Bob Frye

Talk about fishing in Erie County and lots of people probably imagine taking a charter on Lake Erie itself, or probing Presque Isle Bay, or targeting steelhead in the lake’s tributary streams.
Those are all highlights, for sure. But if you like smaller water, and perhaps a place that can offer dependable ice in most years, there’s also Lake LeBoeuf.

Pennsylvania may not be Florida or Texas or Georgia when it comes to producing monster-sized black bass, aka largemouths and smallmouths.
But you can usually expect to at least find them present in good numbers just about everywhere. Here’s the exception.

The countryside that is now Promised Land State Park in Pike County looked anything like an Eden in 1902. More like a moonscape, maybe.
Once home to the Minsi Tribe of the Wolf Clan of the Lenni Lenape, it transferred hands many times in the 1800s, always going from one timber operator to another. All took their turns cutting and running, so to speak.

If ever there was a lake with an appropriate name, it’s Crooked Creek. A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers impoundment in Armstrong County, it covers 350 acres at normal pool and loops around on itself twice over it 5-plus-mile length. There are a few other twists, too.

The students with the highest GPAs don’t always turn out to be the most successful in life. But their ranking compared to their peers at least suggests potential.
It’s the same with fishing lakes.

Some places just scream good fishing. Then there’s Lake Wilma.
Owned by Consol Energy Inc., it’s not big at just 19 acres. It’s not a place you can boat, with fishing restricted to the shoreline. And it’s not necessarily easy to reach.

I’ve never lived especially close to Shawnee Lake in Bedford County, having always called home places further west or east. But traveling for work, family and adventure, I often found myself close enough to justify a stop.
What fun those detours typically were.