Pocono Chronicles pt. 1: Save a Native, Eat a Stocker

 "I want to see mountains again, Gandalf. Mountains! And then find a quiet little place where I can finish my book." - Bilbo Baggins 

    South-East PA is teetering on the edge of a heat wave. A bit of it built up, flashed, burned, and exploded into lightning the other night, bringing with it a slight sample of rain as if to say you'll need this, but now temps are ticking back up to the high 90's right on time for the first week of summer camp at work. 

    I've been dizzily reminiscing in a heat-filled fervor about the weekend prior where I was able to escape, slip up to the gates of the Lehigh into the Poconos, where the air was cool and the grey tree frogs hummed me to sleep between mountains. One of those days, Max and I were able to escape garden work for two hours and hike up a small stream in Hickory Run State Park, a little liquified slice of freestone that slithered from the cold, cold, cold underground mountains above to spring up and chill life to the bones of whatever it touched. 

    The first sight when we pulled into the parking lot was a bright red-amber mushroom gleaming against an ochre backdrop. A few days before, Victor had found several reishi in the area and this new patch confirmed that many more were springing up in the area. 

    Max and I worked our way up the creek, me with my 5wt fly rod and a #18 Parachute Adams, Max with his spinning rod and a trout magnet. This was my introduction to small stream dry-fly fishing, so my expectations were low. The sight of four trout hanging out in the first plunge pool that refused to eat flipped them around and back again, a jumbling chunk of molding limestone. However, Max was able to pick off a few small wild browns further upstream and I managed to take a break from getting caught in trees trying to bow-and-arrow cast long enough to miss a brookie. 

    Stumbling through little groves covered in moss soft-enough to sleep upon, with the mid-morning air still heavy enough to amplify the greens and blues that softly whispered through my hair, I came upon a small waterfall splashed with aqua-marine crystal, clear enough I could see every trout in the pool. I lay down my dry fly in front of a brown trout tucked up behind a rock and it rose, gulping Adams, water, and sky all at once. I stick it with the hookset and land it after a brief fight, bringing to hand my first ever trout on a dry fly. 

    A brief look at the fish's crooked and concrete-scarred fins revealed very quickly that it was a stocker placed atop of wild fish and so I whisper to the grove and bonded it with a nearby piece of hardwood, washing stocked trout blood into Hickory Run to mingle with wild fish blood and insect blood and probably a little of my blood as well, pricked upon by thorns and stinging insects. 

    Max soon joins me in my little Dodona with its sights and giddy prospects of raging stream, landing another stocker on a golden trout magnet while I was able to get three more fish to rise to the Adams. None of them stayed pinned long enough to be brought to hand. It's alright. I enjoy any topwater fishing so much, bringing these snub-nosed and snub-brained creatures I spend so many waking hours in pursuit of to my world for a second of their own volition. 

    Soon enough, Max manages to catch a native Pennsylvania freestone Brook trout in all it's parr-marked and haloed self. These cold quiet streams used to be full of them. Old-heads used to talk about how they would catch 100 big ones a day, all on dries. Now, we have to pick through stocked browns and rainbows to catch our state fish. I don't really mind the practice of stocking trout in our Philly area streams or in any places were native trouts don't exist. It's a great way to get kids and old folks out fishing, it's fun, and a source of food. However, stocking fish on top of native brook trout, especially in a mountain free-stone stream is a bad deal. Stockers are vacuums, sucking up all the mayflies, caddisflies, and baitfish before the heat of the summer does them in. Save a brookie, kill a stocker.