'EXNSYLVANIA NOLER •Y 191 PENNSYLVANIA FISH COMMISSION -Photo by Karl Maslowski THIS MONSTER may appear to be something out of this world but it's meat on the table to bass, especially in larval stage. See story on page 8. COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA ANGLER PENNSYLVANIA HON. GEORGE M. LEADER GOVERNOR VOL. 24, No. 7 JULY, 1955 PENNSYLVANIA FISH COMMISSION WALLACE DEAN MEADVILLE, PA. R. STANLEY SMITH WAYNESBURG IN THIS ISSUE GERARD ADAMS HAWLEY ALBERT R. HINKLE CLEARFIELD WATERSHED MANAGEMENT IN ACTION Dr. Richmond E. Myers 2 CHARLES C. HOUSER ALLENTOWN PROSPECTS AT PYMATUNING N. R. Casillo 6 EXECUTIVE OFFICE A. FRENCH, Executive Director EILWOOD CITY HELLGRAMMITE HALFTONES W. T. Davidson 8 H. R. STACKHOUSE Administrative Secretary R. C. McCASLIN Comptroller CASTING FOR THE MOON Dick Merwin 10 CONSERVATION—EDUCATION DIVISION ALUMINUM BOATS ARE HERE TO STAY Ray Ovington 12 J. ALLEN BARRETT Chief OUILL FLOATS FOR FUSSY FISH Ben C. Robinson 14 FISH CULTURE C. R. BULLER Chief Fhh Culturlst POPPING THE CORK Don Shiner 16 GORDON L. TREMBLEY Chief Aquatic Biologist ARTHUR D. BRADFORD Pathologist CYRIL G. REGAN THE BASS BUG ROD Richard Alden Knight 18 Chief Div. of Land and Water Acquisition GEORGE H. GORDON Chief Photographer THOMAS F. O'HARA STARVATION POND Sparse Grey Hackle 19 Construction Engineer HATCHERY SUPERINTENDENTS Dewey Sorenson—Bellefonte Merrill Lillle-Corry • Union City MEET THE NEW MEMBERS OF THE FISH COMMISSION 20 Edwin H. Hahn—Erie T. J. Dingle—Huntsdala Howard For—Linetville J. L. Zettle—Pleasant Mount George Magergel—Reynoldsdale Barnard Gill—Tionesta John J. Wopart—Torresdale COVER: Artist Bob Cypher, like most outdoor pros with brush, pen and scratch'board, wants his bass taking a mighty leap although we know Bob has seldom seen this happen ENFORCEMENT unless "old Bronzeback" is trying to throw a hook or two. W. W. BRITTON Chief Enforcement Officer DISTRICT SUPERVISORS BACK COVER: How're they bitin'? Northwest Division -Photo by Don Shiner CARLYLE S. SHELDON Conneautville, Pa.; Phone 3033 Southwest Division MINTER C. JONES 3(1 W. Lincoln St., Somerset, Pa.; Phone 5324 George W. Forrest, Editor 1339 East Philadelphia Street, York, Pa. North Central Division C. W. SHEARER 200 Agnaw St., Mill Hall, Pa.; Phone 375 South Central Division The PENNSYLVANIA ANGLER Is published monthly by the Pennsylvania Fish Commission. HAROLD CORBIN South Office Building, Harrisburg, Pa. Subscription: $1.00 per year, 10 cents per single copy. 521 13th St., Huntingdon, Pa.; Phone 1202 Send check or money order payable to Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. DO NOT SEND Northeast Division STAMPS. Individuals sending cash do so at their own risk. Change of address should reach RALPH O. SINGER us promptly. Furnish both old and new addresses. Entered as Second Class matter at the Tafton, Pike Co., Pa.; Post Office, Harrlsburg, Pa., under Act of March 3, 1873. Phone Hawley 3407 Southeast Division Neither Publisher nor Editor will assume responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or JOHN S. OGDEN illustrations while In their possession or in transit. Permission to reprint will be given 242 E. College Ave., York, Pa.; Phone 7434 provided we receive marked copies and credit is given material or Illustrations. Only communications pertaining to manuscripts, material or illustrations should be addressed to the Editor at the above address. atershed management in action • tremendous amount of space is being given by ent-day way-of-life. Yet we Americans have taken A the press these days to the subject of water­ our land for granted, and through misuse we have shed management. Not only the daily papers, but brought about changes from natural conditions which also our popular and semi-technical magazines, are have proven exceedingly harmful, until the value of reporting, evaluating, and discussing the problems our acres is being threatened by selfish exploitation. of American watersheds. This would not be so if Because we have been careless we have such evils there was not a popular interest in the subject. The as soil exhaustion, erosion, stream pollution, floods, fourth estate exists by giving the public the reading vanishing fish and game, and in general, a depletion matter it wants. Yet, it is surprising how many people of vital natural resources, without which in the long have never heard of watershed management, and to run we can not survive. All these disappearing acts whom the term "watershed" might mean anything are evidence of poor watershed conditions. All could from a raincoat to a small shanty floating down the have been avoided by good watershed management. swollen waters of a stream in flood. We trust there It is, however, needless to consider what might have are no Pennsylvania fishermen who have such ideas. been, but it is not too late to save what is left and Let us introduce the subject by defining our terms. in many cases restore what has been lost. How? An A watershed is an area of the earth's surface from examination of one of Pennsylvania's watersheds, which all the rain that falls, drains away at only one which we share in part with Delaware, will tell the point. Thus all the runoff of the Lehigh Watershed story. leaves it at the point where the Lehigh River flows We are referring to the Brandywine Valley. Back into the Delaware at Easton. Obviously, large water­ in colonial days this was as delightful and prosperous sheds are made up of many smaller ones. The Saucon a watershed as you could have found on the Atlantic Watershed is a part of the Lehigh's, as the Juniata seaboard. It was peopled by well-to-do Quaker farm­ Watershed is a part of the Susquehanna's. Therefore, ers who raised bumper crops in fertile fields and lush all the land drained by any stream constitutes its orchards. The woodlands were filled with game and watershed, taking its name from the mouth of the the Brandywine with perch, and shad. The smaller stream. streams were alive with trout. Mills along these A watershed is a naturally, and very obviously, waters serviced the farmer's harvests, and the gen­ well-defined area of land. It is bounded by divides. eral picture was one of quiet, rural abundance. Here Cross a divide and you immediately pass from one was a watershed, a little over 300 square miles, with watershed into another. These divides, be they high well over 200,000 acres, drained by more than 600 barrier mountains, or low, readily crossed hills, hold miles of streams. Through the years its agricultural within their compassments distinct natural and cul­ position flourished because of the nearby populous tural patterns by which one watershed may be differ­ markets of Philadelphia and Wilmington which created entiated from another. a growing demand for dairy and agricultural products. The valley also offered sportsmen from the same urban The whole history of America can be described as areas a convenient place for generations of fisher­ the utilization of our country's watersheds by man, men and hunters to follow the teachings of Izaak and man is an unusual animal. He is the only member Walton or Daniel Boone. As the years passed, con­ of the animal kingdom who makes a practice of spoil­ ditions changed. By the middle thirties of the present ing through misuse, the natural environment with century the Brandywine Watershed presented some­ which nature provided him. When the European set­ thing not so pleasing. tlers first moved into the American wilderness, they found the watersheds in a biological state of balance At the mouth of the Brandywine at Wilmington, adjusted by nature to a healthy flora and fauna Delaware, the Army Engineers were maintaining a adapted to conditions which the white man imme­ round-the-clock dredging operation several months diately began to upset by his oft-hailed process called a year to keep the approaches to the Marine Terminal "conquering the wilderness." free from the thousands of tons of Chester County top soil the stream was washing down as silt. This The fact that man depends on watersheds for the was costing the taxpayers around $300,000 a year! raw materials from which he draws his supplies of This trouble originated below the headwater area of food and clothing, is basic in our national economy. the watershed south of the low hills known as the From watersheds come also raw materials vital to (Turn, to page 23) industry and the general welfare of our complex pres- (More pho+os on pages 4 & 5} PENNSYLVANIA ANGLEK By Dr. Richmond E. Myers li Dean of Men and Prof, of Geology, Moravian College FLOODED farmlands, homes cost millions of dollars in damages not only to property but loss of valuable topsoil, the ultimate results of poor watershed management. JULY—1955 DREDGING SILT from mouth of the Brandywine by this huge Army Engineer's dredge co»* taxpayers about $300,000 per year. -aNMMNI CONTOUR FARMING in the area was encouraged to eliminate . EROSION and all its evils! PENNSYLVANIA ANGLER l?5SrSwrj CONSERVATION EDUCATION was vitally needed. Movies, slides and talks to civic organizations, scouts, farmers, sportsmen, showing via visual education the tremendous wastes and toll of pollution, siltation and erosion sold a "do something now" program. POLLUTION of streams which now run clear again pro­ viding recreation, fishing as well as eliminating a menace to health. JULY—1955 rospeets at pymatuning LONG with the distinction of hav­ A ing the state's largest natural and artificial bodies of water, western Penn­ sylvania also has what is considered to be the finest walleyed pike fishing in this part of the country. And by that last we mean a considerable slice of it. The largest officially recorded wall­ eye taken in Pymatuning Reservoir weighed 14 pounds, 14 ounces.