Of all the angling destinations out there, why drive all the way from New Hampshire to south central Pennsylvania?
Maine’s wild and expansive opportunities for fish are closer. So too are those of the Catskills, which had to be crossed to get down into the Mid-Atlantic. And even our home state has ample water of various kinds that could keep us occupied and into fish for as long as we’d like.
But his choice wasn’t just fish. It was where I had fished; where I learned to fly fish and where I learned about fly fishing.
Years ago my wife and I decided that we were going to mark milestone birthdays in our boys’ lives with special experiences. Turning ten gets you a night away with dad; thirteen gets you two. That’s as old as the eldest is now, so we’ll need to figure out what comes next. But there are plenty of boys and other parenting priorities to tackle between now and then.
My eldest turned thirteen in February. Not only was this outdoor enthusiast’s options somewhat limited by the wintery conditions, but his baby brother was born early in the morning on his birthday. So we had some time to plan.
A few options were thrown out. Hunting and fishing were the two top contenders. Objectively, hunting didn’t make a whole lot of sense. We haven’t done a great job of scouting the property adjacent to our land and we’ve been here for a year and a half. Locating game in some completely new environment in just a few days seemed ambitious.
Fishing in the middle of springtime was a much more alluring idea for both of us. But where? I rattled off the options within a days’ drive, giving their respective pro and con list. Some of the significant factors that I highlighted were ease of wading and my own familiarity with the region. I didn’t want him to get swept away and I wanted him to catch fish. There were a number of contenders, but the Cumberland Valley of Pennsylvania quickly emerged as the front runner.
As a teenager, I caught my first trout on a fly in the Yellow Breeches Creek. I attended the Pennsylvania Rivers Conservation & Fly Fishing Youth Camp on the banks of that same river. Years later I would move to the area and become a director of that camp. I spent more days of the week on the Letort Spring Run and Big Spring Creek than not. My sons, who love the woods, water, and adventure, have heard a lot about this special part of the country and this special part of my past.
Driving down in the incessant rain, we talked options. The area had been in near-drought conditions. But the stream flow gauges weren’t going to stop once they hit a healthy level. The Yellow Breeches would only be fishable on our first day. The good news was that the area’s spring creeks would be clear and accessible. The bad news was that they’re not known for easy wading, simple casting, and forgiving fish. He was cheerful and optimistic. He wanted to see it all and fish it all. He was happy to take it as it comes and to spend time with me. Throwing in a visit to the Pennsylvania Fly Fishing Museum and peppering the trip with snacks just added to the willingness to go with the flow.
Things started off as well as they could. The driving rain wasn’t enough to keep us off the water, and a healthy rainbow came to net relatively soon after getting our boots wet. He had caught other trout before. This one had a certain level of accomplishment for him. He landed it about ten yards from where I caught my first trout on a fly, too.
So much of parenting is experiencing things you never thought possible. One of those experiences is deriving a joy from knowing someone else is doing something that transcends the joy you feel when doing that same thing yourself. Perhaps it was inexperience or pride, but I couldn’t contemplate having more fun watching a fish being caught than catching a fish. But that is exactly how it happens. And it isn’t just that moment, but it is the moment where it falls in relation to so many other moments. Lives, casts, fish, and everything that connects them leads to an indescribably meaningful joy. With a little perspective, you begin to see the greater pathway on which these fishing footsteps tread.
That evening, the water kept rising but the fish weren’t. We turned our focus to stromboli and planning day two.
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