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Chasing Brookies...
Friday, November 20.
Agreed to work late to get the vacation days I requested. Hurried home a few hours later than I'd planned and threw together a bag of clothes and a few important supplies for 6 days deep in the mountains of north central Pennsylvania. Far past the last of the telephone poles and sewer drains, on a dirt road that branched off of a dirt road to a hunting camp with my dad, a good friend of his, Dave, and his son Logan who's in his mid-teens. The four of us, plus several others, meet at least once every summer to fish the Allegheny, and the bear hunting is something they've been doing for years, but this was the first time I was joining them.
Of course, Friday, I didn't get to see much. Night is a lot darker in a place like that, and we didn't arrive until well after sunset. Still, we managed to get a healthy start on the beer and I tied a few flies before settling in to sleep.
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The next morning, we awoke to the first of a series of hearty breakfasts cooked in a cast iron skillet on a potbellied stove and I got my first good look at the view from the front porch. Well before there was any bear hunting to be done, we all decided to pile into a pickup and head to Renovo to check out a local store, and do some exploring on the way back. In town, I picked up a topo map of the area where the camp is located and got a few hooks for tying.
On the way back to nowhere, we turned off the main road onto a pair of ruts that plunged into the forest without much more than a brown post to mark it as a road. We took the road down to where it ended and walked off into the woods until we found this spot...
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Where I made my first catch...
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After walking that stream till the hollow started to darken, we headed back for camp as well as the rich food, cold beer, banter, and stories that any back woods camp would be incomplete without.
Sunday morning I awoke to the surprisingly horrible sound of a grate on a pot bellied stove being rattled to clear the ashes of the previous night's fire. By the time I headed downstairs, a few shovels of coal were crackling away inside. A second fried breakfast was behind me when I pulled out the map I'd bought the day before and Logan and I unrolled it to plan out a Sunday morning fishing trip to a nearby stream. Planning to be back by noon, we set off down the trail, our dads stopping about 50 yards into the trip and wishing us good luck as they filled buckets with water from the spring: the camp's only water source.
We did well, with both Logan and I catching several beautiful fish in the few hours we planned for our excursion. After fishing with a few small bits of tackle, Logan eventually switched over to one of the flies I offered him to use with his ultralight spinning outfit. He fared much better after tying on the fly. Also saw some unbelievable scenery...
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This dark little guy came from a pool just a few feet above one of the others...not sure why the dark coloration.
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[Continued...]
After that, we hit a bar a few miles away for the game, then back to the camp, where I taught Logan to tie his first fly, a brown woolly bugger that's a bit too big for those mountain brookies, but one that he can use almost anywhere else, even with a spinning rod.
Monday was the first day of the 2009 bear season. I woke up with the hunters, well before first light, and ate a pancake, sausage & bacon breakfast (a guy could get used to these breakfasts), and wished them luck as they headed out. As I wasn't hunting, I volunteered to do the dishes and then go refill our water buckets at the spring.
Later on in the day, my dad came back and we explored some of the more well-known streams in the area. Though we visited Black Moshannon, Kettle, Mosquito, and Young Womans creeks, we only actually fished the first and the last.
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Only got one chaser here, but I did snap one of the nicer photos of the trip, when I took a shot of my dad fishing the stream:
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Note the orange hat...we both wore some blaze orange just to be on the safe side.
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Also ventured up to Shingle Branch, Young Woman's Creek.
Both places looked promising, but no fish in either location. The scenery made it worthwhile.
After our tour of the more popular creeks, we went in search of some elk. Managed to spot several cows and one big bull with a radio collar. It was an awesome sight. Got a few shots, but none turned out very well.
Tuesday, we all slept in (on purpose), and in the afternoon, when my dad got back to camp, we went back out and hit both Young Womans Creek again (main, left, and shingle), as well as another nearby tiny mountain freestoner. While the trout at YWC again proved elusive, we both caught natives and enjoyed more beautiful scenery at the smaller water.
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Wednesday, my dad wasn't planning on hunting, but rather getting packed up and heading out early in the afternoon. For my part, I awoke to find two ticks making a meal out of me, but we managed to remove them, mouthparts and all, without much difficulty. No pictures of that.[;)]
All in all, a trip I'll remember for a long, long time.[:)]
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The definition of "trophy fish" is very relative, eh?
Glad you got a few trophies.
DANBOB
And, your photos are EXCELLENT! Thanks for the photo essay.
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There are few times when I miss my home State.
You have managed to make this one of those times.
Great pics.
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Hi Cold - Thanks for the great report on your trip. I have friends that live in Renovo, and spend the week before the PA Fish-In up there. We stay in a cabin on top of the mountain between YWC and the Kettle watershed. It's awesome! I feel right at home up there.:wink:
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That area has some incredible fishing. You can drive for DAYS on the dirt roads up there! Surprisingly, most of them were shown on my GPS - it doesn't differentiate between pavement and dirt. A lot of the "roads" don't have names - just SR numbers, if that.
Two valleys over from YWC is the Pine Creek valley. That's where the PA Fish-In is held (Waterville). If you ever get the chance, try to come up for the Fish-In. There's a bunch of us that have spent many years crawling along the creeks up there. Pine Creek, Little Pine, Slate Run, and Cedar Run are a few of the better known waters.
The only thing I've found that I don't like is the availability of gas stations up there. Not necessarily a bad thing, but one does have to fill up when near civilization! The price of gas in Renovo is outrageous....
Beautiful country - IMHO, best in PA. I look forward to spending two weeks in a row up there every year. We have room for one more person in the cabin for the week before the PA Fish-In, and every year, I have a standing invitation open for any FAOL'er that wants to join us......
Nice area for a Fish-In, don't ya think?
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WOW !!
That is an excellent narrative of your trip with some outstanding pics to showcase the experience. Thanks for taking the time to show us your neck of the woods and the beautiful little brookies that live there.
Wow.
John
P.S. Did I say WOW ??
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really nice pic. you got and the brooks trout look like fun to play with to
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I'm with JohnScott, WOW!! great pics, thanks for sharing.
hNt
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Awesome story and photos. The only possible explanation for the very dark brookie would possibly be the bottom content of the pool he was taken in?