May 10, 2010
Another year has come and gone. I’m specifically talking about my much anticipated annual fishing trip to the Sinnemahoning area of Pennsylvania. Every year I get another dose of reality in that I could spend a lifetime coming to this part of the world and still not see all that there is to discover. No, this is not some exotic destination (at least to me) that may include cacti, red canyons, marshland, alligators, warm sandy water or dormant volcanoes. This is instead a part of what is affectionately called “God’s Country” by those who know it well. It is to me…an outdoor paradise.
I took my bike down off the roof Thursday evening. I had this crazy idea of taking a night bike ride up a dirt road. The previous evening I’d attended an overnight field trip with my son’s fifth grade class. Among the activities was a night hike. Being in the woods with no artificial light is an amazing experience. The sights and sounds explode all around you. Things you normally wouldn’t think you should see are plainly visible. I wanted to try this on a bike.
I was running late and hurried as I fastened the front wheel to my Diamond Back. The light was fading quickly. It was around 7:30pm. I made sure my Princeton Tec head lamp was in my Camelback and that was about it. Nothing else was really a necessity.
The grind up the dirt road felt good. There was one cabin off to the right but little else; just a lot of trees. I could hear water moving to my right as I continued to pedal up the dirt road. The dull roar of the trickle bounced and echoed up the hollow. It got steeper. My breaths settled in to a steady rhythm. The Bontrager Jones XC tires bit in nicely. The light was gone at this point. There was no moon, just a lot of clouds. The woods on both sides of me were alive with sounds. I couldn’t see any movement, but the noises betrayed the animals.
Suddenly, it looked like a car came up behind me. I looked back over my shoulder and saw nothing. I glanced up and saw that I had broken free of the canopy over the road. No moon. No trees. But the extra light was all that I needed. I had a vision of some episode of “CSI” complete with a blown up video of an eyeball and the pupils dilating and contracting as the light changes.
I stopped and straddled the bike. I was in the middle of the road. To my left the hill went up sharply. Boulders the size of a VW marked the hill here and there. Bear country for sure. To my right the blackness of the valley put me at no ease. I took a sip of water and thought of the cold beer in my cooler. Time to head back down, I thought. I secured the headlamp under the brim of my helmet and pointed the bike down the hill.
The beers that first night always taste the best. The anticipation and the promise of fish in the creel and hikes in the woods is something special.
It seems like in recent years the fishing has been off. The state continues to put fewer and fewer fish in the streams, but there are still plenty in there. You simply just can’t go out and drag bait or spinners through every riffle and pool and expect to catch your limit. When I started fishing on Friday morning there were guys in camp who had fished hard the previous two days and had caught either no fish or just one or two. Some of these guys had a reputation of catching their daily limit rather easily and the lack of action was a bit disheartening. Friday morning came and went with nary a bump or a nibble.
Around noon I went with a buddy to the 40 Maples section of the First Fork. This is fast moving water and the wading is always a bit treacherous. The color of the run was multiple shades of blue and green. This stretch had a rather “fishy” look to it but then again this run was most certainly pounded by angler after angler. My set up was simple. It was just a size 14 split double hook tied to an 18 inch piece of 4x tippet, a black swivel and a single split shot. I impaled an extra wiggly red worm on the hook and tossed it out into the current. I let line drift out a bit before flipping the bail. Three seconds later the fish slammed my bait.
I knew it was a decent fish from the moment it hit. I saw a flash of silver and hoped it wasn’t a smallmouth bass which weren’t yet in season. If this was a trout then it was a good one, I thought. The drag clicked and zipped and I suddenly realized that I was using a brand new rod and reel and I had never set the drag. I tried to move the fish to the shallow water but as I did this it flopped and splashed more and more. I guided it back to the deeper water but it dove and swam downstream with the powerful current. After what seemed way longer than actually was I floated the fish into my net and let out a sigh of relief. My buddy whooped it up. OK, I thought…now I can relax.
In essence the same thing happens every year. I fish until I catch something and then once that proverbial monkey is off my back I head for the hills either for a hike or a bike ride or both. The scenery is stunning and the chances to see wildlife are high. The highlight this year was seeing an immature bald eagle fly down through the valley right in front of me with a nice trout in his talons. No white head…but still damn majestic.
Friday afternoon was spent on a hike in the Upper Jerry Natural Area. I headed up the hill away from the stream. The opportunities for photographs were plentiful. Instead of hiking boots I wore my Keen H20s. Like I mentioned in an earlier forum posting, I’m not sure how the folks at Keen HQ manage to put out a “do it all” sandal, but their result is pure magic. I can’t say enough positive things about this footwear.
Eventually, I ended up down in the valley at the stream. Maybe it was too much Les Stroud talk the night before or a buddy of mine telling me about his experiences with his son and the Boy Scouts but I got this crazy idea to try and catch a trout with a stick and some tippet. I happened to have everything on me in my Camelback including some fresh wax worms. Making the fishing rod out of a green branch and then attaching the 2 pound tippet was a bit of a challenge in the fading light. The gossamer like Seaguar fluorocarbon was terrible to work with, however, and I maintain that had I had some different tippet I could have pulled it off. Maybe next time.
Saturday morning was spent on a section known as Trout Way on the First Fork. It is a perfect stretch for fly fishing because the creek is wide with plenty of room for back casting and there always seems to be fish coming to the surface. I had some amazing action once I got situated next to a nice run and probably missed 20 fish. I landed a small bass on a caddis dry fly and an even smaller chub on a size 18 Adams dry fly. The set up that produced the most strikes was a Royal Wulff dry fly with a San Juan worm as a dropper. I probably had 6 solid hits on the worm on 6 successive drifts at one point. Frustrating but fun. They weren’t all trout that I missed but I’m sure quite a few of them were. Note to self…hit this section with a fly rod more than one time next year.
By this point the turkey hunters were out of the woods and I was anxious to get on my bicycle. I made my way over to Wykoff Run Road and headed up toward the top. I stopped at two different smaller runs that dumped into Wykoff and did a bit of exploring. Again…more little waterfalls and pockets of nature than you can see in a lifetime. I actually started thinking about a non-fiction science/picture book that I would like to write someday. I certainly have the photos.
At one point I slipped as I was making my way up a steep incline and I nicked my knuckle. It wasn’t cut bad but my hand was bleeding. Within minutes I had several large, black flies continually trying to land on the bloody finger. I cleaned it off and put on a Band-Aid as soon as I could because the thought of these critters sniffing out my blood was just too freaky.
Eventually I made it to the top of Wykoff Run Road and pulled onto a dirt road. I think it was Old Wykoff Run Road but the maps were all kind of different. That is actually one of the problems with an area like this. You can read up on these places as much as you can and look at as many maps as you can lay your hands on but until you get your boots on the ground it doesn’t mean squat. Sometimes the trails and roads are named different things on different maps. Sometimes you can find yourself in a situation where you think you know where you are based on one map and then you look at a second map and your psyche is blown out of whack because the information doesn’t jive.
This is exactly what happened to me once I started pedaling my bicycle. I had every intention of finding the large stand of birch trees that supposedly exists at the top of Wykoff Run Road. There are marked trails that are supposed to get you close. But what happens is you start down an easy section of double track or even a fire trail but then the spurs start branching out and names are suddenly appearing on trail markers and they aren’t where they are supposed to be. That is when bad things can happen. Those woods are nothing to screw around with. If you don’t give them the respect they deserve you can find yourself sleeping outside real quick.
There is just so much land, and it is so loud. The noise is deafening. You hear animals and water and a background cacophony that somehow doesn’t jive with a peaceful wilderness. At any turn you may find yourself face to face with a 400 pound black bear or an elk or a porcupine. And there are other things you need to remember as you venture into the wilderness. As I adjusted the rear brakes on my bicycle I could feel tiny things crawling up and around my legs. Forget fashion when you ride in the woods in this area. Socks up to your knees are in order. My arms burned as I pedaled away from the car and the tiny creepy crawlies I couldn’t see. That sensation hasn’t returned and I’m glad about that.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I know this area doesn’t have the vastness of the great American west. This isn’t Montana or Alaska. If you walked in one direction before long you would hit some sign of civilization. But that doesn’t make it that comforting. This is still the PA Wilds. It is still an area you need to respect. Shit can still get sideways out here pretty quick and if you are not careful you could get killed.
I can’t wait until next year.