Brodhead Creek

April 24, 1993
Brodhead Creek, Canadensis, PA
The legendary stream of Fly fishing history in America. After reading Ernie Shweiberts “Homage to Henryville” I had to give it a try. On the drive to Canadensis on Rt. 447 we passed most of the “posted” water of the famous fishing clubs. The river now has been slightly over timbered the scrub hemlocks seem to scrawny for the rocky stream. It may also have been the lack of foliage on the trees. After a three hour quest to buy fishing licenses, we (Jill and I) put on our gear and went to the stream across from the Pine Knob Inn where we were staying. Very nice inn. Mediocre food but nice rooms.
The stream (or creek) was fast with lost of riffles and runs. Not much holding water. After spending 30 minutes fixing the drag on my new reel, Jill decided there were no fish in the river and headed back to the inn. An enormous hatch of caddis flies were in the air. I saw a stonefly struggling in the water too. No fish were rising in any of the small pools. Tried a wooly bugger with red tail and a small trout leaped at it. Figured I’d change to another wooly bugger to be safe. Put on a wooly bugger with a flashabou tail. After four or five casts into the pool fish struck as I was mending the line. Hooked solidly jumped once. 9 inches. Brown, golden color, beautiful spots almost fluorescent orange.
Released and fished pool for another 10 minutes. Thought there had be another large fish in the lead feeding position but not apparently. Fished a few more small pools. Nothing.

April 25 Brodheads
Drove down the river to get back to Stroudsberg. Most of the river was posted. There may be a few small slivers of access among them. Need a deed map to be certain. The fishing clubs own the best stretches of river – beautiful pools and riffles obviously the holding spots for most trout. Fished a spot below a bridge in North Stroudsberg. Nice water, turned up one wary trout in a rapid near an island point. Called it quits.

This is another trip to a hallowed ground of American flyfishing. Like Carslisle, PA, the Brodhead and the streams near it in the Poconos were places where flyfishing tactics in America were perfected. The fishing clubs that posted "No Trespassing" signs along the stream had their genesis in the turn of the century when urban WASPS looking for prime outdoor recreation were not shy about buying up the best land and water to ensure it was fruitful. Then keeping the huddled masses away from the stream with barbed wire, iron gates and occasionally a gamekeeper who would patrol the property.

My sense is that most of the exclusive old name, old money fishing and hunting clubs have given way to big money, big sporting business enterprises. If you have enough cash in hand, I’m guessing you can fish most of these spots now, but I may be wrong. This is the way of the west where exclusivity is a matter of the thickness of ones wallet. In the East coast exclusivity still lingers in many forms based on ancestry, zip code and who your parents and grandparents went to school with.

Exclusivity is at its core pretty rotten. Yet there is something in the psyche of the human race that feels the need to be a part of a social group that wants to exclude them. We spend countless hours and masses of countable dollars on this very habit of being included in a group that excludes. C.S. Lewis devoted a lecture to the graduating class of Kings College in London on this very topic which he termed the "inner ring."

When you become obsessed with the idea of getting into a certain club, or fishing in a place that is reserved for the masters of the financial and insurance worlds (and their kin) or getting an invitation to the "best" party in your neighborhood – I like to remember the sage words of the former Man Show host and Los Angeles radio personality Adam Corolla who likes to say “If it doesn’t make you money and it doesn’t make you happy, don’t do it.”