“About Trout” is a series of articles written by members of Forbes Trail Trout Unlimited and published in the Latrobe Bulletin. Each week we will post a new article here on our website.
Pennsylvania Fly Fishing History
Fly fishing in America has a rich and glorious history and many associate its development to the era of the “Catskill school” of fly fishing in New York. This is certainly true to a point. Expanded train travel made the streams of the Catskills, the Beaverkill, Neversink and Esopus more available to the anglers in New York City and significant traditions were established in fly tying and insect study.
Whether New York is the cradle of American fly fishing is very much debatable though. Pennsylvania anglers have made and are still making important contributions to the science and art of fly fishing.
Let’s look at some of these contributions. First, there has been and hopefully will always be the fly fisher who prefers the classic look and feel of the hand crafted six-sided split bamboo fly rod. In the 18th century rods were crafted from various woods, lancewood, greenheart, and blackthorn and were good for reaching out to “dap’ a fly or swing a brace of wet flies downstream.
By the middle of the 19th century anglers wanted a rod better suited to casting the silk lines being developed to cast and present an imitation fly upstream to rising trout. In the 1860s a gunsmith and violin maker from Easton, Penna. named Samuel Phillippe built the first hexagonal split bamboo fly rod. This tradition of close tolerances and fine craftsmanship is being carried out today by skilled production facilities like R. L. Winston in Montana and by curious and talented amateur rod builders in basements and garages in Anytown, USA. One of his rods is archived in the Pennsylvania State Museum in Harrisburg.
The members of the Forbes Trail Chapter of Trout Unlimited work with Mr. Ryan Podlucky’s Outdoor Club at the Ligonier Valley Middle School through the winter by teaching fly tying and fly casting. Fly patterns chosen for the classes reflect our Pennsylvania contributions.
Examples are the “Walt’s Worm” developed by Walt Young of State College in 1984. The pattern is simple and effective and perfect for new fly tiers. Another easy fly for the beginner, but an important imitation of an inchworm is the “green Weenie” fly. This very effective imitation was first made by Ken Igo and Russ Mowry of Westmoreland County but popularized by Penna. outdoor writer Charlie Meck.
Readers, I ask you, who does not have a “Black Woolly Bugger” in their fly box? This staple of any fly-tying class everywhere was invented by Russell Blessing of Harrisburg, Pa. Russ made the first fly in 1967 to fish for smallmouth bass, but the fly has taken fish species from carp to tarpon. Some say that the fly is the most important fly pattern ever invented and is fished by fly anglers around the world. This fly was named by Russ’ seven-year-old daughter Julie who told her dad the fly “looked like a woolly bugger”.
Al Troth was born in Monessen, Pa. and taught Industrial Arts in Williamsport. He developed the “Elk Hair Caddis” fly to fish as a wet fly on Pennsylvania waters, but the darn thing kept floating with its elk hair wing. It became “the” dry fly imitation of the prolific caddis fly, but don’t forget to sink one on the downstream retrieve and be prepared for a savage strike, as the outdoor writers say. Al Troth’s pattern can be found in fly boxes and catalogues East and West.
From the limestone spring creek axis of Carlisle, Chambersburg and Newville came the revolutionary approach to summer trout fishing, the terrestrials. Vince Marinaro, a lawyer, from Mechanicsburg observed wild trout taking land born insects falling or being blown onto the stream. He tied his Jassids, beetle and hopper patterns that are standards in Penna. fly selections.
Ed Shenk tied his famous “White Shenk’s Minnow” and the “Letort Cricket” to fish to those notoriously selective of his beloved Letort Spring Run flowing through his hometown of Carlisle.
Before the Civil War years Elizabeth Stairing Benjamin tied flies for the anglers who fished for brook trout in Lycoming Creek and became the first woman commercial fly tier in America. Her “Queen of the Waters” became the fly of choice for big city anglers that came to catch the “speckled trout” that were native to her part of Pennsylvania.
In the arena of teaching and promoting the sport of fly fishing we must recognize George Harvey of State College who in 1934 sat and taught the Dean of Penn State to tie flies, and how to use them. From that time until his retirement in 1972 Mr. Harvey taught 35,000 students in the first accredited angling class in the country. The program is still being offered today, and there is a waiting list to get into it.
For the angler and hunter came some help from a fellow Pennsylvanian who observed fish feeding in a lake on his property and linked the activity to the cycles of the sun and moon. John Alden Knight of Montoursville created the “Solar Lunar Tables” that used to be published every day in newspapers. The tables predicted high and low activity periods of the day, however most of us feel that the best time to go fishing or out in the field is “whenever you can”.
This is a small sampling of what Pennsylvanians have contributed to the art and science of fly fishing. Some of the folks mentioned are no longer with us, but their influence continues to this day. Fortunately, this tradition continues today with talents like George Daniel of State College, Mike Heck of Chambersburg, the men and women of the Fly Fisher’s Clubs of Harrisburg and Pittsburgh and friends and neighbors who belong to cold water conservation groups like the chapters of Trout Unlimited and of dedicated volunteers and professionals in the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and the Loyalhanna and Mountain Watershed Associations.
In 1998 the Pennsylvania Fly Fishing Museum was established to recognize and protect our heritage of the sport. The museum, your museum, is located at 101 Shady Lane in Carlisle, Pa. and is open free to the public. Beautiful display cases line the walls and aisles of the museum and are packed with flies, books, equipment, and other historic and groundbreaking developments related to the contributions of the women and men who loved fishing the waters of Penn’s Woods.
You can visit the physical museum or go to the website www.paflyfishing.org to explore or to donate and join the 501c3 association. Remember also that when you help a young person in a classroom or on the stream or teach a wounded veteran or breast cancer survivor how to heal with the therapy of fly fishing you are just as important to them as any of the museum featured “Keystone State” anglers that came before us. Keep up the good work.
The Whittler
Rod Cross, a director for Forbes Trail Chapter of Trout Unlimited, was invited to display his art work and explain his hobby at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg. The event, Sunday, November 13, included a display of many of his past and recent art pieces.
Rod is multi-talented and puts many of his skills to work during TU events, including being the chapter’s go-to instructor for fly casting. But his passion is really in “whittling” which he proudly distinguishes from “carving” where the wood is held in a vice. Whittling involves holding the raw wood in his hand and using a small knife to produce the intricately designed final product.
Like many artists, Rod prefers the quiet of his wood shop to create his masterpieces with just music playing softly in the background. Many of his pieces take a full week of work, including as many as 20 coats of tung oil. The oil gives the wood a rich, glass like finish, penetrating the wood to help preserve it. Rod’s wife Judy was on hand to greet visitors and to share the stories behind the artwork.
Forbes Trail is blessed with so many talented members willing to give of their time and talents to help promote our mission of conserving our coldwater fisheries. But what’s more interesting sometimes is their backgrounds, and what to do in their spare time.
Many of Rod’s art pieces tell a story, including the source, and importance of the wood from which it is whittled. Following is Rod’s introduction to his story for visitors at the museum.
“My name is Rod Cross, and I am a self-taught wood carver, or more accurately, a “whittler”. I was taught to respect and use a knife as a tool, and later as an instrument to create my expression of Art.
My carvings reflect a passion in other areas of my life that bring me joy and satisfaction, as art should.
Trout fishing and conservation have led me to carve the flowing lines of the brook trout, and the carvings are donated to conservation fund-raising banquets.
Over the years the carvings that give me the most satisfaction are the simple cherry nativity scenes that I carve for one person, or a family each year. This gift of giving has given back to me the real meaning of the Christmas season.
And trout pins for hats or vests are carved and given to fishing friends, and a former President and First Lady.”
Cross grew up in North Huntingdon Township. His working career was in the industrial gas business, first driving a truck, then retiring as a Regional Operations Manager for the Northeast.
Many long hours away from home and in hotels gave him time to find relaxation as he carved the various projects that he worked on, including nativity scenes for his grandchildren.
Although retired, Cross is proud to work for the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy as an Educator/ Guide at Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Fallingwater” along Bear Run. There he is immersed in art, nature and the opportunity to continue being a life-long learner.
A Brief History of Forbes Trail Trout Unlimited
The headwaters streams of the Loyalhanna Creek are the chapter’s home waters. They flow down from Pennsylvania’s Laurel Ridge, one of America’s most historic, and environmentally significant landscapes. This rugged terrain preserves one of the world’s most biologically diverse forests. These high-gradient streams are home to wild populations of Eastern Brook Trout, Pennsylvania’s native trout.
Delaware Indians migrated here from the Susquehanna River Valley in the early seventeen-hundreds. They settled beside the mountain stream they called Loyalhanning, or “middle stream”. Their village, now the village of Ligonier Pennsylvania, was on the Raystown Path, an Indian trail leading from the English colonies in the east, to the French colonies west of the Allegheny Mountains.
The inevitable clash between British and French fur traders, and their Indian allies led to the French and Indian War. In 1758 British General John Forbes led a military expedition against the French Fort Duquesne at the forks of the Ohio, modern day Pittsburgh. He blazed a rough military road from Carlilse across the Allegheny Mountains that became known as the Forbes Trail. Thus, our chapter’s name.
Forbes’ second-in-command, Colonel Henry Bouquet, supervised construction of a strong fortress along the middle Loyalhanna Creek. He named it Fort Ligonier in honor of the British Commander in Chief, Lord Ligonier. Bouquet was a member of Philadelphia’s Regale Fishing Company, and from Fort Ligonier he sent back east for his fly rod. We credit him for introducing fly fishing to the Loyalhanna Creek.
When these Europeans crossed Pennsylvania in 1758, trees covered nearly all of it, and brook trout swam in all its streams. Within a hundred years Pennsylvanians had cut down two-thirds of their trees, and brook trout were gone from ninety percent of their streams. During the conservation movement that followed, heroes like Joseph Rothrock, Pennsylvania’s “Father of Forestry”, and the “Tree Army” of the Civilian Conservation Corps largely reforested our Commonwealth.
The trees returned, but not the trout. From a fisherman’s perspective headwaters streams like Linn Run stopped being trout streams in 1959. Many of the trout stocked by the state into these streams died. The state seriously considered taking them off the stocking list. The culprit was the newly identified acid rain.
Coincidently, a group of trout anglers who fished Michigan’s Au Sable River became concerned about the declining quality of their trout fishing. In 1959 they organized to do something about that. They called their organization Trout Unlimited. The big idea was, if we take care of our trout streams, our trout fishing will take care of itself.
Mother Nature, in an unexpected way, gave Ligonier trout anglers a reason to organize their own TU chapter. On June 21st, 1972 Hurricane Agnes flooded Western Pennsylvania with nearly 15 inches of rain in a 24-hour period. It devastated trout fishing in the Loyalhanna watershed. Local anglers Don Robb, Tommy Evans, Frank Felbaum called a meeting of like-minded anglers at Sleepy Hollow Tavern on the banks of the Loyalhanna Creek in April 1973. Ken Sink of Indiana, PA, in his role as TU State Council President, presided over the organizational meeting, and presented Forbes Trail Chapter 206 its charter.
Forbes Trail chapter quickly achieved a major success restoring the Loyalhanna Creek as a trout fishery. The chapter received the prestigious national Golden Trout award in 1977 for that conservation achievement (See photo). The stream section between the Route 711 Bridge and the Two Mile Run Bridge in Ligonier has become the popular catch-and-release area designated a Keystone Select Trout Fishery by the PA Fish & Boat Commission. It has a positive impact on recreation and tourism, and therefore on our local economy.
Then the chapter took on the challenge of restoring trout habitat in Mill Creek, Ligonier Township. Volunteers conducted outdoor scientific studies published a definitive conservation plan. Then, they accomplished the indoor work of public hearings to securing the grassroots and landowner support for grant funding. The decade-long habitat restoration project included more than 100 stream structures along 5 miles of trout streams, and more importantly justified upgrades of stream classifications that afford additional protections from development and non-point source pollution.
By the new millennium the chapter had assembled a highly capable corps of volunteers and was able to begin restoring Linn Run back into its original banks in Linn Run State Park, and remediating acid rain and gas well drainage that had destroyed the trout habitat. This project required significant fund raising and years of hard physical labor. By spreading hundreds of tons of limestone sand along the headwaters, acidity was reduced and Pennsylvania’s state fish, brook trout, were reintroduced. Forbes Trail Chapter received Pennsylvania Council’s Chapter of the Year Award for that achievement.
Today our volunteers monitor trout streams to detect potential impacts from Marcellus Shale gas extraction, and winter road salt. They assist Penn State Master Naturalist programs. They partner with Girl Scouts earning Stream Girls Badges, and Boy Scouts earning Fly Fishing Merit Badges. We work with landowners to maintain a “Kids Only” handicapped accessible trout fishing area on Four Mile Run.
We continue to focus on the future by introducing the increasingly indoor, Internet generation of young people to trout fishing and coldwater conservation. Our Outdoor Club Youth Group gives boys and girls the opportunity to develop fly fishing skills and become conservation minded. Our Trout in the Classroom programs helps students learn science and math by raising trout from eggs and releasing them into the wild. It’s a fun and highly motivational program that starts them applying school work to real world problems and thinking about their environment. Forbes Trail’s youth programs have repeatedly been named Pennsylvania TU’s best.