NOVEMBER, 1941 TEN CENT V^ Hk ^/ OFFICIAL STATE VOL
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FISH FORAGE NOVEMBER, 1941 TEN CENT V^ Hk ^/ OFFICIAL STATE VOL. 10—NO. 11 PUBLICATION ^ANGLER? NOVEMBER, 1941 v_ ARTHUR H. JAMES PUBLISHED MONTHLY GOVERNOR by the COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA PENNSYLVANIA BOARD OF FISH COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF FISH COMMISSIONERS Publication Office: Telegraph Press, Cameron & Kelker Streets, Harrisburg, Pa. Executive and Editorial Offices: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Board of Fish Commis sioners, Harrisburg, Pa. CHARLES A. FRENCH Commissioner of Fisheries Ten cents a copy—50 cents a year MEMBERS OF BOARD CHARLES A. FRENCH, Chairman ALEX P. SWEIGART, Editor Ellwood City MILTON L. PEEK South Office Bldg., Harrisburg, Pa. Radnor HARRY E. WEBER Philipsburg NOTE Subscriptions to the PENNSYLVANIA ANGLER EDGAR W. NICHOLSON should be addressed to the Editor. Submit fee either • Philadelphia by check or money order payable to the Common J. FRED McKEAN wealth of Pennsylvania. Stamps not acceptable. New Kensington Individuals sending cash do so at their own risk. JOHN L. NEIGER Scranton PENNSYLVANIA ANGLER welcomes contributions JOSEPH M. CRITCHFIELD and photos of catches from its readers. Proper credit Confluence will be given to contributors. CLIFFORD J. WELSH AH contributions returned if accompanied by first Erie class postage. H. R. STACKHOTJSE Secretary to Board Entered as Second Class matter at the Post Office of Harrisburg, Pa. under act of March 3, 1873. C. R. DULLER Chief Fish Culturist, Bellefonte IMPORTANT—The Editor should be notified immediately of change in subscriber's address Please give old and new addresses Permission to reprint will be granted provided proper credit notice is given Vol. 10. No. 11 ^ANGLERA^I^l W LC IV / November, 1941 EDITORIAL STOCKING BLACK BASS During the past two months, September and October, the largest and most extensive Black Bass stocking program ever attempted by your Board of Fish Commissioners has been in progress. Not only are the regular bass-fishing streams being given our annual attention, but this year for the first time in our history a Statewide LAKE-STOCKING program has been undertaken. Pursuant to the Board's recently adopted policy, all lakes in the Commonwealth having a surface area of forty acres or more which are open to public fishing and which lakes already contain bass, are included in the program. The fleet of Tank-Trucks are rolling and daily surveys and check-ups indicate the finest bass distribution ever projected. The new Warm Water hatchery at Huntsdale was operated for the first time this year with very gratifying results. The production at this plant, coupled with the output of swiftly developing facilities at the other hatcheries this year, has reached a sum total of more than a half million fish ranging in size from two to eight inches. Our greatest concern, naturally, has been the extreme drought and alarming low water levels prevalent in many sections of the Commonwealth, all of which have been care fully considered in our stocking program. These abnormal dry spells have been serious and devastating and on behalf of the entire Board I express our sincere gratitude for the fine team-work displayed and exercised by the many clubs and individuals in these affected areas, who assisted in rescuing and removing countless numbers of stranded fish to deeper waters. Commissioner of Fisheries 3 PENNSYLVANIA ANGLER NOVEMBER WYALUSING By DICK FORTNEY NEVER did find out the name of the old I man with only one good eye, with the straggling white mustache that fanned down across his thin lips, and with the friendly grin. Doc and I stopped at his gasoline sta tion, nestled in a little hollow at the side of the road, one hot afternoon in the old pro hibition days. He sold us some gasoline, dipped a bottle of home brew out of the well and gave it to us with his compliments and then told us about his favorite bass hole. The next summer, when we returned he was gone. In his stead one of those smart young men—in white uniform and all effi ciency—was running the little gas station. I never found out the name of the old fellow, but he introduced me to what I think is the grandest bass stream in Penn sylvania, and in all the years I have fished the creek since then I never have passed the little gasoline station in the hollow without offering up a silent word of thanks to him, wherever he may be. I'm writing about Wyalusing Creek, writ ing with the memories of my ninth summer of fishing this grand stream still in sharp focus in my mind. I'd like to keep it all for myself, if that could be done, but at Stately fringes of trees enhance the beauty of Wyalusing Creek. the same time I'd like to sing its praises to Wyalusing Creek is a tributary of the posted the creek as a private fishing reserve^ one and all and to assure you, friend reader, North Branch of the Susquehanna River. It Wyalusing is a friendly stream, set in the that it will give you as warm a welcome rises in a welter of small streams well up in midst of green fields, murmuring past cleaHi as it has given me and countless others who Northern Pennsylvania, flows leisurely for neat farm houses—now deep and mysterious, have discovered its charms. about 25 miles down a beautiful, fertile now flat and lazy, again twisting and gurg' But before we go a line farther, a serious valley, and finally dumps its load of water ling over stony turns and riffles. word of caution—fish it for fun, not meat. into the Susquehanna at the town of Wyal It flows past little villages, slips beneath For it will crush the scheming of the fish using, perched along U. S. Route 6 about 40 the concrete spans of highway bridges an" hog and humble him with its mysteries, even miles west of Scranton and 18 miles East for mile after mile reflects the sheen of the as it surely will bestow a glowing reward of of Towanda. sun to catch the eye of the angler looking joy upon him who puts most of the fish back The stream, in fact, follows closely High for a stream in which he can fish lazily, yet for another day and who angles for the pure way Route 106 from Wyalusing to Montrose, with confidence that he will reap dividend5 joy of the strike, the savage battle, and the and it is all open except for about three of action. satisfaction of granting the gift of life to a miles near the town of Rush, where a group No trout ever inhabited Wyalusing Creek' creature over which he has triumphed. of sportsmen have leased farm lands and It just isn't that kind of a stream. Its swim' ming holes and cow fords are evidence °* that. Rather, it is supreme as the home &. the fighting smallmouth bass and of the stream-lined pickerel, and of brilliantly colored sunfish, tiger-striped rock bass, lea" and racy fallfish, and the finny chaps wh° keep the stream clean, the suckers and the carp. There was the angler from Johnstown» name forgotten, who took from one of i*5 great pools a smallmouth that pulled the scales at four and a half pounds, and the lad from Philadelphia who craftily tossed out a deep-running plug and whipped & seven pound wall-eyed pike that struck the lure savagely in a deep green pool almos' within shouting distance of the town fro*11 which the creek gets its name. I'll never forget the 22-inch pickerel th*j hit a silver spoon and after a whirlwind battle panted out its life on the grass whne a cow grazed contentedly not twenty fee away. Or the sunfish nine and a half inches lon£ that took a stone-catfish and put up a battle that would have done credit to any he-baSS' And my friend, Brooks, had a lot of fun 5 Giant carp share this big hole in Wyalusing Creek with fighting bass and streamlined pickerel. with a fallfish, lowly though some angler 1941 PENNSYLVANIA ANGLER tiay consider the fish, which took his red and White fly and spinner, for the chub was a giant 18 inches long and fought as if it, too, had bass blood in its veins. Big catches? My friend, they can be made in Wyalusing Creek provided you go for the Pleasure of fishing and not to satisfy any lust for killing. Look here in my diary under date of July 18-19, 1940: "Brooks and I caught 35 fish in an evening and a day of angling, but we kept only a few for an old lady we knew on a farm up the road a bit. Arrived on stream at sunset July 18, and fish took bass bugs with smash- tag strikes; then the following day they Went crazy over the helgramites we offered them." And again, under date of October 4, 1939: "Brooks and I caught 24 fish today, every °ne of them on a fly and spinner, but we didn't even carry a creel down to the creek With us. The stream was flowing strong and cold; it was our last visit of the summer, and somehow we just couldn't end the season in an orgy of killing." And I remember too, one July afternoon When I found the creek high and roily after Brooks rigs up his tackle at the car along a favorite hole. a cloudburst had struck upstream. Sitting the pools and feeling our hearts thump hopper and the crab and the minnow, and °n a huge peninsula of rocks at one of the against our ribs in response to the sucking, the shore frogs, even the wriggling night- deepest holes in the stream were a couple spray-churning' strikes.