Spruce Creek’s greatest claim to fame may well lie in what it gives to angling families in the future.
No wider than the asphalt two-lane that traced it, the little stream wasn’t too impressive at first glance. The roar of traffic along a busy Pennsylvania highway and the drone of distant mowers seemed out of places as I walked to the stream’s edge. But the sound of line spewing from my son’s reel and the mid-air sight of a garish, 22-inch, hook-jawed brown trout changed my perspective on Spruce Creek in a hurry.
Still, the big fish didn’t do the stream’s enormity justice.
By no accounts can Spruce Creek be considered physically large. It appears like just another of the scores of little waters that flow through the valleys of the eastern mountains. Like most of the others, it is narrow and short. At best, Spruce Creek is just 14 miles from its start in the mountains south of State College to where it meets Little Juniata River. To an average fly angler, it’s just a few false casts from shore to shore.
In terms of fishing, however, few of the wide Rocky Mountain rivers can rival Spruce Creek. In terms of Sporting heritage, few waters in the world can equal the Allegheny stream.
Eisenhower
It was about a century ago when a who’s-who of local businessmen and medical professionals banded together under one name, the Spruce Creek Rod and Gun Club, to make the stream a more enjoyable angling destination. Since then, the stream’s reputation for great fishing has grown and so has the list of famous sportsmen who’ve plied its clear waters.
Within the last hundred years at least four U.S. presidents have fished the Spruce, in addition to a smorgasbord of cabinet-level names. You can add to that Academy Award nominees, Wall Street biggies, professional athletes, gold record musicians and a who’s-who in fly fishing.
Truth be known, though, this stream has always been special.
Like true gift from God, Spruce Creek simply appears in total perfection. There are no lifeless mucky seeps for headwaters or muddy rivulets converging to form first a trickle, then a brook, then a river. Rather, Spruce Creek first appears as a gorgeous 500,000 gallons-a-day stream from a cave at the base of a tall rock escarpment. Within inches of where flowing water emerges from beneath vertical rock, trout can be seen rising when the conditions are right…and on Spruce Creek, they are often very, very right.
Natural springs are well scattered along the stream’s length, which make it less vulnerable to drought and flooding, and keep its current ice=free in winter and cool even during the hottest days of summer. For several years noted angler/author Chuck Robbins managed the legendary Spruce Creek Rod and Gun Club. His daily duties included monitoring the stream’s flow and temperature, and in all those readings he never found the water level to vary by more than a foot. At its lowest, the creek carried 21 million gallons of water in a day. No matter if the air temperature was minus 25 or 100 above, the water temperature remained between 40 and 70 Degrees Fahrenheit.
“It’s an ideal environment for raising both trout and bugs,” Robbins said. “There are really very few days you can’t find a rising trout. It’s remarkable — you have a creek that just keeps on ticked and ticking like a Timex watch.”
But one that produces trout of Rolex proportions.
Actor Liam Neeson ties a fly at Spring Ridge Club under the watchful eyes of fly-fishing legend Joe Humphreys.
Traditionally, Spruce Creek was home to brook trout, but they were’t the Snickers-sized fish most anglers think of. With plenty of water and ample food, the fish are still a few old-timers who recall catching two-pound brooches from Spruce Creek in their childhood. But even back then, the native fish were on their way out.
About 1910, when the new Spruce Creek Rod and Gun Cub started raising and stocking voracious brown trout, it was the beginning of the end for one of Pennsylvania’s top brookie streams. But it was also one of the world’s most storied and proactive stream fisheries.
As well as starting a solid stocking program, the club began making stream improvements long before it was fashionable. Others up and down Spruce Creek have followed their lead through the decades.
Even on tiny stretches that sit behind houses, pools have been deepened, riffles intensified and the shoreline sculpted to prevent erosion and to create better habitat. But as the fish prospered in the stream, a more prosperous type of fishermen began coming to Spruce Creek.
For began spreading up and down the East Coast of the little creek that was not only productive, but a relatively short distance from places like New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia and, very notably, Washington D.C.
It’s very appropriate that the first recorded U.S. president to ply Spruce Creek was our most avid angling commander-in-chief. Herbert Hoover, who coined the phrase, “All men are equal before fish,” sought out Spruce Creek’s cool waters as a refuge from the pressures of leading a nation amidst its greatest depression. President Dwight Eisenhower was known to take the occasional train from the White House to the village of Spruce Creek while piloting a nation through the heat of the Cold War. Gerald Ford also matched his casting skills and muscle against the creek’s wily rainbows and browns.
Jimmy Carter knows Spruce Creek better than any other past president. The Georgia democrat fished the stream while in office and has returned so often that he could add to any discussion of best hatches, favored flies and big fish stories. Other political heavies include [former] Vice President Dick Cheney and [former] Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volker.
Academy award-nominee Liam Neeson (Schindler’s List) has battled Spruce Creek browns, as has NFL great Larry Czonka. Few Fortune 500 companies on the East Coast haven’t had their high-rollers waist-deep in its waters. Lefty Kreh and George Harvey are among many fly-fishing greats who [knew] the stream intimately.
My first trip to Spruce Creek came just a few months after I’d fished in New Zealand and after a great season of trout fishing in Montana.
Pro golfer Nick Price and Spring Ridge Club head guide Dave McMullen enjoy a moment on Spruce Creek.
I’d traveled halfway around the world to consider five fish a day a success and I’d been to the Rockies to catch two dozen fish, the largest about 18 inches. That first morning on Spruce Creek, my 15-year-old son and I netted 25 trout, with six or seven over 20 inches. His best was a 24-inch brown, plus the 22-inch, lemon-sided bull described at the start of the story. My top was a sow rainbow of 25-inches that approached eight pounds. We had numerous rainbows in the 15- to18-inch range, and five or six stunning browns from 18 to 21 inches.
The next year, I timed a trip perfectly with an infestation of pea-sized Japanese beetles. One morning along an overgrown bank, I splashed foam imitations beneath overhanging limbs and by noon I had released 22 fish, though the last six were taken with nymphs. The first brown, which measured a solid 24-inches, took me through three sets of riffles.
Other trips have provided other tales for my great grandkids to endure after I’ve traded my five-weight for a walker or wheelchair. At least they’ll be able to hear to the fabled stream while in their prime and try to set their own angling records.
If anything, Spruce Creek should be better than ever in the decades to come.
Spruce Creek’s second century of greatness began in 2001 with the establishment of a second association of dedicated anglers. Armed with better funding, this new gathering is managing the stream even more intensively and placing even greater focus on preserving its rich tradition of family fishing.
The brainchild of Donny Beaver, the Spring Ridge Club may be America’s most dedicated family fishing organization. Member place significant investments to gain access to nice stream-side accommodations, gourmet meals and a selection of guides who collectively enjoy more than 500 years of fly-fishing experience.
The main attraction, though, is the chance to fish a superlative trout stream with those they value most.
Spring ridge members and their families have access to a dozen or so miles of Pennsylvania streams, including some of Spruce Creek’s most fertile and best-managed water.
Like all Spring Ridge streams, angling on Spruce Creek is strictly catch-and-release so the fish can grow older and larger. And while there’s bountiful natural reproduction, the club stocks hundreds of trout a year. All are released at a small enough size so the fish can take on the strength and challenging traits of their wild brethren.
Spring Ridge waters are rested more than they’re fished so the trout won’t become fly-shy. A full-time crew works year-round on habitat, making stream life better for the insects, the trout and the angler.
A man who grew up fishing Allegheny trout with his father and grandfather, Donny Beaver has designed the Spring Ridge Club in a way that allows members to share the experience with all ages of their extended families.
President Jimmy Carter and wife Roselyn with Wayne and Marj Harpster, longtime property owners along the creek.
Scattered about are wide-open pools heavily stocked with rainbows that are perfect for beginning casters and for those whose legs are too small or too frail to access normal stream stretches. Fo those who consider themselves proficient fly-casters, there are humbling beats where thick canopies tower about tin runs where giant browns spook at anything but the perfect cast.
Most Sporing Ridge members take advantage of both styles of waters. A few hours a day on the challenging stretches satiates their quest for great angling and solitude. A little time on a more open stretch with another generation quenches their thirst for strong family bonds.
On my last visit, I happened across a 40-something father stream side with a young son and daughter. To the casual observer it would have looked like play time as the kids splashed about and asked a gazillion silly questions. But as someone from a sporting family, I saw lessons on self-confidence, persistence and respecting nature.
As long as he fishes Spruce Creek, that father will have a way to bridge gaps that eventually grow between parents and teenage children. From personal experience, it’s obvious that his kids will gain character beyond their years each time they return to its waters. An, they will grow to love, and eventually car for, the legendary stream.
In turn, that legendary stream will care for them. Even more than what it has offered presidents and celebrities in the past and the big trout it shares with anglers in the present. Spruce Creek’s greatest claim to fame may well lie in what it gives to angling families in the future.
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the 2005 July/August issue of Sporting Classics.
From farm ponds to the Amazon, Lefty’s wit and wisdom captured in these 101 stories feature his most memorable fly-caught fish. Each chapter opens with a vibrant color illustration by artist Bill Bishop and includes favorite flies and natural history facts for each species: Tarpon, brown trout, catfish, lemon shark, king salmon, and many more. Buy Now
