Not My Cup of Tea

[HydeLowRider]

Fish Stories Include Some Big 'Uns

By Angus Phillips
Sunday, July 23, 2006; E03

LOYSBURG, Pa.

Obesity is a national problem but it's particularly acute here in central Pennsylvania, where overeating seems a prime sport. With so many supersized people around, locals coined a nickname. "My wife calls them 'big 'uns,' "chuckled Bob Murphy, who recently married a slender exception from the region.

It's not just the people. Lurking in the rich, limestone waters of Yellow Creek here are some large rainbow and brown trout, too. How big? "If you go upstream from here to the first pool," guide Dave McMullen told my longtime fishing partner Larry Coburn last week, "you'll find a couple of huge trout and one that's just immense ."

Immense is not a word you often hear with respect to Eastern trout, but McMullen wasn't exaggerating. He's head guide and resource manager for Spring Ridge Club, a pricey, private fishing organization specializing in fly-fishing for big trout on such famous Pennsylvania limestone waters as Spruce Creek, where Jimmy Carter used to go when he was president, Penns Creek, Pine Creek, the Little Juniata and now Yellow Creek.

Coburn and I were invited to check out the new Spring Ridge waters near Breezewood and were suitably impressed. "The rich," as the late, great Dick Blalock, former head of the National Capital Chapter of Trout Unlimited, used to say, "are not like you and me. They get everything handed to them on a plate."

Well, not quite. Yellow Creek's trout were big and plentiful, but hooking, playing and getting them to net took a bit of doing. Still, anytime a hacker like me can spend six hours fly-fishing on a stream and land half a dozen trout over 20 inches, with one or two four- or five-pounders plus a couple dozen smaller fish in the mix, something's not right.

It didn't take long to get things started. It was hot and muggy Monday night when we arrived, and with creek water temperatures rising to the low 70s by late in the day, McMullen reckoned the best fishing would be early the next morning. We were on the creek by 7, working deep pools with tiny, size 20 nymphs imitating little insects called tricorythodes that hatch early.

"I think I snagged a rock," I told McMullen.

"The rock is moving!" he said.

My fly line took off and the lightweight rod bowed double under the weight of a fleeing whopper. The trout plowed upstream into a riffle, paused, then shot back downstream in a rush and leaped clear of the water, flashing bright in the morning sun. "That's a good one," said McMullen, "hang on."

The trout, a solid, four-pound rainbow, sped back upstream and burrowed under some overhanging brush for a moment or two, leaving me in a quandary. McMullen was a split-second slow barking instructions and the trout seized the moment to snag the slender leader in the brush, then took off, breaking the line with a snap as it leaped again, this time taking leader and fly with him.

"When he gets you in the bushes like that, put your rod tip right under the water so when he swims out he brings the line with him," said McMullen. Now he tells me!

No worries. "We'll get more chances," said the bearded guide. A half-hour later, tiny tricorythodes started hatching in earnest and trout, including some jumbos, came to the surface to slurp them. I switched to dry flies, floating a gnat-sized imitation down to the feeding fish on the current. McMullen gave a little pep talk.

"The key to trico fishing is to land your fly as close to the fish as you can. Keep your drift short and make accurate casts. He's not going to move more than six inches for that little bit of nutrition, so you have to put it right on him."

Over the next hour or so a dozen trout, some huge by my standards, gobbled the little fly and three or four times I managed to set the hook and play the fish out. It's not every day you can catch a three- or four-pound trout on a fly the size of a tobacco seed and leader as fine as frog's hair. I have to admit, my heart was thumping.

When the tricos stopped hatching, we switched back to nymphs and caught a few more decent fish, then about 11:30 McMullen called a halt and recommended a run to the New Frontier Restaurant, where the day's lunch special was all the bean soup, fried chicken, french fries, salad bar and chocolate pudding you could eat. It was good, and there were some big 'uns partaking.

"This afternoon," said McMullen, picking his teeth in preparation for a slab of blackberry pie, "we'll go up to the headwaters where the water stays a little cooler. It's tough fishing -- lots of overhanging grass to snag your fly on -- but the grass is full of Japanese beetles and the fish are gobbling them up."

Once more, he was not exaggerating. The headwaters get little pressure from club members because they're hard to fish, and when I plopped a beetle imitation down in the right spot, hungry trout, including some wild browns and brooks, charged in to take them.

Now the bad news. It costs big bucks to create and sustain the kind of fishing Spring Ridge Club offers, and nobody's giving it away. At the moment, it costs $79,500 to join the club, then $6,000 a year in dues, plus a modest daily user fee to fish or stay over at the various streamside lodges. "The initiation fee is fully refundable after five years if you decide to sell," said chief executive Donny Beaver, who founded the club five years ago.

Beaver has 95 members and is seeking more. He added three miles of Yellow Creek, about a 2 1/2 -hour drive from Washington and Baltimore, to his portfolio in an effort to appeal to anglers from the nation's capital.

The only club member we encountered last week was 86-year-old Henry "Dizzy" Dunbar from Warrenton, a retired insurance tycoon who said he acquired his nickname when he fainted one day in grammar school gym class.

"I've been fly-fishing for 69 years," said Dunbar, who has been to New Zealand, Alaska, Patagonia, England, Ireland, Canada, and Europe chasing his passion. How does Spring Ridge stack up?

"I heard about this place three years ago and came up with a friend," said Dunbar. "He caught a 10-pound rainbow on a dry fly. That did it. Nowhere else in the East can you catch fish like that. Two weeks ago, I caught 50 fish in two days, with a dozen over three pounds. That's why we're here."

It's that simple. He likes big 'uns.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company