Pennsylvania Angler 1953
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,-ilM ._. •SpS , *?%!£ jp 1*. ^is mSST ¥ IP MAY PENNSYLVANIA ANGLER 1953 BIO STINK AT ERIE CANAL DAYS ROMANCE OF THE SHAD RHYTHM OF THE RISE NYMPH FISHING NEW DRY FLY CAST wrty The Pennsylvania Fish Commission — L^oraLaltu Jsnvites Ljou ^Jo — Fisherman's Paradise - SPRING CREEK PROJECT - CENTRE COUNTY Famous the World Over for Wonderful Trout Fishing Season opens May 15 — Closes July 18 (Both Dates Inclusive) AMPLE FREE PARKING SPACE. BRING THE ENTIRE FAMILY FOR AN UNFORGETTABLE OUT DOOR ADVENTURE! (See Regulations on Page 23) COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA ANGLER PENNSYLVANIA HON. JOHN S. FINE GOVERNOR • PENNSYLVANIA VOL. 22, No. 15 MAY, 1953 FISH COMMISSION BERNARD S. HORNE, President PITTSBURGH PAUL F. BITTENBENDER, Vlce-Pres. WILKES-BARRE MILTON L. PEEK RADNOR WILLIAM D. BURK IN THIS ISSUE MELROSE PARK GEN. A. H. STACKPOLE DAUPHIN THE "BIG STINK" AT ERIE Bill Walsh 3 LOUIS S. WINNER LOCK HAVEN THERE'S FISH IN THE OLD CANAL AGAIN Harvey Frantz 5 PHILIP E. ANGLE SHARON MEMORIES OF CANAL DAYS Don Shiner 6 EXECUTIVE OFFICE C. A. FRENCH, Executive Director PENNSYLVANIA ROMANCE OF THE SHAD William Boyd 10 ELLWOOD CITY H. R. STACKHOUSE RHYTHM OF THE RISE Albert G. Shimmel 12 Administrative Secretary ROBERT P. DEITER Comptroller NYMPH FISHING NOTES AND NOTIONS Chauncy K. Lively 14 R. C. McCASLIN Deputy Comptroller • BEAUTIFUL PENNSYLVANIA STREAMS Center PUBLIC RELATIONS J. ALLEN BARRETT FLY TYING, PART V George Harvey 18 Director A NEW DRY FLY CAST Eugene Burns 21 FISH CULTURE C. R. BULLER 1953 FISHERMAN'S PARADISE REGULATIONS 23 Chief Fish Culturist GORDON L. TREM8LEY Chief Aquatic Biologist ARTHUR D. BRADFORD Pathologist CYRIL G. REGAN Chief Dlv. of Land and Water Acquisition GEORGE H. GORDON Official Photographer THE COVER . Beautiful falls on THOMAS F. O'HARA Construction Engineer Wild Creek, Carbon County, as pho HATCHERY SUPERINTENDENTS tographed by La Mar Mumbar. Dewey Sorenson—Bellefonte Merrill Lillie—Corry & Union City Edwin H. Hahn—Erie T. J. Dingle—Huntsdale Howard Fox—Linesville J. L. Zettle—Pleasant Mount BACK COVER—A Forrest-Cypher conserva George Magargel—Reynoldsdala Bernard Gill—Tionesta tion cartoon. ~ John J. Wopart—Torresdale ENFORCEMENT W. W. BRITTON Chief Enforcement Officer DISTRICT SUPERVISORS Northwest Division CARLYLE S. SHELDON Conneautville, Pa.; Phone 3033 Southwest Division George W. Forrest, Editor 1339 East Philadelphia Street, York, Pa. MINTER C. JONES 361 W. Lincoln St., Somerset, Pa.; Phone 5324 North Central Division C. A. BIDELSPACHER 747 W. 4th St., Williamtport, Pa.; Phone 24561 The PENNSYLVANIA ANGLER is published monthly by the Pennsylvania Fish Commission, South Central Division South Office Building, Harrisburg, Pa. Subscription: $1.00 per year, 10 cents per single copy. HAROLD CORBIN Send check or money order payable to Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. DO NOT SEND 521 13th St., Huntingdon, Pa.; Phone 1202 STAMPS. Individuals sending cash do so at their own risk. Change of address should reach Northeast Division us promptly. Furnish both old and new addresses. Entered as Second Class matter at the C. W. SHEARER Post Office, Harrisburg, Pa., under Act of March 3, 1873. Box 3, Sweet Valley, Pa.; Phone Dallas 4S427 Neither Publisher nor Editor will assume responsibility tor unsolicited manuscripts or Southeast Division illustrations while In their possession or In transit. Permission to reprint will be given JOHN S. OGDEN provided we receive marked copies and credit is given material or illustrations. Only 242 E. College Ave., York, Pa.; Phone 7434 communications pertaining to manuscripts, material or illustrations should be addressed to the Editor at the above address. • 2. MILLIONS of gizzard shad tossed into Erie boat slips, some six inches thick on top of the water. Only the curious and the brave can take the stench. PENNSYLVANIA ANGLER I. NOR'WESTER over Lake Erie washes "dead tide" into Erie docks, lashes public steamboat landing at foot of State Street. Fishing parties take off from here for pike in summer season. the ?? BIG ST I Mi 99 at erie by bill walsh BIG STINK from a dead tide of decaying gizzard shad washed inshore from Lake Erie to the city of Erie in January and February 1953 gave city fathers a big headache. A pall of stench over the city from the millions of fish washed ashore prompted the city health authorities to prohibit hauling them away through city streets. Though not a food or sport fish, the gizzard shad make a nuisance of themselves and can be used only for fertilizer by farmers of the area and by an Ohio firm manufacturing dog and cat foods. High in fat content the fish spoil quickly and smell more like fish than any fish known. Reasons for the dead tide are not yet fully understood. L MAY—1953 3. 180 TONS OF BIS STINK removed via con veyor belt onto trucks, eventually to be processed into dog and cat foods or fertilizer on local farms. At Erie The Pennsylvania Fish Commission cooperates with park and harbor authorities supplying nets and other equipment to help clean up the nuisance. 4. HARDY GENTS operate the con veyor without oxygen masks. Certainly no one has envy for their task. 5. FISH RIGHT OFF ERIE STREET as workmen keep plug ging, getting smelly dead gizzard shad off city streets along Erie docks. City Health Department often wish these finny critters were extinct. i£v «WF3 There's Fish in the Old Canal Again By HARVEY R. FRANTZ N THE afternoon of November 28, O 1952 a group of sportsmen of The Inter-Club Canal Commission, along with numerous junior sports men eagerly awaited a truck load of fish from the Pennsylvania Fish Com mission. This was the culmination of INTER-CLUB sportsmen sign for the fish. Young almost a year and a half of work— fishermen demanded to know what procedure was dirty, hard work that was accom followed. plished on weekends and holidays. JUNIOR ANGLERS eagerly watch "puttin' 'em The Inter-Club Canal Commission, in" process. Fish were bass, perch and suckers made up of representatives of six local consigned to the canal by the Pennsylvania Fish sportsmen's clubs, had rented a two Commission. mile portion of the old Lehigh Canal from the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company in August, 1951. After clean ing out the bed and cutting the brush from the banks, a crib-type dam was constructed at the lower end. Incident ally, it was necessary, before build ing the dam, to send plans and draw ing to the Water Resources Board of the Department of Forests and Waters for approval. Almost as much time went into ac cumulating materials for the dam as went into its construction. Using old railroad ties and cast-off power poles, a frame work was built. For rock ma terial an old stone building was com pletely torn down with the aid of a COMPLETED DAM showing typical canal-dam construc winch and some dynamite. Clay for tion. High water flowing over dam will fall on rock apron fill was obtained from excavating con thus preventing erosion. tractors. Although the dam was completed in September, 1952 the Inter-Club Canal Commission were under the impres sion that any stocking by the state couldn't take place until at least the fall of 1953. However, in October a fishery biologist of the Pennsylvania Fish Commission accompanied by the local fish warden inspected the im pounded portion of the canal and took water samples for analysis. Between the completion of the dam and the visit of the fishery biologist, the City of Bethlehem's new sewerage treatment plant went into operation. Sewerage that formerly found its way into the canal was now picked up by (Turn to page 28) MAY—1953 Memories of Canal Days By DON SHINER NLESS you can remember the Wright Brother's first flight, the U assassination of President McKinley or the Civil War, the Penn sylvania Canal probably is just something mentioned on historical markers. But from 1828 until the turn of the century when railroads came to the front, the great canal was a vital system that hummed with acivity all the way from the Great Lakes to the Chesapeake Bay. It was the only efficient artery for transporting volumes of freight between the interior and the old established coastal cities and it figured largely in the development of small towns along the Susquehanna river in Pennsylvania. In fact, the old canal even influenced the sport of fishing, and now as then, remains one of the favorite fishing spots for thousands of anglers! The canal was a huge engineering task undertaken in those early years when this state was but a youngster. Gouging the 1,200 miles of waterway from the earth and building hundreds of locks with simple tools was a feat surpassing the construction of the modern super high ways of today. But after years of toil by men and mules, the waterway was completed, linking the Chesapeake Bay area with all the towns par allel to the Susquehanna through New York state to Buffalo, Rochester S-H OWING TU£ \100 and New York City. Celebrations in all communities marked the formal MILE CANAL ROUTE opening of the canal in the memorable year of 1828 and vessels laden with great loads of freight, pulled by teams of mules, began trickling through the narrow canal, set the pattern of commercial shipping for the next 75 years. From boating molasses, flour, fish, oysters, coal, lime, lumber, bed 13/5 (Continue story on page 24—more photos on page 8 and 9) MAP showing canal route that paral leled the Susquehanna River. ! ;W f H .. MULES AND HORSE TEAMS towed the canal boats. Travel was slow and leisurely, seldom more than 25 miles covered in one day.