Best State Park for Fly Fishing

[bbillings30]

I am planning a camping trip with my wife this month. She enjoys reading while I go fishing, so she said told me to find a place where I can fly fish (I obliged of course!). So that leads me to my question... what's the best state park (or other camping place) in Pennsylvania for fly fishing? I prefer fishing mountain streams for brookies and brown trout. It'd be great if this park also had hiking because we like doing that together too. Any info or input you'd like to share would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[troutbert]

Colton Point SP or Ole Bull SP would be good picks.

 

[Luke]

Not too far from home you have the following good choice:

Poe Paddy State Park (no showers nor electric)
Poe Valley State Park (remodeled, modern, full ammenities)

They are only 3 miles from each other. Paddy is for those who are mostly fishing and hiking focused and do not mind roughing it a bit more.

Many fishing opportunities in these valleys for both brown trout and brook trout.

 

[salmonoid]

Any of those already mentioned. I'll add Worlds End State Park as well.

 

[bbillings30]

Awesome! What streams at these parks would you recommend?

 

[pcray1231]

Poe Paddy/Valley was mentioned. That'd be the obvious choice.

The obvious stream there is Penn Creek. Penns is a largish limestoner full of brown trout. It's remote and beautiful and the fishing is very good, and there's plenty of hiking. Lots of dirt road driving, though.

There are also some brookie streams nearby (tribs of Penns), and Poe Creek itself has a mixture of the brookies as well as stockies.

Poe Paddy is right on Penns, at the mouth of Poe Creek, but the amenities are primitive (pit toilets, no showers). Poe Valley is a few miles upstream on Poe Creek (so Penns then requires a drive), but a more modern campground with amenities. Poe Creek is also dammed there to create a lake.

Aside from there, I'd say Hickory Run, World's End, Rickett's Glen, Cherry Springs, Lyman Run, Colton Point, Little Pine, and Ole Bull all demand mention. Even Bald Eagle wouldn't be too shabby.

 

[Swattie87]

Good advice so far. The Poe Paddy/Poe Valley options are the obvious choices...best of both worlds...small streams and a mega bug producer big limestoner right there. Just keep in mind it's coming in to prime hatch seasson on Penns right now and with the access issues upstream, you can probably expect a bit of a bottleneck in terms of accessing the stream via Poe this year. I'm not sure what those two will have in terms of site availability for the next month.

Lyman Run/Ole Bull/Colton Point will all put you close to countless unstocked, small wild Trout streams and get you close to Kettle and Pine - Which although freestoners, have very good insect hatches in May and June as well.

If you're looking to completely avoid the crowds, Hickory Run SP is probably the "off the radar" potential idea too. You won't have the hatch chasing crowd there at all, and there's some good small stream fishing to be had in that area. Be careful if that's you're choice as some of those streams can be a little rough and remote.

 

[pcray1231]

For the northcentral region, I've always liked Cherry Springs as a centralized location. It's on a mountaintop, so there isn't much within walking distance or anything.

But you're within decent striking distance of the East Branch/First Fork drainages just to your west, the upper Kettle system to your SE, upper Pine drainage to your NE, and upper Allegheny drainage to your north.

Compared to say, Ole Bull, which is better suited for the Kettle drainage but kind of limits you to there.

Plus, you have the whole dark skies park thing going on, which is kinda cool if you are geek like me. The main CG is across the road from the observing field, so at your campsite fires and lanterns are fine. You do have to be a little careful of where you point your headlights if you come in at night. But if you want to stargaze with the misses a bit, that's DEFINITELY your place, and some geek with a mega-telescope will be focused on Mars or something and let you peek through the lens.

Just check the dates of the various star parties there, and avoid those weekends as it can be a zoo. There's like 2 a year, and always coincide with a new moon weekend in spring and fall.

 

[UncleShorty]

Little Pine State Park.

Lots and lots of great trout water within a 45 minute, or less, drive,

 

[Chaz]

Little Pine Creek SP has a fine campground and streams, several of them within walking distance. Plus it's fairly close to Loch Haven.
If you want to go farther, Hickory Run, again another fine campground and fishing within walking distance. Both have BIG water nearby too, and a bunch of other streams a short distance away.
Both have wild and stocked streams, and are either surrounded by state Forest or very close.

 

[dc410]

I just spent last weekend with my wife in the Poconos and checked out a little bit of Hickory Run S.P. while we were there (this was the first that I ever was in that area). We did a little 3 mile or so hike from a trailhead on some very well groomed trails along Hickory Run down to the Railroad before it enters into the Lehigh River. I didn't fish at all on Saturday but Hickory Run definitely had some decent flow and some really good looking pocket water. I didn't see anyone else fishing it during our hike but I did see a few Hendricksons coming off. It is a really nice area and I will definitely give it a shot the next time I am in the area. We are very blessed with the amount of public access we have to some great streams here in PA and this whole thread is a testament to that fact.

 

[Chaz]

hickory Run in that area has very good hatches, in fact all the way up to the fall/dam it has good hatches. It's still pretty early for the big hatches, but with this warm weather it will be catching up quickly.

 

[csoult]

Pine at Tiadaghton

 

[mike_richardson]

Laurel hill State park has nice cabins. This is in Somerset county I believe. It would be around a half hour or so from the yough. I loved staying in a cabin down there. There is all kinds of stuff to do down there. WHite water rafting, biking, you name it.

I hammered trout on the yough. Not sure if there are any other camping areas closer to the yough but laurel hill creek and the yough both fish well, and the yough is tail water so you can expect decent flow year round.

One of my goals in life was to build a camp in Potter county, but after that trip to the Yough, I may look in the confluence area instead.

 

[PocketWater]

I have stayed at Poe Paddy, and fished Penns before and really liked the more primitive feel of Poe Paddy. Penns can be some tough fishing though. Just my opinion.

One place I have never been, but do want to visit in the near future is Kettle Creek. Here is a write up on it. Maybe some other members here could chip in more information on it.

http://www.perfectflystore.com/wkettlec.html

 

[Mucka]

Good article about Hickory Run State Park in Eastern Fly Fishing just this past week- I can say it definitely peaked my interest in heading out that way... can't offer any first hand tips though.

 

[chrisdm4]

I will be heading up to Hickory Run State Park the weekend of the 16th this month. Hoping to get after native fish and some stocked fish. That article in Eastern Fly Fishing helped a lot and there is a lot of good information on this site about places to fish for native fish there. Hopefully we do well that weekend! If anyone else will be fishing there that weekend let me know!