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Project begins to restore fishing spot
It's the things he's seen -- and not seen -- this summer that will always stick in Jim Zoschg's mind. In years past, an evening drive along Route 120 and the Driftwood Branch of Sinnemahoning Creek in Cameron County would have revealed lots of fishermen. That's not the case now. On June 30, 28 cars from a Norfolk Southern train derailed near Gardeau, along the McKean/Cameron county border. About 44,000 gallons of sodium hydroxide, also known as caustic soda or lye, spilled out. Some of the pollution entered Sinnemahoning-Portage Creek, wiping out all of the fish -- including wild brook and brown trout -- and insects in the next 7 1/2 miles of water. John Arway, chief of the environmental services division for the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, said surveys have revealed that the spill killed fish as far as 30 miles downstream the Driftwood Branch of the Sinnemahoning, however, all the way to the stream's confluence with the First Fork and Wycoff Run.
Catching muskies is challenging
If Ohio has an ultimate game fish, that fish would have to be the muskie. They reach sizes of 50-plus pounds, fight ferociously and are temperamental and unpredictable enough to make catching them a challenge comparable to enticing an eight-pound brown trout with a fly. August can be a tough month to find one, especially if anglers use the same tactics they used in May and June. But even though they might seem to have lockjaw, the water is hot and their metabolism high, so they're eating a lot of forage fish now, and maybe a fishing lure too, if you present it right. .
Silver Creek rebounding from spring flood
Four months after an unusually large flood swept through Silver Creek, depositing silt in favorite fishing stretches and skewing insect hatches, most anglers say the prized trout stream near Picabo is fishing as well as ever. "There's nothing wrong here. The fishing's been good," said John McGough, of Hailey, as he changed out of his waders after a morning of fly fishing last weekend. "I'm seeing a whole lot of active, young fish, which is good news." During a warm, wet spell at the tail end of one of the snowiest winters in the last 25 years, flows on Silver Creek were measured at a swollen 460 cubic feet per second (cfs) on April 6 and 7, 2006. Average flows during spring runoff top out at about 200 cfs. When the waters opened to fishing in late May, many anglers complained that the physical structure of the creek had changed dramatically.
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