You Can Help

The other week as I was having lunch below Coburn at the walk over old rail bridge I noticed that a very large percentage of trees are dead, maybe a victim of the Emerald Ash Borrower? We are loosing a valuable source of shade for our beloved Penn Creek, well what could you do to help, plant a few trees is one the biggest things we could all do, here is a list of the species that will work well;
Near the stream- Silver Maple, Swamp Oak and River Birch
Away from the stream- Red Maple, Hackberry, Honey Locust and Sweet Gum
According to the experts if you had to pick one you would pick River Birch, we can either buy some of them or just find a good stand and take a few small trees and plant them in good locations. Just pick a spot that has a dead Ash tree and hope that it will withstand a high water event. This is a project that every fisherman and woman should try and do, our resource is loosing valuable cover from the Emerald Ash insect and from what I can see the only two things that our benefiting from it is fire wood guys and wood peckers.
   Speaking about high water, last week my backyard rain guage had 3" in it from the Thursday/Friday rain, blown out is not accurate, really really blown out is a much better description of the state of our streams and the Susquehanna River. Penns went from 250 cfs to 5200 cfs in a few short hours, Spring Creek is still over 200 cfs, maybe they might be fishable by this weekend? We still have a ton of Gray Fox, March Browns and Sulphurs to go before the big event. If you want to go, the one that I might try by Thursday would be Fishing Creek in Larmar but with no in stream gauges it is a guessing game at best, maybe we might want to take up golf! No way!
  The other night I watched a new movie "The River" from Gate's AuSable Fly Shop, if you have ever fished the river or wanted to do so you really should watch it, a moving and insightful presentation about the resource and the history of the river. Years ago I was aquainted with a few guys from Michigan and Jim Temple who told me stories of how good and hard the fishing was, well being from the East I scoffed at them and really did understand just what they were saying. Move forward 25 years and after fishing the AuSable and getting my butt kicked a few time I began to understand just how good these guys were and how good the fly tyers were that supplied the shops (most all of them were local tyers and really took great pride in their flies). I began to understand just how difficult it was to get a good float in the river and if you caught a fish over 12" in the day light in Summer it was a big deal, this river system is late evening and night fishing at it's best, that my friends makes good flyfishermen and women. This river makes you think about your presentation and just how you'll float a fly to the rising trout, no blind casting here, very specific targets and always thinking how to fool the fish. Take a dose of really great warm sharing people and it is one of the best places in the world to spend time, stay at Gates Lodge and leave your motel room door open with the screen and fall asleep to the sounds of the river. Buy the movie and you'll get an appreciation for the people and resource, make sure you don't miss the short spots about Bob Summers and The Brothers Brown!