Return to the roots

[Squaretail]

Somewhere near the top of North Mountain in Sullivan county lies my brothers mountain getaway. Hes had it for almost 20 yrs now and it looks alot better than it used to. His place is the next residence to the mountain place I grew up going to. It is very familiar territory once the fog of a 17 yr absence got past me.

While I was there he let me hop on one of his 4-wheelers and hit some of the wooded trails. Chicky did really well riding it and almost seemed to enjoy it. But before too long she heard something and flew off while hitting the ground running straight into the woods.

The destination on the 4-wheelers was a place near the very top of Muncy creek known as the Otter hole. Easily jumped across at this point in the stream, somehow ma nature has created this remarkably large hole by shooting the water through 2 large chutes carved into solid rock. I was so very happy to see that this area in particular looks the same as it did when I last saw it almost 2 decades ago.

The water here is the clearest and cleanest I've ever found and have drank many gallons straight out of the stream I was standing in. To look in it is like looking into liquid air.
Its also where I cut my teeth at fishing for native brookies and dicovered the enormous difference of difficulty between catching a stockie from the Perkiomen or Unami and getting a native to take before letting it see me. This is where I first merged hunting into my fishing tactics.

Although hes not into fishing as much as I am, my brother prefers archery compared to other forms of hunting. From the way he described it, it seemed much the same way I preferred flyfishing to other forms of fishing. He shot this large but smaller racked 8 point the night I showed and found it the next morning.
Hard nosed but understanding, my brother gave me a weekend I've wanted for a long time in a cabin thats more cozy and comfortable than the one I grew up going to. Its amazing some of the things I never noticed about him untill now. I'd thank him again but he and his wife dont have a computer.
With a place like that and where it is, why would they?

 

[Padraic]

Beautiful. Thanks for sharing it!

 

[mute]

awesome

 

[troutbert]

I fished up there one time. It was nice. The brookies were very spooky, even more so than most brookies. Right near dusk they went nuts, though. It was a long WALK up there and back from the last bridge on SR2006, above the summer camp. You guys are cheating with the ATVS. Didn't have none of them when was a boy.

 

[Squaretail]

That was the very first time I ever rode there (except stocking) and it is quite a long walk. An older fellow named John Peterman used to raise trout in the pond at that bridge with the PFBC and use his tractor and trailer and we'd ride up there and actually stock trout that far up. He told me when he was a kid in the 1920's he caught native brookies up to 17"es up there and his parents and uncles had stories of 2 footers before he was born. Ofcourse they were food back in those days and they were wiped out just like the stories say. My largest up there was 9 1/4" over 20 yrs ago.

 

[troutbert]

As I recall, walking up there you go through a long stretch of private but still open land before you reach SGL property. I've seen a lot of similar places get closed off over the years. I sure hope that access remains, but such "casual access" appears to be dwindling. I've checked the maps to try to find an alternate way to get into the headwaters section on the SGL, but it seems like it's very hard to do, very roundabout.

 

[Acristickid]

Good stuff. Jealous.

 

[Squaretail]

From what I know, John passed awhile back. But evidently a Peterman still owns it and its still open to fishing, only they dont ride stockies back anymore. Probably a good thing. Ofcourse a kindly knock on the door certainly wouldnt hurt a thing as MOST of the Petermans up there were great people to me and alot of the time would give me wild blueberry pie and whatnot as a kid as I would be going by to my fishing holes.
Which was what led me to the "knocking".