"The Evening Campfire" from
The Herald, Sept. 10, 2006
Fireside Philosophers catch 100
wild trout
Outdoor writers Ben Moyer,
Gregg Rinkus and I caught 100 trout over a short weekend
in the Allegheny National Forest recently, or perhaps we
caught 50 fish two times each, so hungry and aggressive
were these wild native brookies. But catching fish was
not the best part of our two days in the big woods for
the fifth annual Fireside Philosophers reunion.
The best part was just being
there, three miles upstream from the nearest road or
farm or country home or human being, hiking the tiny,
unnamed branch of a small, unstocked stream in Warren
County. Being there and witnessing, under a forest
cathedral of hemlocks, the astonishing beauty of the
wild native
brook trout, and recognizing its value. As long as there
are
brook trout and clean, cold waters to nurture them, I’ll
have hope for the Pennsylvania outdoors.
We fished a little stream
near camp Friday evening and caught two dozen trout in
three hours. Then Saturday morning we geared up and
hiked deep into the forest, our backpacks bulging with
fishing tackle, lunches, snacks, water bottles, and
small portable cameras. It was a fine, late-August day,
warm but not muggy, with gentle, aromatic breezes
blowing through the evergreens and cooling our necks and
forearms, serious outdoorsmen for company, and a wide
open day ahead.
We wanted to try far
upstream that day at a creek branch we’d noticed on our
ANF map, so we didn’t fish at all for the first two
miles, although we knew the stream held trout.
“You remember this stream,
Ben?” Gregg asked, one mile into our hike. Ben gazed at
the clear, cold waters rippling over rocks and falls and
running under cutbanks, and nodded. “Redtail
Run,” he said softly.
We’d fished the stream
together a few years before, during an earlier Fireside
Philosophers weekend, and Ben had contributed to our
camp tradition of disdaining the “real” names of streams
and re-christening them to our liking. He had caught a
ten-inch wild brown trout of uncommon beauty just
downstream from the branch we were targeting today.
Getting a wild brownie that far upstream from the
Allegheny was a rare occasion indeed, and this unique
fish displayed brilliant red spotting and a grand swipe
of scarlet near the tail. “Redtail Run,” Ben had
proclaimed, and we’d all agreed.
But on this day we passed up
all of Redtail’s trout pools, reached the north branch
by 9 a.m. and only then began fishing.
I watched my two companions for a moment in their
differing styles — Ben the graceful fly-fisherman
offering bead head nymphs and Gregg the aggressive
bait-fisherman tossing garden worms — and saw each of
them catch two fish before I put a line in. We worked
upstream along the branch all morning and into the
afternoon and caught trout in every riffle and run.
Brookies attacked our baits
at almost every cast and we caught and released dozens
of them, many under six inches long but several in the
seven to nine-inch range, all of them lean, healthy, and
colorful. Along the way, we three grown men acted out
like
youngsters at a bluegill pond, fishing close together
and calling
out “Come see my fish!” at every catch.
By the time we stopped and
sat on a big windfall white pine log at 2:30 for lunch,
we had caught 75 or 80, at least. “You know something,”
Ben said over his flattened backpack ham and cheese
sandwich, “this is public land, open to everyone, but I
don’t think anyone comes up here after these trout. I
believe we’re the first human beings these fish have
ever seen.”
“I agree,” I said. “That’s
the best and worst thing about fishing upstream for wild
trout. It’s a shame people don’t take advantage of the
resource, but it’s also pretty wonderful to have this
big woods and this magical trout stream to ourselves.”
“We ought to name this branch,” said Gregg, “and write
it in the Camp Journal. Call it Hungry Fish Creek or
Brook Trout Branch or something.” “Relax,” I told him.
“Give the stream a chance. Maybe it’ll name itself.”
A half hour later, as we
began our hike back downstream toward the truck, I
noticed something bone-colored on the ground beside the
stream. I picked the object up and saw that it was a
forkhorn whitetail antler shed, something I almost never
find in the woods. Gregg looked at my prize and then at
me. “Antler Run,” he suggested. I nodded, and the stream
branch was named.
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