Exploring The Letort

[afishinado]

with an underwater camera>

 

[Dave_W]

Neat.
I've stuck my underwater camera in many of those same spots.

You've got to be very stealthy if you seek to catch Letort fish on film, although they managed a get some in this clip.

(I hate graffiti - have fished under I81 for decades and it's only been this bad in recent years.)

 

[Bamboozle]

Nice to see clean gravel up in Trego's and below and decent weed growth!!

Graffiti begets more graffiti... Some A-holes just have nothing better to do...

 

[dc410]

That was some very cool footage! Thanks for sharing that with us, Afish.

 

[JimKennedy]

Thanks for the great video. That creek is endlessly fascinating to me and has been since my dad first took me there when I was maybe 11 years old. Not until I was 16 did I catch a trout out of it, but not for lack of trying. I'm well into my 50s now and the Letort, and fanciful version of it, are still regular fishing spots in my dreams. I'm now able to consistently get trout to hit my fly, but my landing percentage needs improvement. Each one brought to the bank is special, regardless of size.

While I'm not keen to see any agricultural business go under, I do believe the closing of the cress farm on the left fork (east branch?) was a good thing, especially as it is in the possession of a conservation organization. The waterway up there needs some work, but the chalky haze from the old farm is gone, and the clarity of the water from the old railroad bridge below the quarry down through Vince's Meadow and the Fox Territory is remarkable compared to the old days. When I was a kid, and until relatively recently, the cress farm gave a chalky cast to the water, which I suspect would have made this video a bit more fuzzy in the lower reaches.

Also giving me reason to be hopeful about the creek's future is the state of the waterway downstream from Carlisle and the Army War College. In the old days, the sewage treatment plant didn't do much in the way of treating anything. Now the creek has trout in it right down to the weird little waterfalls at the confluence with Conodoguinet Creek. Last Letort trout I caught was over the summer just up from the falls (photo attached, hopefully).

Like some of the other folks posting, I'm not a huge fan of graffiti, but I will say that one tagger in particular did a remarkable spray paint version of The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh on one of the I-81 bridge abutments above the Fox Territory.

The relative literacy of at least one of the graffiti tags, the possible opening of new spawning beds and fishing areas in the old cress farm, and the expansion of good fishing downstream from Carlisle all make me optimistic that the stream so frequently in my fishing dreams will remain just as enchanting when I'm awake and actually fishing.

Thanks again for the post and the sparking of some fond fishing memories.

 

[riverwhy]

I am curious how the watercress farm created the chalkiness? I remember reading somewhere about brookies in the left branch, I think it may have been Limestone Legends? Are there any brookies still around?

 

[Dave_W]

riverwhy wrote:
I am curious how the watercress farm created the chalkiness? I remember reading somewhere about brookies in the left branch, I think it may have been Limestone Legends? Are there any brookies still around?

The chalkiness wasn't always present and, in my opinion, wasn't always a result of the cress farm (although I'm still glad it is closed). In the last couple years since the Conservancy took over it has become a popular hiking and birding area and much of the undergrowth was cleared recently via controlled burn.
CVTU is partnering with the PFBC to do some continued improvements up there - more to follow.

There have not been wild ST documented in upper Letort in well over a generation and stories about them are relegated to the old time Letort literature. Some rumors persist and some stocked STs show up from time to time.

 

[JimKennedy]

I have not seen a brook trout in the Letort since before the 1982 fish kill (some kind of spill at the cress farm). That was a decent fish (for a brookie) maybe 13 inches. Hit a black marabou streamer with a red throat. I had too much line out and missed him. I'm fairly sure it was a stocked fish.

In those days, a fair number of stocked brookies and rainbows would swim up out of the kids section in Letort Park below the Fox spawning grounds. When I say a fair number, I'm talking about seeing one or two fish a season, so more curiosities than anything else. I haven't seen anything but browns in the creek in a very long time, but there were many years when I was raising kids when I didn't fish creeks where there was a good chance of not catching anything. I enjoy fishing when I don't catch fish, but I enjoy it more when I do. Plus the Letort is kind of a chess game you need to plan out and make sure you've got your moves prepared.

Anyway, the Letort is real brown trout water, a classic English or Croation chalk stream. Certainly before 1883 it was brook trout only, but a 12-inch brown would have no trouble eating a dozen sexually mature brook trout in a season (and becoming an even bigger and more ravenous fish that eats even more brook trout). If the wild brook trout in Big Spring are any indication of what was in the Letort pre-1883, it's hard to imagine any substantial wild brook trout population in living memory because most of them are the perfect size for brown trout meals.

Add in that the cress farm was hardly the kind of pristine environment brook trout seem to need, I am doubtful about the prospects for a remnant heritage strain of brook trout having held firm in that little section of creek just above the main cress farm.

That said, it's probably worth looking into the state of the fish population in the left branch. If there is a heritage strain of brook trout up there, it would be something of a genetic gold mine.

As for that chalky cast, I always presumed that it was related to the activities at the stone crusher, either dust getting into the creek from the crushing operation (it sure coats the leaves of every plant down there in the spring and summer), or something related to water being pumped from the quarry, or some combination of the two.

I came to believe it was cress farm related only after the cress farm shut down and the water downstream became reliably clear, even when the roar of the stone crusher was blasting my ears.

Like I say, the Letort is endlessly fascinating, and that clear water down all the way to the Conodoguinet make me optimistic it could be the scene of a renaissance possibly on a scale even bigger than what Norm Shires and his colleagues were able to accomplish on Big Spring.

With the future holding such bright possibilities, the good old days ain't what they used to be.

 

[laszlo]

Neat underwater footage, was keeping my eye out for my net I lost there in the summer.

 

[turkey]

Many years ago I had relatives that lived in Carlisle. I was just on the cusp of jumping into fly fishing in earnest but I knew nothing of the trout streams in the CV. I visited once and took my Lake Erie issued 8wt Ugly Stik with me. My father had suggested that I drive over to Boiling Springs to check out the Breeches. It was an opening day circus complete with cans of corn. At some point I drove over the Letort near the War College and thought, "I'll have to check this stream out some time." That was probably 25 years ago now and I haven't been back since. At some point I collected a really nice map of the entire stream but to this day I remain uninitiated. One of these days...

Thanks for sharing the video footage.

 

[Classicriver]

I truly hope that there is a bright future for the Letort. I wish I could say I had confidence in that hope.

I fished Letort Spring Run for 25 years, learned from The Master himself, Ed Shenk. My last visit was a sad one, coming to the Barnyard in the summer and finding not a single stem of weed growth throughout the reach! I looked like a sandy bottomed ditch with shallow gin clear water running through it, and of course no trout. I recall at the time a recent CVTU newsletter talking about how everything was wonderful along the stream. I wondered if the writer had visited.

Those of you who live in the region will have to fight and fight hard to preserve and improve this classic limestone spring. Sadly the PAF&BC is not your friend. They destroyed Big Spring twice and ignore enforcement to the detriment of all the Valley's limestone springs.

Realize that sacrifice will be necessary to save all of these waters. They cannot come back with the kind of fishing pressure they receive during "good times". There is hope, but your generation will have the burden of forcing change at the State level. Our generation and our predecessors tried, but the mindset remained unchanged in Harrisburg.

These resources are unique, and they have been pushed to the brink too many times. There are some veterans of past battles who remain in the region. Hope that they may lead a new push for conservation, real conservation and not another show to sell licenses.

 

[LetortAngler]

“My last visit was a sad one, coming to the Barnyard in the summer and finding not a single stem of weed growth throughout the reach! I looked like a sandy bottomed ditch with shallow gin clear water running through it, and of course no trout.”

What ever do you mean? The Letort is in its prime. Besides, its more of a “pilgrimage” stream to go and look at when you’re passing through to see the birds and what not than a “fishing” stream.

 

[larkmark]

Yeah so much for all the "awareness" and all that bringing real assistance to our streams. Where's all the "stream friends" that come with popularizing.? No stream has more history and is more well known. With all the attention from various groups it appears to be going downhill. A lot of talk that's all it amounts to.

 

[LetortAngler]

^ bingo