What makes a stream your favorite?

[wcosner2]

Do you all have a favorite stream? Is it your favorite because the fishing is the best? The memories are the best? It's a unique location to fish? It's your well-kept secret spot?

There is always a lot of talk on here about the famous creeks and rivers of PA but are those spots anyone's favorite to fish? For me, I would rather be in the middle of nowhere, a few miles away from the nearest human or road.

One of my favorite streams is a tannic, fast-moving stream that my family has fished for four generations. I can't help but feel connected to my grandfather and great-grandfather as I pick out a fish from a tiny break in the rapidly flowing water that every other angler would have strolled by. The fish are fickle and few and the water temperature shoots up to the high 70s during the summer. Somehow, wild browns and a handful of brook trout hang on year after year. Someday soon the brookies will disappear and maybe if there are a handful of bad summers, the browns with them. Even if in 20 years, this stream is no longer stocked and the wild trout disappear, I will still make the pilgrimage every year to fish it for the sake of continuing the tradition and reliving the memories.

How about you all?

 

[wildtrout2]

My favorite streams are pretty much what you describe. Unique locations, some of my best fishing, and the great memories that these streams have provided. And, in the middle of nowhere, miles from the nearest human/road.

 

[sarce]

My favorites are the spots that are right under everyone's noses and yet rarely fished. And typically they are small streams, which I guess by nature don't attract as much attention. But I love finding a thriving trout population in a place most casual anglers would dismiss. "Too warm. Not high enough elevation. Too much development." I think of those as "underdog streams" because a lot of outward signs tell you they shouldn't be there, and yet often not only are trout there, they are there in numbers because everyone has written the place off. High gradient water pushes them higher up my list...love a good set of plunge pools.

 

[Tups]

Looks like this

 

[dryflyguy]

For me, its a place where I have my best chance of finding large wild trout, that are rising.
And its pretty hard to beat the Delaware River for that.

 

[falcon]

It's about wild trout. The fish can be small but there needs to be some larger ones. However if I had to fish a wild trout stream populated with 5 in brookies I would find something else to do. Just not interested.

 

[jeffroey]

There is always a lot of talk on here about the famous creeks and rivers of PA but are those spots anyone's favorite to fish? For me, I would rather be in the middle of nowhere, a few miles away from the nearest human or road.

We should leapfrog a stream sometime.

Unlike wcosner, my memories during the formative fishing years of my childhood were with a great uncle on the surrounding Pocono lakes (not streams) nighttime popping for largemouths or catching yellow perch to contribute to an upcoming family fish fry.

Streams? My favorite stream might be the next one I fish. Not cliche - I'm still checking off small streams I hadn't fished before and always seem to find excitement and novelty in something new. I'm not out seeking the biggest fish or to top my best catch per hour on a stream, rather, I still enjoy the exploration piece of fly fishing: packing a Wa Wa hoagie and heading out for the day not knowing what I'll find.

Now, with that in mind, there is one or two I find myself going back to - not big secrets and streams many of you have no doubtly have fished - mostly because I simply found time to get out before I had sufficient time to plan my next new blue line. Being in SEPA now, none of those decisions are based on proximity - everything is at least 1-1/2 hours away.

 

[BruceC2C]

Silver Creek, Idaho.
Fortunate to have spent the month of February fishing various sections, frequently.

Enveloped by Snow covered fields and Mountain ranges.
Best description I can say...
" it's like going to church"

 

[jgish92]

Maine, Maine, Maine
The last major stronghold of wild Eastern Brook Trout

 

[Acristickid]

I like remote large mountain freestone streams or small mountain rivers with rising native trout.

 

[StreamBottom]

Do you all have a favorite stream? Is it your favorite because the fishing is the best? The memories are the best? It's a unique location to fish? It's your well-kept secret spot?


One of my favorite streams is a tannic, fast-moving stream that my family has fished for four generations. I can't help but feel connected to my grandfather and great-grandfather as I pick out a fish from a tiny break in the rapidly flowing water that every other angler would have strolled by.

How about you all?

X2 on this.

Mine is the West Branch of the Ausable in upstate NY, specically the Mill stretch in Ausable Forks.
My Grandfather fished it, my Dad and uncles fish it when they were kids and my cousins and I fished it when we were kids.

Just about the entire West Branch I consider Home waters. A lot of memories.

 

[cuboodle]

Remote.....hard to get into and out of......little roadside access....minor flatwater sections....can set up a two vehicle fish to fish all day and the internal struggle of "got to see what's around the corner...or the next bend.

 

[salmo]

Solitude, wild, willing fish. A place where a bear or rattler might encounter you or where you might encounter yourself.

 

[wcosner2]

We should leapfrog a stream sometime.

Unlike wcosner, my memories during the formative fishing years of my childhood were with a great uncle on the surrounding Pocono lakes (not streams) nighttime popping for largemouths or catching yellow perch to contribute to an upcoming family fish fry.

Streams? My favorite stream might be the next one I fish. Not cliche - I'm still checking off small streams I hadn't fished before and always seem to find excitement and novelty in something new. I'm not out seeking the biggest fish or to top my best catch per hour on a stream, rather, I still enjoy the exploration piece of fly fishing: packing a Wa Wa hoagie and heading out for the day not knowing what I'll find.

Now, with that in mind, there is one or two I find myself going back to - not big secrets and streams many of you have no doubtly have fished - mostly because I simply found time to get out before I had sufficient time to plan my next new blue line. Being in SEPA now, none of those decisions are based on proximity - everything is at least 1-1/2 hours away.

I also grew up in SEPA and am very familiar with those hour-and-a-half car rides.

Exploring and researching those blue lines is one of my favorite parts of fishing. Learning each new stream and not knowing what's around the bend like cuboodle said always keeps me coming back.

 

[Swattie87]

The stream not being anyone else’s favorite (that I know of anyway).

 

[krayfish2]

Scenery, past memories, potential for nice fish.

 

[laszlo]

To answer the question directly. The one that's closest to me. Since I work 6 days a week I only have a few hours to get out, luckily I have a little stream 10 min. away with wild brownies.

 

[Bamboozle]

The stream not being anyone else’s favorite (that I know of anyway).

This exactly!!

 

[caddisflyer]

Big fish potential and bugs. Also prefer wading to fishing from a boat. Speaking trout of course.

 

[mt_flyfisher]

What’s not to like about this river? This was the view out my living room window for 18 summers. It was filled with wild Cutthroat, Brown and Rainbow trout, and whenever I wanted I could simply walk several feet down the bank and catch lots of those trout until the moon rose over that mountain, long after everyone else had gone home and I had it all to myself.

No, that isn’t my favorite river.

My favorite river lies over that mountain in the next valley east. It is smaller and more intimate, but every bit as beautiful. The wildlife and trout are both plentiful there. Deer, antelope and turkeys surround you, along with its many trout, including Brook trout, as if Cutthroat, Brown and Rainbows are not enough.

You can often fish that river all day with no other fisherman in sight, and if you wish to fish dry flies all day its fish are always willing to rise to your fly.

I‘ve never met a trout stream that I didn’t like, but if I had to choose just one the river on the other side of that mountain is it.