Not having fished the trout streams of interior PA, I jumped at the chance to accompany Bryan Davis and his dad Jack to their home waters about 60 miles ENE of State College, PA before my daughter's volleyball tournament. Bryan is her coach and we'd swapped fishing tales but had never had a chance to get out on the water together before.
We linked up at about noon and outdrove any fishing pressure on dirt roads until we came to a parking cutout familiar to Jack and Bryan. We geared up with short light flyroads and began the 200 yd walk to the white deer river. I believe Jack had hand made the rod he was using out of cedar he had left over from a present he'd made for Bryan. We enjoyed telling stories in the lot and during the walk to the river. At the river we found a bridge that became our waypoint for the trip.
We crossed the river which was a little smaller and slower than the Rapidan at the junction pool and walked down-stream another 200 yds before we began leap-frog-fishing back up to the bridge. It wasn't long before we found that the river was filthy with 2" brookies who aggressively attacked both dries and droppers. I fished the majority of the day with my standard tandem, dry-dropper rig and Bryan and Jack almost exclusively stayed with light colored dry patterns in the #14 range. We fished up past the bridge/waypoint and continued fishing upstream for a half mile or so until volleyball beckoned us back to State College. It was a great day. Jack noted that the fish we caught were the smallest he'd experienced and that the stream usually yields far bigger trout. There's no doubt in my mind that they werein there they just weren't as active as the small guys.
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