North Branch Smallmouths.

Sometimes you need to stray off the beaten path, especially when you're chasing bronzebacks. Whether that means bouncing down a dirt road or two, balancing on a railroad track for a few hundred yards, ignoring all the annoying POSTED signs that scold you every 30 feet, or ending up with one nasty case of poison ivy, the point is simple: take your shirt off and bust out those crusty old river shoes, the smallies are on fire.


Summer in northeast Pennsylvania brings with it different things for different people, but for my friends and I, summer brings a stable river level and excellent smallmouth fishing. When you've spent close to 20 years growing up less than two miles--a stones throw if you have an arm like myself--away from the north branch of the Susquehanna River, an addiction to bass fishing is easily acquired. I'll even make the bold claim that you can bet our river shoes are a little crustier than the next guy's, considering the fact that we've been wearing them for 11 out of those 20 years. With an addiction like this, new shoes are hard to come by.


For the past few weeks our fishing party has mostly targeted the section of river between the town of Tunkhannock south to the town of West Pittston. Most of this stretch is easily accessed from Route 92 for wading and shore fishing; and there is plenty of public boat launches to push off from with the trusty old flat bottom on both the east and west sides of the river.

Anglers can find plenty of good structure and habitat that smallmouths savor: rapid sections (which provide cooler conditions as the water warms), plenty of gravel underneath, and several island points and shelves to fish as well. As the summer progresses and water temperatures begin to warm up, anglers can find several deep channels and rock ledges where smallmouths will be congregating because of the cooler water present there.

Artificial lures that we've had the most productivity on over the past few weeks are: 3-inch white Mister Twisters on yellow or white 3/4 ounce jigheads, 3-inch watermelon seed tubes on 3/4 ounce yellow jigheads, and 4-inch Power-Craws rigged Texas-style. For live bait we've been using leeches and nightcrawlers, but haven't had quite as much success with those in comparison to the soft plastics.

Fishing the Susquehanna River during the summer months has undoubtedly heightened my passion for Pennsylvania's great outdoors. Wading waste-deep and throwing lures all day alongside my best friends is something that will put a smile on my face throughout my entire life. And even though we always wager 5 bucks on the first fish on, somewhere deep down inside our inner tackle boxes we know that fishing together under a hot June sun is priceless, whether you land that 5 bucks or not.

Of course, I'm so sick and tired of taking my friends' money that I opted to finally pay them a compliment here. I owe it to them anyway. Fish on!

The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, otherwise known as Papilio Glaucus.

It was unbelievably difficult to get this butterfly to sit still. After chasing it around the Wissahickon Creek Valley for about an hour trying to get these shots, I felt like a three year old lacking any worldly responsibilities. And then I did some flyfishing. So in that sense, I guess I was rather similar to a three-year-old lacking any worldly responsibilities. And I must say, once the guilt subsided, it felt pretty good.

What's funny is that I couldn't help but to think that such a marvelous creature like the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail will never--in it's wind driven and scientifically metamorphic world--be able to escape the infamous category of, quite simply, a bug.

I guess it does just go to show you that even if the grass looks greener on the other side, it's just as tough to mow.

The best we can do is forget those bothersome worldly responsibilities and go play outside for a while. When you really put things in perspective, we're not much bigger than bugs anyway in the grand scheme of this big spinning ball. If they can float around and flutter in the wind, than who's to say we can't either?

Battled and Beaten.

I felt my windpipe getting smaller, yet all I wanted was more air, air my lungs couldn't seem to get quick enough. That's a scary feeling when you still have another 80 yards of rocky climb left in front of you. And you're already in your Granny Gear. And every other racer in your event class is 25 minutes ahead of you.

Not only is it scary, but embarrassing as well.

I found out about the CAT Classic Mountain Bike Race a month prior to its designated Saturday (May 5th), and assumed that 4 weeks of preparation would be enough time to condition and compete in the Expert/Pro field of racers. Oftentimes my ego gets the better of me.

The Friday night before the race, from my apartment in Philadelphia, I drove two hours north to my home in northeast Pennsylvania, and the next morning took the awesome drive west along route 118 past Rickett's Glen State Park, eventually picking up interstate 180 for a few miles, and then finally following some back roads along the pristine waters of Loyalsock Creek to the race grounds on the Logue farm.

It was a beautiful day, sunny, warm, large cumulus clouds overhead, and a surprisingly large turn-out of racers. I parked my truck, hopped out and headed down to the registration building to sign up. I was confident. Even though this was my first race, I was sure there was no terrain I hadn't ridden while training in the Wissahickion Creek Valley of Philadelphia.


On my second lap of the race, somewhere around mile 12, on a small section of open field single track, a pro TREK team rider passed me. I didn't get a good look at him, mainly because the pass occurred as a red and white blur, with the warning of, 'on your right!' a second prior to its happening from about 15 yards behind me.

5 minutes after that a pro Cannondale team rider passed me as well on a technical section with plenty of rock and root. The only memory of him that I have is the mud that his back tire flung up into my face. He didn't give me any warning, probably because at that point I was barely even moving and he understood I was no threat at all to his pass. My right leg wouldn't bend because it was cramped so bad. My shins were cut and bleeding from my pedals tearing into them several times. And my heart, at that point, seemed ready to explode.

It was then the realization hit me that I was definitely in the wrong category of racers. But, I tried to reassure myself, it was a great experience nonetheless.

The 8-mile course was unbelievable. Even though its terrain dominated my riding ability, it was in fact one of the best rides I've ever been on. The first section was somewhat technical, offering mostly wooded single track, a few downhill stretches, plenty of roots, some soupy mud bogs and rocks scattered throughout here and there. The second serving of the 8-mile loop offered a nice recovery over mostly rolling ground. I should specify that this section was a 'recovery' for me specifically, for the rest of the field it was a high-speed area where racers could make up for lost time. And the third section of the course broke me. Climb after climb, rock garden after rock garden, technical downhill after technical downhill, mud bog after mud bog. In fact it's here where my legs stopped working on my second lap. It's here where I lost all confidence in myself as a mountain bike racer. And it's here where I realized I would have been better off turkey hunting that morning.

But to live is to learn. And even though the CAT Classic crushed my spirits, I'll still be riding the old F300 Cannondale 4 times a week, attempting to build my confidence and quad muscles for the next race, wherever it may be, through whatever terrain it may wind. Egoes are easily healed. I think maybe next time though, I'll register in the Sport class. Just to play it safe.

Sutton Creek.

Some places you just can't let people know about. Any angler knows that.

That's exactly how my friends and I think of Sutton Creek. We grew up fishing the holes tucked away behind old Doc Bishop's Christmas tree farm. We spent entire summers chasing small natives down the waterfalls across the street from our elementary school. And even now, almost graduated from college, almost too big to sneak down through the thickets and pine patches that are the only entrances to Sutton Creek, we still return to fish the stream that molded us into trout fishermen.

Sutton Creek is a small northeast Pennsylvania stream (that flows through mostly private land) and in many places is well covered by a thick forest canopy. Thus, the creek stays cool long into late spring and early summer, making it an awesome fishery for fiesty natives. Although the creek passes through posted property, there are several bridges with roadside parking that offer access to the creek--but not necessarily our secret spots.

My most memorable experience on Sutton Creek actually occurred not in trout season, but on a rainy January morning two years ago. My friend Mike Hronich and I decided to rough the weather and fish a hole that always holds a trout or two whenever we decide to visit it. Being the spincaster that he is, Hronich tied on none other than a trusty golden Mepps spinner to the end of two pound test. Me, being the flyfisherman that I think I am, tied on a small nymph to the end of a 5X leader and we headed down to the stream in the later half of the morning.

After about an hour of drifting my nymph though several different shoots and untangling my fly from the branches behind me, I was beginning to lose hope as well as focus. So I did what any responsible fisherman would do, I reeled in and began hiking upstream to see how Hronich was making out. After about 60 yards of walking along the dense bank of the creek, I heard the call on the other side of the thick pine stand in front of me: "fish on!"

The rain fell steady and hadn't slowed the entire time. Which made the 11-inch brookie Mike held when I finally arrived at the hole he haulded it out of even more rewarding. It was the first time we pulled a trout out of Sutton Creek during the winter months.

Even though Hronich had probably caught that fish a hundred times before, somehow a small golden Mepps always seems to fool him. Or maybe that brookie simply knew us so well by then that he finally understood we really depended on catching him 'just one more time.' Maybe that's what they mean by a fish's 'six sense.' Afterall, a good friend once told me that's what fishing is, "two lives connected by a line." Hronich released that old brookie back into the high waters of Sutton, assuring the old trout that he's not going anywhere anytime soon. Not as long as that hole still holds water. It's his creek and his undercut bank, and we are merely visitors.

And like any fisherman will tell you, some places are just too good to resist telling people about. They're what great stories are made of.