Spruce Creek access

wildtrout2 said:
Is Spruce Creek Donny Beaver's stomping grounds?
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Part of it, yes. I don't know if the club actually owns much of the stream, but they lease quite a bit off of landowners. At least I think that is the setup there. I am truly not too knowledgable about the whole situation.
 
It was a freaking steelhead. Of course I don't know exactly where it came from. Sorry if you were offended by the insinuation.
 
jifigz said:
Which stretch of water does the Spruce Creek Rod and Gun Club maintain these days? When I search them up on the inter-webs, I don't find a whole lot about their current operation. Have they been absorbed by Homewaters/Spring Ridge?

I really don't know much about Spruce Creek, but the more I learn about it, the less it seems appealing. In fact, it seems to represent the very antithesis of what I like in a trout stream.
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No and they will never be absorbed by homewaters. They have several sections one Below Graysville and one around seven stars.
Most people see spruce creek as a stream of all stocked hogs and few natives. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is lots of predation from eagles to ospreys and blue Herrons taking un-educated stocked fish. Almost all of spruce creek is catch and release by choice. Im sure you can understand the amount of large fish that can achieve over many years as its done for the little J. There are lots of native fish and stocked fish that were raised in spruce creek springs. Other than a few tail nips doubt anyone could tell the difference between native or raised. All fish in spruce creek turn into large hogs over time creating 30+" fish if they make it and get mistaken as Donny B torpedoes. Lol.
The fish commission did a shocking by colerain park. I'm sure they have the records of their shocking and fish counts. I'm just one that feels more public water is always good, dcnr or rothrock state forest, firmly believe they own to the middle of the stream.
 
When I fish spruce creek, I usually catch wild browns in the 8 to 12 inch range.
The hogs seem to be waiting for the "brown beetle" hatch
 
Hackle said:
I'm just one that feels more public water is always good, dcnr or rothrock state forest, firmly believe they own to the middle of the stream.
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This I agree with.
Hackle said:
Most people see spruce creek as a stream of all stocked hogs and few natives. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is lots of predation from eagles to ospreys and blue Herrons taking un-educated stocked fish. Almost all of spruce creek is catch and release by choice. Im sure you can understand the amount of large fish that can achieve over many years as its done for the little J. There are lots of native fish and stocked fish that were raised in spruce creek springs. Other than a few tail nips doubt anyone could tell the difference between native or raised. All fish in spruce creek turn into large hogs over time creating 30+" fish if they make it and get mistaken as Donny B torpedoes.
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This I do not agree with, and that is just based on my experiences elsewhere in PA. Remember, I have no experience firsthand with Spruce, but what characteristics does that stream have to produce an abundance of 30" wild browns? 30" is a gigantic brown trout.
 
troutbert said:
"Pellet pigs" are stocked all up and down Spruce Creek, and people feed them in the stream with dog food.
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I once had the opportunity to fish Fishing Creek behind Jim Bashline's house near Benton. A friend of a friend took us to catch these giant trouts. Well I guess Jim wasn't all that happy about us fishing over his pets as he rode his lawn tractor up and down the edge of the stream the whole time we were there and i caught one 10" trout. When we stopped and had a brief conversation with him he showed us these really large brown beetles that he used to catch the beasts. Then he showed us the dog chow he threw in the water to keep those fish around.
 
lars said:
I once had the opportunity to fish Fishing Creek behind Jim Bashline's house near Benton. A friend of a friend took us to catch these giant trouts. Well I guess Jim wasn't all that happy about us fishing over his pets as he rode his lawn tractor up and down the edge of the stream the whole time we were there and i caught one 10" trout. When we stopped and had a brief conversation with him he showed us these really large brown beetles that he used to catch the beasts. Then he showed us the dog chow he threw in the water to keep those fish around.
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Interesting.
Did he own the property you were fishing on?
 
Hackle said:
No and they will never be absorbed by homewaters. They have several sections one Below Graysville and one around seven stars.
Most people see spruce creek as a stream of all stocked hogs and few natives. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is lots of predation from eagles to ospreys and blue Herrons taking un-educated stocked fish. Almost all of spruce creek is catch and release by choice. Im sure you can understand the amount of large fish that can achieve over many years as its done for the little J. There are lots of native fish and stocked fish that were raised in spruce creek springs. Other than a few tail nips doubt anyone could tell the difference between native or raised. All fish in spruce creek turn into large hogs over time creating 30+" fish if they make it and get mistaken as Donny B torpedoes. Lol.
The fish commission did a shocking by colerain park. I'm sure they have the records of their shocking and fish counts. I'm just one that feels more public water is always good, dcnr or rothrock state forest, firmly believe they own to the middle of the stream.
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I had no interest in fishing Spruce creek before but now that i know that EVERY trout in there grows to 30 inches...i'm packing the car right now as i post this
 
bringthepain said:
I had no interest in fishing Spruce creek before but now that i know that EVERY trout in there grows to 30 inches...i'm packing the car right now as i post this
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Should’ve packed the car 30 minutes sooner. Making this post from the lot. If you see a Mini with NJ tags that’s me. Don’t mess with it. Not my fault I set my alarm earlier than you. 😜
 
Swattie87 said:
Should’ve packed the car 30 minutes sooner. Making this post from the lot. If you see a Mini with NJ tags that’s me. Don’t mess with it. Not my fault I set my alarm earlier than you. 😜
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Hehe, you got me you rascal!!
 
I was fishing a mountain stream one time, and I accidentally trespassed into club waters. How did I figure it out? Well, all of a sudden I came up to a nice pool and tossed a dry fly into it, and immediately a rainbow about 25" promptly leapt out of the water, hammered my fly, and broke my 6x tippet in a hurry. I was using my 7'6" Orvis Superfine 4 weight and catching much, much smaller fish on average than that behemoth. I walked up to the pool and saw 5 or 6 huge rainbows milling around in the gin-clear waters of the mountain stream. I then noticed an automatic feed dispenser on the shore that appeared to be on a timer.

I guess that is the experience that club members want. You pay to have an exclusive opportunity at a gigantic fish that readily takes almost anything that hits the water from the air. Even by stumbling upon it for free, I didn't enjoy the experience. In fact, it rather ruined my stream exploration for the day. Plus, I am not into trespassing, and I respect private waters, so I immediately saw my way out of there. It sucks to take a high quality trout stream and ruin it with stockies and pellets.
 
jifigz said:
This I agree with.

This I do not agree with, and that is just based on my experiences elsewhere in PA. Remember, I have no experience firsthand with Spruce, but what characteristics does that stream have to produce an abundance of 30" wild browns? 30" is a gigantic brown trout.
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Ok after all hoopla, dog food and sarcastic comments about pellet hogs. I went back to see what I wrote. To start, no one that I know of feeds trout dog food, that would be detrimental to a trouts health. Key words "if they make it". As kids in the 70s, we spent alot of time on spruce creek at night, looking for those hogs and yes I've seen them. If youve never caught a big brown over 25" you should try night fishing, when they primarily feed on large prey. A hog to me is over 20" and yes 30+" fish have been caught in spruce creek. There are many sections on spruce creek that probably never gets fished at all. No pressure, lots of food, how big can a trout grow in that environment. 6" 12" 18" 25" ? I'm really surprised by the comments actually. Lol. The state wants to give fisherman more access to a class A cold water fishery and most on here are trash talking the stream and never fished it. All I can say is if the state wins I'll be fishing it. I'd be happy catching the abundant 7" - 13" trout like most fisherman catch. If I want to catch a hog, I'll go at night.
 
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Hackle said:
Ok after all hoopla, dog food and sarcastic comments about pellet hogs. I went back to see what I wrote. To start, no one that I know of feeds trout dog food, that would be detrimental to a trouts health. Key words "if they make it". A hog to me is over 20" and yes 30+" fish have been caught in spruce creek. There are many sections on spruce creek that probably never gets fished at all. No pressure, lots of food, how big can a trout grow in that environment. 6" 12" 18" 25" ? I'm really surprised by the comments actually. Lol. The state wants to give fisherman more access to a class A cold water fishery and most on here are trash talking the stream and never fished it. All I can say is if the state wins I'll be fishing it. I'd be happy catching the abundant 7" - 13" trout like most fisherman catch. If I want to catch a hog, I'll go at night when they primarily feed.
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Mark, I believe you are taking some things literally that were not meant to be taken literally. No one actually meant dogfood, but rather we used that term disparagingly because we are referencing big, stocked fish who are fed and not grazing in the wild.

There is no doubt that there are many sections of Spruce Creek that probably don't see much pressure, and those landowners probably aren't too open to having the public on their land. I am sure posted signs and purple paint abound along Spruce.

Of course I would welcome the opportunity to fish more open Class A water, too, and that is what makes the scenario even more appalling. Let's take a high-quality limestone spring creek and stock and feed rainbows over the wild browns that are there. We gripe about stocking over wild fish anyways, and then add an element of club exclusivity and stocked fish being fed on top of that, and it is a double whammy to the "Class A" stream, at least in my opinion.

I was poking fun at your comment about so many "30-inch fish throughout the stream," though. We have had the discussion regarding large wild brown trout and where to find them numerous times on this thread. A 30" fish is extremely rare in the state of Pennsylvania. I would agree with you that a fish over 20" is a "hog." I definitely agree there. A fish over 20" is a hog. When other streams very similar to Spruce fail to achieve an exceedingly high percentage of very large browns, what makes Spruce so special? How is it able to do it unless we are mistaking those stocked fish for the monsters! The general consensus on the board seems to be that marginal waters with less brown trout easily produce the biggest brown trout, and I would tend to agree with that. I am definitely in favor of fishing Spruce Creek, and I wish that more water was open to the public. I love fishing any and all good and productive wild trout streams. Spruce shouldn't be stocked.
 
jifigz said:
No one actually meant dogfood.
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Yes they did.

People along Spruce Creek (and other places) feed trout dog food.

The better types of dog food have high protein levels. Feeds specially made for trout would probably be better, but I don't doubt that they greatly increase the growth of the stockies with the dog food.
 
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I use to watch the guy who lived at the lower end of the FF area on Yellow Creek feed the fish.
I'm pretty sure he used dog chow too
 
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