Fishing Creek and White Deer Creek, PA

Bryan and I had planned to hit Fishing Creek in central PA ahead of a volleyball tournament in Happy Valley for a few months so I left the Pentagon and headed up on Thursday planning to do a recon Thursday evening and meet Bryan and his dad Jack for a full day of fishing Friday. Fishing Creek is one of the top 100 trout streams in the nation so we were really looking forward to the adventure.  Fishing Creek is a pretty popular name for a creek in PA so the one we're talking about is just south of Hwy 80 in Lamar and the area we planned to hit is called the Narrows. When I arrived at the Narrows just above the hatchery I was disappointed to find it blown-out from thunder storms earlier in the week. 

Blown Out Fishing Creek at the Narrows from the 1st Bridge above the Hatchery

Not one to be dissuaded I decided to find a feeder tributary and walk up it in the hope of finding lower, slower, clearer water.  In luck I found Cherry Run a mile or so down Narrows Road.  Cherry Run is a skinny little blue line and was running full and fast but thankfully clear so I decided to give it a shot. Jack later told me that all these little tribs hold a good population of brookies but the water was too fast for more than a second or two of drift and I think it was just too high for the fish to be active. I called Bryan and Jack and told them that we needed to find a higher, slower stream if we were going to have any luck on Friday and we agreed to meet at a family favorite White Deer Creek another 30 miles east on Interstate 80.  I bedded down for the night at a just barely acceptable EconoLodge and made my way to our link-up Friday morning.  I was 90-min ahead of Bryan and Jack so I decided to give the inviting waters at the link-up a try.  As I walked in I came face to face with a good sized Eastern Hognose Snake basking in the sun on some branches right at eye-level...sure got my attention!

Hognose Alert

I made it to the water and caught this small buy respectable brown on my second cast, he was in a hollow behind a boulder in the middle of the creek staying out of the main flow.

The only brown of the day

After catching a trout on my second cast of the day I was excited that the we'd have a great catch rate, turns out that this was our only decent trout of the day!  After rigging back up a fist full of power bait floated past me and I looked up to see some fish-eaters around the next bend in the river so I walked back to the Jeep (eyes in the trees this time to avoid snakes!).  Bryan and his dad arrived as planned and we headed up White Deer Pike until we out drove most of the pressure and arrived at a favorite section where there's little pressure and we found lots of trout last year.  We fished this section of the river hard for about 4 hours but the only fish interested in our flies were 2-inch fingerlings,  I caught about 7-8 as I was using a #20 pheasant tail dropper whose hook was small enough to catch in their tiny mouths, other than these little fingerlings we were reminded that its called fishing and not catching for a reason. 

Bryan Prospecting on White Deer Creek -- the water was high but fishable

We did have a great time together and promised to re-connect for another trip this summer.   Our best guess was that we just hit the river a day before the fish turned on after the heavy rains.