his vehicle at the trash dump with the
heat on blast to avoid hypothermia. Not
a fun night, except for Larry, who was snug in his heated VW camper. He is 72 years young, so he deserved that
comfort, especially because Brian was going to put him through his paces on
Saturday. Morning two for me was a drive
around Big Pine scoping tributaries and then a driving tour of English
Center. I caught some stockers in honor
of the old man, as I noted above, but after I briefly fought a two-foot
palomino, I called it good on the stocked fish for the day.
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| Larry on his namesake. My adventure with a much different Lil' Pine (part 2). |
After 11 AM, I
took a ride way up stream to fish unstocked sections of the Little Pine. One spot was a section Brian and I scoped out at dusk
from the car on Friday night. It was a
scramble to get in, so we were convinced that it was rarely if ever
fished. It was beautiful up there. No Slate Run, but it was also much more of a
brown trout creek, with more bends and riparian buffer. I found a good 12-13 inch wild brown at the
first prime hole, then found at least three more smaller fish at the next one,
before I found a deep undercut bank with a down tree holding back 4+ feet of
water. Big brown hole! It did not disappoint, and I got some redemption
for my Manor Fork debacle on Friday morning.
This fish was probably 16 inches and acted bigger in the cold water and
tight confines of a small creek. After a
few pics, I saw a riser under a rake of branches. I had to try and hung everything in the tree,
which I retrieved. It was 2 PM, so I did
not retie. Getting stumbly from lack of food
and making errant casts is a sure sign I have reached the point of diminishing returns,
and I like to end on high notes like this lovely piggy.
I left another beautiful stretch upstream for another day (or another
trip since I did not return on Sunday).
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| A successful afternoon and redemption for Friday's beating. |
Brian and Larry
did not catch a thing all day on Saturday, and while Josh got a few, the newer
fly guys caught nothing, so he took them down to the creek in the campground to
chase fresh stockers in the evening.
Larry went down to get the skunk off himself, caught two quickly, and
returned to camp. Brian, Brendan, and I
just chilled out and tried to start a fire and prime the charcoal for the grill and the night's dinner.
The rain had gone, but in its place was a breeze and what promised to
be another cold night. We failed with
wet wood, but our camp chef and mitch of all trades Josh had the thing roaring
in no time upon his return from slaying stockies. Larry and Brian liberated wood
left behind at a vacated camp, so we burned a lot of firewood that night, a veritable bonfire. It felt great to be warm, and we all hung out
until at least 10:30 or 11 PM before retiring to our cold tents and vehicles
for night two. I learned my lesson from
Friday night and had not only hydrated all day, but had eaten better and showered
after fishing, so I slept as well as if I’d been home in bed. The sound of Josh and Larry in the morning meant
coffee was on, so I rolled out of the tent for day 3.
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| One Sunday morning stocker (sort of). Our regular camp chef and tour guide. |
Clayton relieved Josh from cooking the eggs on Sunday, and we had a leisurely breakfast because the
plan was just to catch some stockers on the Little Pine below the dam and our
campsite. Larry left for home early and
did not miss much that morning. Brendan
had caught nothing in two days, so I said I would “guide” him. Josh tried to get Clayton a couple more, and
Brian and I took Brendan on a walk. I
hooked one fish in two hours, and he ended up with the dropper tag in his
dorsal fin, so it was an adventure trying to land a foul-hooked brown in heavy
current. That was the only fish for the
three of us, so I suck as a guide. Brendan was in the game, however. Had the fish wanted to cooperate, he would
have gotten a couple. His drifts were
good—he had nearly mastered the art of bobber nymphing before hanging his bugs
in a tree. It was nearly lunchtime, and
some guys wanted to head out early, so we had cold cuts and rolls before
packing the rest of the sites up for a 3 PM checkout. Josh and I had other plans that involved one more
fishing trip for the weekend.
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| One last Sunday fishing excursion before the long drive. |
After packing
up and saying farewell to all the campers, Josh and I went back to the creek he,
Brian, and Larry fished on Friday afternoon.
He wanted to start upstream of where they ended and explore more of the creek,
which appeared to have more miles of fishable water on public land. I was game, although we both were in bad
shape making the hike in, huffing and puffing with bellies full of cold cuts
and bodies on day three of steep climbs. We
found the landmark where they climbed out and began working upstream. We lasted about 2 hours total from walk in to
fishing to walk out, but we messed with some brookies. Josh dropped one, then I had one strike my
bobber, the smallest, oval Oros indicator, before finally landing a good-sized
brook trout. I barely deserved to catch
this one. My leader was too long, so my
casts were off in the breeze, and like on Friday I still hadn’t mastered retrieving
the smaller net. Josh was there to net
the fish and transfer the poor thing to my net for a couple photos while he
tried to scare another out of this prime spot.
No dice, so we covered a couple more holes and then found a good place
to climb out.
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| Some days luck overcomes diminished physical abilities. A little something for the effort! |
My day was far
from over. I actually drove an hour to
Bucknell to have dinner with The Boy and his girlfriend before packing up round
one of his move out. It was a long but
enjoyable day. With a belly full of Chinese
food from their favorite place and a couple Cokes, I made the ride home,
another 2.5 hours. I even had the energy
to unpack the ‘Ru before passing out for the night, grateful Monday is a work
from home day. I set the alarm for 8:30
AM just in case, and actually slept until 8 AM, so not a bad guess. I spent the day doing laundry and reading
texts I missed from the group chat that was happening the entire time I was
driving. The poor fellas were already
missing each other! A physically challenging
but mentally rewarding weekend? Not to mention a return to where this long journey all started
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