Brandywine Creek Falls part of Cuyahoga Valley National Park

 

Messing with the residents on this hot July day (7.12.2025)!

Dog Days of Summer

Its that time of year when our rivers and creeks are showing signs of summer. These rivers and creeks are showing us their secrets. They tell us a story about where fishing holes are. Where the fish would hold in higher water levels.

Its during these times before the falls rains come when a fisherman can learn about the river.  Is it tough work well yes because the sun is high in the sky and you can get dehydrated fast.

Today I went to wade fish as low as you could on Conneaut Creek.  I had heard the lower has lost a lot of her ability to hold fish and after today’s walk, I see why. She has accumulated so much small cobbles and sand from the storms over the years. For me it would not be worth the wade to get down there. Mind you this is summer pool level, and the water was in places up to my high thigh. This would be impossible to wade safely with another couple of feet of water in her water course.

I took my trusty TiCr TFO 6wt out for a walk. The rod was lined with a GPX 6wt and an Airflo sinking leader it as a sink rate of 1.5”/sec.

I used my generic white streamer with a brown hackle collar.

I did connect with a few resident fish today. I saw several Ospreys and one Bald Eagle. Its nice to see them flourishing.

I managed to see one fawn today while on the Grand River.

I hope you enjoy the artwork, and I am off to hike up into Brandywine Creek Gorge.

Hiking McConnels Mill PA State Park Pt 2

Hiking McConnels Mill PA State Park Pt 1

 

Today I brought my good friend R to hike with me. Today I chose McConnell’s Mill of PA but started at Hell’s Hollow Access. This would ensure us not running into other hikers for many miles.

 This section of the trail would be challenging for the two of us. Not to the point of whether we could not do it from the perspective of we are not used to this much vertical change in topography back to back to back.

This is also a part of the North Country Trail System. It was hot, muggy, muddy, and buggy! I am convinced the bugs play a game of how annoying we can be! Lol

We did find where mother nature is carving a small natural but deep bridge out of the small mountain that’s on the trail this can be found here at these coordinates (N40° 55.571' W80° 13.368').

I don’t know how long the bridge will last due to the water erosion, but it’s interesting to see how one way a natural land bridge is created by mother nature.

The sound of the Slippery Rock Creek and her tributaries were nice to listen to throughout the hike. You could hear the creek no matter where you were on the hike.

Since it’s been an incredibly wet spring and summer the mushrooms are growing everywhere. You could see where animals tried to eat them and found them to be awful.  You would randomly see them torn to shreds as the animal tried to find a tasty part of the mushroom!

We too ka rest on some large rocks at our turn around. It was hot an humid and that’s why we started early like 0730. We had chosen to turn around at mile 6. Now, here comes the moment where we look at the map vs the six-mile waypoint. It was 0.60 miles further. Now that might not sound like a lot but in this terrain, it was a bunch.

With all the up and down we had done at this point and how much the map had been off horizontally and vertically we decided to turn around at this point.

I need to point out that I planned the trail off “AllTrails” we all know they are normally off to begin with and not to be used as gospel. It was just another example of you can not trust technology all the time and especially when you did not create the map yourself!!

We ended up hiking  12.2 miles and ascended and descended a little over 2100 feet.

Breakwall fishing in Buffalo, NY

Breakwall fishing in Buffalo, NY

Over the decades of fishing New York, I have passed this area 100’s of times. Since I did not get a chance to fish for smallies in New York for the spring run I owed to myself to see if I could find some around the breakwall.

I must talk about the characteristics of this wall. This wall is old and while majority of this wall is in great shape one must use caution because some of the walls are not. Another word of warning I want to pass along. The footers of the bottom of the breakwall are slick! I am saying if you don’t have studded boots you’re going to do two things, fall and then slide into the water! This could be disastrous and because water does not care about your feelings, please use extreme common sense.

 

Headed to NY tomorrow

 I will be up to fish the Niagara River.