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Failed angler confesses life of piscatorial flops
Somewhere between the cloudy waters of Chub Ditch and blue ribbon mountain streams, I took a wrong turn. Learning to fish was supposed to hone character and cleanse the soul. There is nothing more masculine, more all-American, more Montanan than becoming an expert angler. Here follows the confession of an angler left behind. The Huck Finn I once was never outgrew fishing but fishing outgrew him. Fishing introduced me to a new world, a world of flash and wonder, murky mystery and electric connections. The watery world interfaced with this ocean of air at the surface of every creek, pond and river. Fishing line was the telegraph wire that communicated between the two. My first freshwater rig consisted of a willow pole, three yards of line, a bobber and a hook. I transmitted a cricket and waited for an answer.
The quiet jolt at a perfect site for fly-fishing
It's that moment when a trout grabs your dry fly. It starts when you see the trout rise before you feel the grab. A millisecond later, the trout jolts you, and it's almost an electric sensation, as if you are wired directly to the fish. For a lot of people who fly-fish, it's the single most exciting moment in all sport. This is better than watching any sport because here you are the participant, not the observer. And the way you take this to the highest level is by casting a dry fly to wild fish in a pristine wilderness stream. That is what has always led me back to the Middle Fork San Joaquin River, high in the Sierra in the Ansel Adams Wilderness, the best place in the West to try and catch the grand slam of wild trout in a single day: rainbow trout, brook trout, golden trout, brown trout and a strange-looking hybridized mix I called the "golden-brook." Even though the trout are not large here, you have a chance to get 20 to 50 grabs in a day.
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.
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