Anglers work the water
A handful of anglers were working the waters of the fabled Fisherman’s Paradise section of Centre County’s Spring Creek as my partners and I started up the streamside trail.
The late February day was fairly mild by northcentral Pennsylvania standards. Still, the warming hike felt welcome, a fitting preparatory preamble to wading in the 42 degree water.
The upstream boundary of the 0.8 mile Fisherman’s Paradise section — which falls under the agency’s Catch and Release, Fly Fishing Only program — ends at the H. R. Stackhouse School’s pistol range.
The school is located within the same area as the Paradise waters, as is the Bellefonte trout hatchery.
Up until recently, our trek would have ended at the boundary of the fly-fishing project, an end-of-the-line halt at the property controlled by Rockview State Prison. Off limits to the public for decades, anglers, hunters, hikers and bikers now have access to over four miles of Spring Creek in a wild canyon setting.
More than 1,800 acres is now being jointly managed by the multi-partnered Spring Creek Canyon Cooperative Management Coalition, made up of the Pennsylvania Game Commission, Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, the state Department of Corrections, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and The Pennsylvania State University and Benner Township.
Benner Township manages a portion of the land designated as a recreational area; the Game Commission manages a portion of the land as a terrestrial and aquatic wildlife resource management area, which also is known as State Game Land 333; the Fish and Boat Commission manages the controlled limited access area and nearby hatchery; and Penn State University oversees the agricultural research and management area.
Like the balance of Spring Creek (other than Fisherman’s Paradise and the exhibition area in Bellefonte), the Spring Creek Canyon section falls under All-Tackle, Catch and Release regulations. Anglers can use flies, artificials or natural bait. Fishing is permitted year-‘round. All trout must be released.
Fish contamination from Keptone and Myrex, and resulting human consumption concerns, led the Fish and Boat Commission to take Spring Creek off the stocking list in the 1980s. It’s been managed as no-kill ever since.
Excepting hatchery escapees — both the Bellefonte and Benner Springs hatcheries are on Spring – all of the trout, virtually all browns, are wild.
The Spring Creek Canyon can be accessed at the upstream end from the Benner Springs facility; from the downstream end via the Bellefonte hatchery/Fisherman’s Paradise. The trail runs 4.4 miles.
Anglers wishing to separate themselves from others have the chance to do so, an exceptional option considering the rapid development that continues to encroach on the wild places in the State College area.
Spring Creek was clear and low (for late winter) during the visit Art Hamley, Dave Keith and I paid last weekend. Still, we managed to take a few trout, deeply hued (buttery, as Art called them) wild browns up to a foot long. A couple larger fish were lost.
Hamley scored best on a Copper John nymph; Dave coaxed up hits from several on a small Vibrax spinner; I managed a couple by dead drifting a small olive Woolly Bugger, missing far more than I hooked. Talking to the locals in the parking lot at the day’s end, it seemed the most productive patterns were tiny nymphs, sizes 20 or smaller.
Additional information can be obtained by visiting the website: http://fishandboat.com/springcreekcanyon.htm.
