Along North Central Pennsylvania’s Pine Creek, a big Western-style river that flows through the state’s “Grand Canyon,” many of the hottest fishing holes have been named over the years by the thousands of fly fishing anglers who flock there.
There’s the “Cemetery Pool,” behind the graveyard in Cammal; the “Church Pool,” near an old house of worship in Waterville; and “The Stretch,” stocked by the Slate Run Tackle Shop’s Brown Trout Club.
Everybody’s tried them at one point and probably had success. But there is nothing like having your own fishing hole, a special place to keep secret.
Anglers have their own way of talking that guards their favorite sites. Ask one streamside how they’re doing, and the answer might be that “it’s slow” or a simple “OK, not so great.” Both mean the guy’s killing it, and he wants you to leave — now.
Fishing guides are even more elusive. One of my favorite Pennsylvania guides recently posted photos of some fat rainbow trout, and I sent him a message asking where he caught them. All I got was “a place you know well.” There are a lot of those. Thanks.
After fishing Pine and its tributaries since the 1980s, I think I’ve finally found my own hole. And it’s a beauty.
The river flows to it by the front yard of a cozy house I rent. The trout are about 50 yards downstream in the riffles and Olympic-size pool they prefer.
It’s a picturesque place, running between two mountains. There are few other houses on the stretch of about a mile. We often see deer, eagles, and even orioles. A black bear once followed me for part of a day.
To get the best access to the riffles and pool, crossing the river is a must, something often thwarted if the Pine is too high. Two years ago, my brother-in-law fished out a huge brown trout from the deep pool at the end of the riffle. I did the same on the following day. Together we caught more than 20 trout in that one spot.
But last year, flooding rain hit the Pine on our arrival day, and the fishing was killed for the week. This year, I went up early in late April, but the water was too high to cross the Pine.
In May, my older brother, Bill, and Chris, my brother-in-law, headed back. The Pine again looked high, but we tried to cross anyway. Halfway across, we turned back before the pressure pushed us over. Afterward, Chris stuck a stick in the mud at the water’s edge and we decided to try again once the water pulled back a foot or more from the stick.
For the next two days, we checked the stick and also looked downstream to make sure nobody was in our hole. Still too high.
But on the second-to-last day of our trip, the water level had dropped just enough to try another crossing. It worked.
Chris immediately headed to our hole and started catching browns and rainbows on prince and gray fox nymphs. I started in the riffle with a similar rig but caught nothing. Big brother Bill followed me down the riffle to the hole.
Since there were no dry fly hatches, we switched over to Chris’ rig, and for the next several hours, we caught and released nearly 50 trout before it died down.
We went back the next morning, of course, expecting similar action. And nothing. We had a few strikes but didn’t catch a single one. As they say, that’s why they call it “fishing” and not “catching.”
On the way back, Chris said the hole is his favorite place to trout fish, and I agreed. He then asked if I’d ever told the owner of our rental, a super sweet and helpful landlord, about our hole.
The answer was obvious: “What hole?”
Paul Bedard is a senior columnist and author of Washington Secrets.
