Pennsylvania's fertile Cumberland Valley is known for its cold, crystalline spring creeks and their wary and selective trout. The valley's best streams--the Letort, Big Spring, Falling Spring, and Yellow Breeches--deserve their reputation as some of the most famous fly-fishing destinations in the world, because they offer challenging spring-creek fishing in one of the birthplaces of American fly fishing. They are the streams where Vince Marinaro, Charlie Fox, and others fished, and shaped the history of fly fishing.
While these beautiful streams offer unsurpassed angling challenges, their popularity has a price--too many fishermen. Visit the streams on a weekday and you might have them to yourself. Visit them on a weekend and you may go home disappointed and frustrated.
Fortunately, a trip to the Cumberland Valley does not have to end in disappointment, because if the famous streams are crowded, there are other good spring creeks and freestone trout streams that don't get nearly as much fishing pressure. Also, the Susquehanna River offers easy access to world-class smallmouth bass fishing.
Most of these Cumberland Valley alternatives have tackle restrictions and reduced creel limits to protect their fisheries. This is one reason why they continue to offer consistently good fishing in an area that has seen a dramatic rise in population and suburban development. Most anglers on these waters practice catch-and-release and use barbless hooks. Check the state's Summary of Fishing Regulations and Laws (available where licenses are sold) for each stream's specific regulations.
Mountain Creek (below) near Mount Holly springs is a small, tight stream with wild and stocked browns and brookies (above) that hold in riffles, pools, and log jams. Most trout are small, but there are occasionally large holdovers.
The tackle needed for the alternative streams is the same as for the famous ones. Most dry-fly and nymphing anglers use light 2- through 5- weight outfits and floating lines with long 9- to 15-foot leaders and 5X-7X tippets. Some anglers fish streamers with shorter 6- to 9-foot leaders and heavier 3X-4X tippets, and still others sometimes use sinking-tip lines in the deeper pools. A short rod (6 to 7 feet) can make it easier to cast in the tight conditions on these small streams.
Most standard spring-creek and match-the-hatch patterns work well, but local favorites like the Green Weenie or Ed Shenk's crickets, hoppers, and minnows sometimes work when nothing else will.
Quittapahilla Creek
Quittapahilla Creek near Annville in Lebanon County is a spring creek that has yet to become famous. The "Quitti" is about an hour east of the more famous limestone streams. [See "The Quitti," by Richard Henry, Fly Fisherman, March 1996. The Editor.]
Steel mill waste polluted the creek until the recent past, and now local anglers, Trout Unlimited (TU), the Quittie Watershed Association, and the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission have helped improve the stream's fishing and insect hatches. The state and a private game club stock the stream annually. These trout range from 12 to 20 inches long, and about half are stocked during the fall.
The Quitti is a stream with several different characteristics, ranging from a typical limestone spring creek in its upper reaches to a more freestone character in its lower water where it flows into Swatara Creek. Some sections are heavily silted with steep mud banks; others have weedy bottoms and undercut banks.
During summer, the Quitti is full of aquatic vegetation that provides ideal habitat for shrimp and cressbugs, but can make drag-free floats difficult. When the elodea becomes thick, dry flies are the best option, but when the weeds are thinner during colder months, subsurface fishing is the best bet with cressbugs, scuds, crayfish, and generic small (#14-#20) nymphs. Use a small split-shot to sink the fly and present it near bottom with a dead-drift between the weeds.
The only major hatch is the Trico (#18-#22) from midsummer through early fall. It occurs in good numbers on the lower stream, but is conspicuously absent from the upper water and the special-regulations area. Fish throughout the stream take a variety of small beetles, ants, and other terrestrials on the surface, and attractor nymphs on bottom.
About a mile of the Quitti near Annville has delayed-harvest, artificial-lures-only, special regulations. This section is from the Spruce Street bridge on road T-398 downstream to the lower boundary of Quitti Nature Park. To reach the special-regulation water, take Route 422 east from Hershey to Annville. Turn right onto Bachman Road, which takes you to the park.
John Terlingo is a pharmaceuticals salesman from Annville, Pennsylvania.
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