Currently browsing… Pennsylvania
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A Fishery Lacking Fish
Brook trout habitat will expand once abandoned mine drainage (AMD) cleanup takes place on Beech Creek in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania’s Beech Creek winds its way through rugged hills that echo with the bugles of wild elk in the fall and thunder with the gobbles of turkeys in the spring. A mid-sized freestone stream lined with hemlock,…
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West Branch Susquehanna: A river in recovery
WEST BRANCH SUSQUEHANNA RIVER, NORTH CAMBRIA, Pa. The angler stood in the shadows, peering intently at the water like a heron waiting for the moment. Then the cast. The line tightened. Allison Lutz smiled, subtly, as she netted the 12-inch-long wild brown trout. The smile was not so much about this individual fish. It was…
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Homegrown wild trout conservation
It took a trip across the country for a Pennsylvanian to discover anglers quietly making a difference back home.
I spent my childhood summers in Easton, Pa., around the water. Though I never went fishing, I did tube down the Delaware River, play in and picnic beside Bushkill Creek, chase minnows and crayfish in the various streams around my neighborhood, and watch men and women enjoy fishing on warm summer afternoons. I did not…
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PA’s Coldwater Habitat Program gets it done in ’21
Pennyslvania's Coldwater Habitat Program had another productive year in 2021, its efforts resulting in an astonishing reduction in sediment and nutrients across the state's waterways. The team has highlighted a handful of the projects in a newsletter that will be shared with the more than 14,000 TU members in the Keystone State, along with the…
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Long road trip a journey through TU wins
“You’re driving?” The question came with an unmistakable tone of incredulity. I had just told a friend that I would be driving from my home in Virginia to a conference in northern Vermont. Their surprise was understandable. The shortest route from my home in Roanoke to Jay Peak Resort is 824 miles. There was a method to…
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Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good
Wadering up on the banks of a Pennsylvania trout stream last week I faced a dilemma. Which rod? I had three choices. An 8-foot 6-inch 3-weight that’s perfect for dry flies. An 11-foot 3-weight Euro nymphing rod that is perfect for, well, Euro nymphing. And a 10-foot 3-inch 3-weight that is perfect for swinging wet…
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Chasing wild trout on Pennsylvania’s storied Spring Creek
The famous Spring Creek, Pennsylvania. Derek Eberly photo. Beware the first-cast fish ... it's almost never a good omen Many years ago, I was fishing on the Shenandoah with my friends Mike Dombeck and Bruce Babbitt, who had just stepped down as the director of the Bureau of Land Management and secretary of Interior, respectively.…