Maria's Meadow

Around Millheim, Pa.

Well, in case you haven't noticed, it's sulpher time in central Pennsylvania. For the observant fly fisherperson the signs are now everywhere; hotels, motels & campgrounds have been booked solid for weeks, fly shop managers are operating at peak stress levels, resturants, bars and deli's are doing a brisk business and even during mid-week you'll find anglers lined up almost shoulder to shoulder and elbow to elbow along all the big famous limestone streams and rivers. A potential fist fight on the more popular pools on any given evening is a real possibility. Might be a good time to check out some of the smaller and lesser known limestone spring creeks around the state that still harbor good fishable populations of these mayflies. Like Elk Creek...

Charlie's Bridge Pool

Charlie's Pool has some of the best big fish habitat on the upper end of the creek. Deep enough that you can't see the bottom in most places even during low water conditions. Thick with luxuriant weedbeds and shaded by hemlocks that also provide overhead cover, it's the perfect refuge for the negatively phototropic brown trout.

17" Wild Brown Trout

That's what I'm talkin' about! This guy took a size #16 sulpher parachute dun attached to 6X tippet. Try keeping one of these little firecrackers out of the weedbeds with 6X when you're surrounded by steep banks and water deep enough to top your waders. Go ahead, I dare you! This is not your typical catch on Elk Creek but rather an example of what can be accomplished given good habitat, stream stewardship, the proper conditions (i.e. hatching sulphers) and the grace of the fishing gods.

Lunch Time

Upper Elk Creek flows through a patchwork of meadows and woodlands in a predominately Amish & Mennonite Valley. I noticed that the sulphurs on well shaded Elk Creek begin to hatch much earlier in the day than on the larger, more famous streams nearby. Even on bright, sunny days the duns here can be found hatching around 4:00 in the afternoon, where they might not begin on the larger waters until 8 pm or later. Throw in a little cloud cover and light rain and you could have a sulphur hatch that starts around noon time. The Elk Creek Resurgence is located less than a mile upstream from this point in a limestone cave where 52F water gushes forth into the meadow.

Spring Run Confluence

It's hard to tell in this photo but half way up the left bank is where Elk Creek receives yet another nice shot of ice cold limestone water from Spring Run, a short watercress filled tributary with a small private hatchery sitting on it a few hundred yards upstream. Actually, the water table is still high enough here that the western side of the meadow is awash with small spring seeps that make the ground quite spongy when you walk on it. Last year, some small rainbows that were less than 2 inches long escaped from the hatchery during a high water event. They've been growing fast and putting on weight down in the main stream while providing terrific sport on light tackle.

Wild Brown Trout

Above the confluence with Spring Run and it's associated spring seeps in the lower end of the meadow, Elk Creek runs a little smaller and doesn't quite have the quality big fish habitat that we saw down at Charlie's Bridge. Nontheless, it's loaded with fat, sassy gorgeous wild browns, brookies and now a few rainbows that can be very hard to catch when there's no hatching activity taking place. This wasn't the case today though, the sulphers started popping in late afternoon and fish were already working the duns & emergers when I arrive at 5 pm. This continued right up until dark around 9 pm and I honestly lost count of the numbers of fish caught & released on sulphur parachutes and comparaduns but it had to be somewhere in the 20-30 fish range with about half of that many either missed or LDR.

Fast Water in Maria's Meadow

The stream is much narrower up here but it also has good depth, stabilized & undercut banks, a good riffle/pool ratio, clean gravel of just the right size for spawning and lots of overhead cover. Everything a wild trout needs to survive. During the late afternoon sulpher hatch, fish were actually coming up through the fast water to take duns off of the surface which is sort of my personal yardstick for good rising activity.

Maria's Meadow

The underwater substrate is also loaded with small nymphs of various genus and the watercress is filthy lousy with freshwater shrimp making a scud imitation a good choice to fish on any given day. The water runs between 52-56F even during the hottest dog days of summer.

Maria's Meadow

Bring some extra terrestrials with you when you fish the upper end of the creek. The dense streamside vegatation and overhead cover should provide terrific terrestrial fishing during high summer. Hatches of sulpher Mayflies (dortheas) and possibly some pink ladies (Epeorus vitreus) continue up until the end of July.

Amish Farm - Rebersburg, Pa.

They like to make hay while the sun is shinning in central Pee-Aye. Lamentably, the sun has been shinning a little too much lately. We sure could use some rain as the stream levels are getting a little low for this time of the year -even on our spring fed streams. On the plus side, it makes for some productive dry fly fishing.

My favorite Amish pick-up line: Are Ye up for some plowing?

Downstream Pocketwater

It's not all meadow water on Elk Creek. Here the stream cuts a course through the Narrows section downstream of Maria's Meadow.

Parting Shot: Millheim Trout Festival

They sure go bonkers over trout fishing around here. If you think the streams were crowded around here this past week, wait until you see them next week with the arrival of Ephemera guttullata, aka the green drake.

A Tough Trip Through Paradise

Slate Run Tackle Shop

The Tiadaghton/Pine Creek Road. For many fly fisherperson's, a road trip through the Big Woods Country of northcentral Pennsylvania would not be complete without a stop at the Slate Run Tackle Shop -aka Wolfe's General Store. Seems like they've been around here forever tending to the various needs of a steady stream of ridgerunners, flatlanders and wood hicks that frequent the remote store. Although recently the word all up and down the new DCNR Pine Creek bike trail is that owners Tom & Deb Finkbiner are looking to finally sell the place and retire. The Pine Creek Valley won't be quite the same without their advice and hospitality. Tom and Deb always sort of reminded me of Ralph and Sue Glidden, the former owners of the Cooke City General Store in Montana.

East Fork

The headwaters of the East Fork of "Stony Lick Creek" are located in the Susquehannock State Forest. Further down the valley it warms and becomes marginal trout habitat right before it flows into one of Potter County's more famous stocked trout streams, but up here in the headwaters it's another one of those Class A wild trout stream gems that are sprinkled throughout Pennsylvania's Big Woods. Despite the generally sunny weather conditions the overnight lows hovered in the 30'sF and the daytime highs never got above 60F. This, along with an appraoching storm front, appeared to be the reason the fish were a lttle off the feed on this trip. I had to work real hard to catch the few fish that I did and I was lucky to get out of there without my water bottles freezing up at night.

Cherry Springs Vista

Somewhere down there in one of those valley's is the celebrated Rossiter Lodge, scene of the legendary, annual Big Woods Summit. Often held in late May or early June, it's often praised more for it's high spirited debauchery than for it's fishing, nonetheless, people have come from all over the country to attend this well known gathering of fly fishing misfits, oddballs and nonconformists here in Potter County, Pa. -but that's a whole other story. This shot was taken looking south from Route 44, right smack dab in the middle of Potter County.

Cedar Run Cabin

This place gets my vote for one of the most secluded fishing cabins in the state. Hard on the banks of Cedar Run, and just downstream of the ghost town of Leetonia, it's obviously well maintained by the owners since it's been sitting here for years and seems to be in just as good condition now as when I first saw it 30 years ago. During it's heyday in the lumbering years Leetonia once had a population of 3,000 people. Today there are only two year around residents along with a small cluster of seasonal hunting and fishing camps. On this day the riffles of Cedar Run were cranking out moderate numbers of blue quills and quill gordon mayflies...

Wild Brown Trout - Cedar Run

...and I even found a few trout rising in the pools downstream from the cabin stretch but, in retrospect, I probably should have gone down after them with a hares ear wet fly or similar artifice instead of begrudgingly sticking to the dry fly. Despite years of on-again/off-again drought conditions, coupled with the limited acid rain buffering capacity in our northcentral mountains, the wild trout population in Cedar Run seems to be holding it's own just fine so far.

East Fork

Hatches were sparse last week on the upper East Fork. With the cooler than normal ambient air temps we've had lately the food chain just hasn't kicked into high gear up here yet. Even so I pounded up a few small fish by prospecting around with an elk hair caddis & Adams dry flies.

Marsh Marigolds and Skunk Cabbage

If there's a better sign of spring out there in Penn's Woods then I just haven't seen it yet.

East Fork Wild Brown Trout

They didn't come often and they didn't come easy on this trip but when one did come to hand it would remind you how lucky you were to be catching wild trout in such a beautiful setting.

Cedar Run

A small tributary flows down a deeply incised hollow near the ghost town of Leetonia to add it's flow to one of the many gentle riffles that are found along the entire length of Cedar Run.

Freestone Wild Brown trout

These freestone browns don't exactly color up in the same way that their limestone brethren do but, what the hay, it's not easy being a wild trout in a freestone stream where you have to deal with cyclical droughts, floods, acid spikes, meager food supplies and bumbling fisherpersons like myself.

Cedar Run Around Fahnestock Mountain

Despite the lethargic response from the fish on this past trip, upper Cedar Run is still one of my very favorite wild places left in the wilds of Pee-Aye. May it always remain so!

Edgemere Cabin - Cherry Springs State Park

This old cabin that one see's today in Cherry Springs State Park is actually a replica of the original hotel built by Jonathan Edgecomb back in 1818 in "Edgmere's Clearing" at the head of some small springs along the newly layed out Jersey Shore to Coudersport Turnpike -today's Route 44. This facsimile was constructed by the CCC in the 1930's when they built the rest of the park's infrastructure

Real men fish freestone streams while camping outside in 30 degree weather!

Living on the road my friend
Is gonna keep you free and clean
Now you wear your skin like iron
Your breath's as hard as kerosene

- Townes Van Zandt