Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
French ( Creek) Connection: An oil region angling adventure
Angler Al pushed through the heavy waters rushing around his waders, gauging the stream depth with every dogged step. He leaned back toward me as a look of concern washed over his face. “It’s not as shallow here as I thought it would be,” he frowned. “Maybe we’ll try a little farther upstream.” I glanced back at fellow fisherman Jeff Woleslagle following behind. I raised my doubtful eyebrows, and he answered with an uncertain shrug.
Wewere attempting to fish Venango County’s French Creek, about a mile and a half upstream from where it empties into the Allegheny River near Franklin, Pa.
Also along on this expedition was Tyler Franz. Woleslagle, of Duncannon, and Franz, of Annville, are both outdoor writers who, like me, were attending the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers Association’s annual conference, held last week in Franklin, Pa. Conference Chair Marilyn Black had enlisted Angler Al, aka Al Bell, to serve as our fishing guide on Saturday afternoon. As a lifelong resident of Venango County and an avid outdoorsmen, Bell, at age 58, knows these waters like the proverbial back of his hand. When he’s not busy at work as a safety consultant for American First Aid, you’ll find him roaming his favorite woods and waters here with a fishing rod, gun, or bow in his hand, depending on what’s in season.
But this afternoon we would test our luck at one of Bell’s favorite fishin’ holes, nestled here in Northwest Pennsylvania’s beautifully rugged Oil Region. As we strapped on our hip waders, Bell shared his plan of attack on French Creek. We would ford the stream at a location where Bell figured there would be enough “skinny water” to wade across to the point of an island, his intended hotspot. But when we started across, Bell soon discovered the water was deeper( and the current much stronger) than anticipated. Nonetheless, we gamely soldiered on.
But it was slow going thanks to the treacherous currents and slick rocky bottom. Every few steps, Bell would cautiously look back and check that we were following safely behind as he blazed a trail through water shallow enough that it wouldn’t lip over the tops of our hip waders. For someone like me, more accustomed to fishing our local trout streams and kayaking the Brandywine, this stretch of French Creek definitely qualified as big water, and we were forced to traverse more than fifty yards of it to reach the island. The treacherously slick and rocky bottom caused our feet to slip, and our toes blundering up against uneven rocks made it a painful, wobbly struggle.
“This creek’s headwaters are in Clymer New York,” Bell would later explain. “In some locations here in our lower, Allegheny end, it’s as wide as 150 to 200 yards. When it rains a lot upstream it hits us hard down here. Stained brown waters and a rising level can make wading dangerous.”
Dangerous and challenging, we finally made it safely across with only minor casualties -- Woleslagle’s legs and feet were soaked to the bone thanks to his inadequate hip boots. He wasn’t sure if the waters lapped over the boot tops or if his waders had sprung leaks, perhaps a combination of the two. And as it so happens, Woleslagle is not one enamored of difficult stream crossings. I suspect his anxiety level may have spiked higher than the rushing currents, the result of a near death episode he experienced with rising waters five years ago in July.
He and his then teenage son Nathan had been fishing the Susquehanna River downstream from the Conowingo Dam. The two were apparently distracted unhooking and releasing a striped bass Nathan had just caught and they somehow failed to notice the alarm siren that sounded from the dam, a warning that signaled the imminent release of a few tons of water. The potentially deadly surge caught them long before they could safely wade to shore. “We were probably washed eighty yards down the river,” the wary Woleslagle recalled. “I lost about a hundred bucks worth of tackle in my vest. Nathan lost an eighty dollar pair of wading shoes that he kicked off and both of our iPhones were fried. Strangely enough we didn’t lose any rods, and, fortunately, we lived to tell about it.”
Thankfully, our French Creek wading exploits would not prove quite so dramatic nor life threatening. Once we arrived at the island, we were ready to fish, as Bell put it, “for anything that’s biting,” and these waters offered a pristine, piscine potpourri for adventurous anglers. “I’ve caught muskellunge, northern pike, carp, suckers, rock bass, smallmouth bass, walleye, sauger, bowfin, fresh water drum, brown and rainbow trout, bluegill, and sunfish, along with flathead, channel and bullhead catfish,” recounted Bell. “French Creek is so diverse. If one was to present a night crawler or any live and even dead minnow baits, any of those species might bite.”
Within a few minutes the three of us were rigged up and fishing. A GoPro camera affixed to his head, Bell was set to video any angling action we might encounter. While not fishing himself, Bell kept busy coaching us, reading the water, and keeping our terminal tackle freshly baited. Bell prefers native live baits, the bigger the better. This afternoon his bait bucket boasted a number of large creek chubs and a few monster crayfish that would make Red Lobster jealous.
While plenty of different types of game fish species lurked here, Bell lamented a growing lack of diversity of other aquatic life in the stream, particularly the disappearance of crayfish. “Many years ago I used to be able to kick over just about any submerged rock on French Creek and crayfish would come darting out,” he said. “Today I can only find the mon some of the smaller tributaries of Sugar Creek which feeds into French Creek.” Bell blamed the loss of crayfish on invasive species and a proliferation of the bowfin population, a fish that feasts on crayfish.
Bell explained that the stream’s average depth here runs around three to five feet, but the deeper holes or pools can well be seven to eight feet during normal levels. Unfortunately the cold water temperatures that afternoon were not helping. The fish were sluggishly reluctant to cooperate and the angling action was non- existent for thefirst hour or so.
In fact, that same morning Bell had guided another cadre of outdoor writers on French Creek, including my friend and colleague Ben Moyer. Although Moyer managed to hook a nice walleye that morning, the fish threw the hook before Bell’s GoPro could capture the scene. “We got skunked this morning,” sighed Moyer. “So now the pressure’s on you to catch a fish.”
Although I normally don’t thrive on pressure, an hour or so after my line hit the water and a few changes of bait later, I finally managed to crank in a decent 15- inch smallmouth that fell to a creek chub, the only fish we would hook on the stream that day. After a quick photo shoot with Bell collecting some GoPro footage, we released the bass back into the roiling waters of French Creek. The pressure was off, so take that, Ben Moyer!
While landing that smallmouth was a great moment, even better was the fact that we managed to ford the stream on our return crossing without incident, although the rocky bottom and slippery rocks once again battered our toes and challenged our balance every step of the way. Once safely back on dry land, each of us breathed a small sigh of relief, yet we all knew, that given the chance, we’d do it over again in a heartbeat.
*** Bell returned to the stream alone the next day, promptly caught and released a hefty walleye and a bruiser bass, then texted us the photos. For more about Al Bell, his guide service and fishing camp/ bed and breakfast operation, call him at 814- 651- 1146 or email him at alwaysanglerarcheral@yahoo.com. Formore about the Oil Region Alliance and the outdoors adventures available there, check out their website at www.oilregion.org or call 800- 483- 6264.