A report from Jin
My Father’s Day present this year was to go on a family fishing trip where the girls would join me in casting to some trout. I booked a day of fly fishing with Tom Baltz on a private stream in central Pennsylvania where the fish are measured by pounds and not inches.
We got to the “petting zoo” around 11am. It was hot and the fish were concentrated near the large pool just below the spring. The water was low but clear enough that we could see couple fish hanging in the middle of the water column. Several steady risers were working the lower end of the pool.
The girls seemed more interested in chasing the chickens and peacocks so I rigged up all of our rods and tossed a beetle out to a rainbow holding in the middle of the pool. It took two casts for him to eat the beetle. We also brought to net an 18-inch brownie, snapped some photos with the the girls, and proceeded to go after the other fish.
This was the first time the girls had really tried fly fishing. We started on top with ants but quickly switched to a nymph. The first drifts attracted fish and I could see them hit the fly but the girls did not set the hook. They thought a hit meant you could feel the fish on the end of your rod. The water was clear and you could see the fish swirl around the fly as it hit the water. After some coaching, my wife Sunny finally hooked a small brookie (small for this stream because it was under three pounds). Sarah had more success, hooking two brookies with one of them pushing 2-plus pounds.
Between coaching the girls and helping them cast, I managed to get couple drifts in and land a handful of fish. The biggest was a rainbow that others thought I was feeding because he came up straight from the bottom and nailed my fly on the first cast. The fish was zipping all around the pool, jumped out of the water couple times, and finally came to net.
Not counting lunch, we spent about two hours fishing this stream. The owner was kind enough to offer us access to another section of the stream further downstream on his neighbor’s house. As much as I would have liked to explore the new water, the girls were getting antsy so we drove back towards Boiling Springs, passing some of my favorite streams along our way.
We stopped at the Run to check out the fish. The girls got a chance to get their feet wet in the stream and enjoy some natural air conditioning. I was tempted to break out the fly rod but just enjoyed standing in the stream with them. This was the first time I just stood there and felt the cool water without a rod in my hand.
