Reading the announcement of the annual Big Woods Summit at the famed Rossiter Lodge in the Wilds of Pennsylvania induced a serious case of spring fever. I had an urgent need to fish. Where to go on a picture perfect April spring day? Thinking of the upcoming celebration of George Harvey’s life at Fisherman’s Paradise on Sunday April 20, I decided to head west of State College on Highway 45 to the “George Harvey water” on Spruce Creek. This is the only public water on Spruce Creek, named after George Harvey, the “Dean of Flyfishing”, and is a fantastic half mile of stream.
I arrived about 4 p.m. to clouds of caddis coming off the riffle at the bottom of the half-mile stretch. I pounded the water with every combination of dry, wet, nymph fly I could find in my vest to no avail. I tried a caddis and a bead, a bead and a caddis, a caddis-bead-caddis, well, you get the picture. I finally settled on pounding the water with a generic elk hair caddis and eventually caught some smallish fish.
I slowly worked my way to the top of the half-mile stretch by 6:30. At the top end there is a nice pool that usually holds one or two good fish. I landed a few fair to middling browns and then things went quiet. I switched to a #12 rust-colored elk hair caddis for a change of pace. After a number of drifts I carelessly let the fly glide to the bank and began to pick up the line when the caddis imitation disappeared in a loud slurp. As soon as I came tight to the fish I realized that I had not changed tippet and still had a piece of 6X at the end of the leader. I held my breath and slowly, gingerly worked the fish toward me. He allowed me one good look at him. At least 18 inches. Large black spots. A mouth like a pike. He shook his head and the tippet and fly parted ways.
Chastened but exhilarated, I worked my way back down stream. The clouds of caddis against the setting sun made for a surreal scene. I half heartedly cast to several pools and landed a few more smallish fish. I climbed the bank to head home but decided to try the pool near the USGS stream gage. The clouds of caddis were now a fog and fish were doing acrobatics chasing the bugs coming off the bottom. Again I tried every combination of fly and technique I could remember from reading the winter’s flyfishing magazines. Finally, with my arm and shoulder slowly going numb, I simply dapped a lead-wing coachman with a brown hackle throat on the surface. There were a few nips at the fly and then a shadow came from behind a rock and swallowed the fly.
The Spruce Creek Rod and Gun Club is some distance upstream from the George Harvey stretch. Each year during Ag Progress Days in August I attend a picnic at Wayne Harpster’s covered bridge on Spruce Creek, just below his farm. The covered bridge was built with Jimmy Carter’s help. There are monster rainbows under that bridge. Those monsters sometimes get lost and stray downstream. I had hooked one of those monsters. This time I had fresh 5X on the leader and I slowly played the 20-inch slab to the shallow water. He had brilliant red cheeks and a luminescent rainbow stripe. With a tip of the hat to Wayne Harpster and George Harvey, I released him.
A good day on Spruce Creek. Thanks, George. Rest in peace.
I arrived about 4 p.m. to clouds of caddis coming off the riffle at the bottom of the half-mile stretch. I pounded the water with every combination of dry, wet, nymph fly I could find in my vest to no avail. I tried a caddis and a bead, a bead and a caddis, a caddis-bead-caddis, well, you get the picture. I finally settled on pounding the water with a generic elk hair caddis and eventually caught some smallish fish.
I slowly worked my way to the top of the half-mile stretch by 6:30. At the top end there is a nice pool that usually holds one or two good fish. I landed a few fair to middling browns and then things went quiet. I switched to a #12 rust-colored elk hair caddis for a change of pace. After a number of drifts I carelessly let the fly glide to the bank and began to pick up the line when the caddis imitation disappeared in a loud slurp. As soon as I came tight to the fish I realized that I had not changed tippet and still had a piece of 6X at the end of the leader. I held my breath and slowly, gingerly worked the fish toward me. He allowed me one good look at him. At least 18 inches. Large black spots. A mouth like a pike. He shook his head and the tippet and fly parted ways.
Chastened but exhilarated, I worked my way back down stream. The clouds of caddis against the setting sun made for a surreal scene. I half heartedly cast to several pools and landed a few more smallish fish. I climbed the bank to head home but decided to try the pool near the USGS stream gage. The clouds of caddis were now a fog and fish were doing acrobatics chasing the bugs coming off the bottom. Again I tried every combination of fly and technique I could remember from reading the winter’s flyfishing magazines. Finally, with my arm and shoulder slowly going numb, I simply dapped a lead-wing coachman with a brown hackle throat on the surface. There were a few nips at the fly and then a shadow came from behind a rock and swallowed the fly.
The Spruce Creek Rod and Gun Club is some distance upstream from the George Harvey stretch. Each year during Ag Progress Days in August I attend a picnic at Wayne Harpster’s covered bridge on Spruce Creek, just below his farm. The covered bridge was built with Jimmy Carter’s help. There are monster rainbows under that bridge. Those monsters sometimes get lost and stray downstream. I had hooked one of those monsters. This time I had fresh 5X on the leader and I slowly played the 20-inch slab to the shallow water. He had brilliant red cheeks and a luminescent rainbow stripe. With a tip of the hat to Wayne Harpster and George Harvey, I released him.
A good day on Spruce Creek. Thanks, George. Rest in peace.
3 comments:
I recall fishing the Harpster stretch with my baseball coach in 1968. I don't recall a covered bridge but I do remember catching bunches of trout 12" - 14". On what? A #12 elk hair caddis!
(thundering applause) Well done, Matt. That brought back a lot of memories. I use to fish the George Harvey & Colerain beats a lot when I was a kid. I would often make the long drive up there to pick up some free range chickens during the community butchering day in Franklinville. Of course back then it was called the Paul Harvey section but I think that was just a typo from the boys at the PSU printing department.
I broke the tip of my old Fenwick glass fly rod one day while crawling through the thick brush just downstream of the Bachman Blind. Later that afternoon I walked into a once popular fly shop on Pike Street in Lemont and slapped down the wampum for a brand new Orvis Spring Creek fly rod (9'3" - 5 wgt) that I fell in love with on the first cast. This was circa '82-'84 -It's all starting to become a blur...
There were a few pockets on that stream where I could've bet the house on a foot long wild brown on my first cast with a #12 Clayton Peters style woven perla nymph.
Haven't fished the Spruce Creek Valley in close to 25 years.
What a great story! You guys on the RBF Pro Staff are sooooooo talented!
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