Licking Creek- East or West?

[YorkFlyGuy]

Heading out to Blacklog Creek with some bait casters and like to get away after about an hour hanging out with them. I see that in the SF there are two creeks named Licking Creek (East and West). I've fished the West for a few hours a few years back, but returning the next year I found it barely more than a trickle (a run may be a better term than creek).
Anyway, I see there is a DHALO section in the East LC and wanted to know if it was worth check out or if I should just head north to better known and fished creeks.

 

[Dave_W]

YorkFlyGuy wrote:
Anyway, I see there is a DHALO section in the East LC and wanted to know if it was worth check out or if I should just head north to better known and fished creeks.

It's worth exploring.

 

[Maurice]

Yeah. If its the one that comes in through Millerstown? On 322 I fished it years ago and the water was skinny the stocked trout seemed non existant but I had a blast catching small brookies in the riffles between pools that normally you would walk past. Fish those.

I seem to recall driving an incredibly long time slowly up through that valley to get to that DHALO stretch. Like a 1/2 hour for 10 miles or so.

 

[YorkFlyGuy]

Mo, from what I can see it is right between Mifflin and Lewistown. Karl B Guss Picnic area ring a bell? It does look like it is a bit of a drive, I'll be coming in off of Blacklog Valley Road. Thanks for the bit of info.

 

[tomitrout]

East Licking, nice little creek....the drive over from Blacklog might be a bit of a challenge though. Pine Ridge & Wynn Gap Rds are the most direct route from the Blacklog Valley up, over and down into the Licking drainage. These are dirt forest roads and who knows what kind of shape they're in, they're probably ok for the most part. The paved options are definitely the long way around, Blacklog Valley Rd up, over and down into Reeds Gap, then 35 up to Mifflin and basically backtracking on Licking Creek Rd to get back up into the drainage. If you're fishing down lower on the Blacklog, you're probably easily looking at an hour plus to drive to the picnic area regardless of route choice, not that you need to go the whole way to the picnic area for decent enough fishing if you come in from upstream.

Link to a decent map of the area if you don't already have it:

http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/cs/groups/public/documents/document/dcnr_20027228.pdf

 

[Biggie]

The dirt roads are pretty good.Before Carl Guss, take Spectical Road 50 feet after you turn park at the bridge. The DHALO is up and down from there. Hope there is some water for you.

 

[YorkFlyGuy]

Looks like rain for a couple of days, so I expect flow to be better. I know that West Licking Cr really starts moving with a bit of rainfall, but the valley there is pretty tight.

 

[jabink84]

Both hold trout. Both are beautiful area to fish. I am partial to west licking creek, but east is the bigger of the two and has a decent population of brooks and browns.

 

[YorkFlyGuy]

After all of this I didn't get to either one. We headed south to the Conococheague. That is am interesting steam with some long slack water. It fishes like a warm water Creek but we managed to pull quite a few browns and s rainbow out in a few hours.