Bob Frye

We’ve heard this story before, haven’t we? A routine investigation of a lake popular with local anglers reveals a dam in need of substantial repair. The state steps in, the lake goes down and its fish go away.
Better days, we’re told – and perhaps better fishing – lie ahead. That was the tale when Gouldsboro Lake, the 250-acre impoundment that lies within 2,800-acre Gouldsboro State Park in Monroe and Wayne counties, was drawn down in 2007.

You usually can recognize the people who bought the first shares of stock in Apple computers and then held onto them long term, as the company morphed into a technological behemoth. They’re the ones on exclusive beaches sipping fancy drinks.
Such are the rewards of getting in on the ground floor of a big opportunity. Fishing Marshall Lake in Allegheny County, today, will not provide that kind of return on investment in a year, or 10 years, or ever. So hang on to your day job.

Shoving off in my canoe, we circled Acme Dam clockwise, tossing soft plastic lures – worms mostly – and letting them sink to the bottom.
That never takes long in most spots. This 24-acre lake that serves as the centerpiece of Chestnut Ridge Park in Westmoreland County is only about 3.5 feet deep, on average. But on this night, they never even got down that far. Largemouth bass kept intercepting them first.

The Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission’s list of “best” places in the state to fish for northern pike does not include Memorial Lake.
That’s not the indictment you might think. The truth is, the list doesn’t include many places at all. Just three waters are deemed worthy of recognition. Far more waters around Pennsylvania hold at least enough pike to make things interesting, though. Memorial Lake, the 84-acre water at the center of Memorial Lake State Park in Lebanon County, is one of them.

Some lakes are prime spots to target walleyes. Others are well-renowned for their muskies. Still others shine because of their largemouth bass or their panfish.
Then there’s Lake Wilhelm. Located in Mercer County, it’s a relatively large impoundment, at 1,724 acres. Most of the lake lies within M.K. Goddard State Park, minus a 240-acre portion at the northwest end falling within the boundaries of State Game Land 270.

When it comes to stocked trout lakes, many are smallish, not so tiny as to be ponds, but hardly large expanses of water either. Holman Lake – alternately called Little Buffalo Lake – is different. At 88 acres, the centerpiece of Little Buffalo State Park in Perry County is at least big enough you can’t see it all from one end to the other.

Had anyone walked past us along the shoreline, they would likely have thought my younger son, Tyler, was sick. Stomach cramps, maybe. He was hunched over, sweating, with an occasional groan escaping his lips.
But then he smiled.
We’d spent much of the morning at Dunlap Creek Lake in Fayette County, not far from Uniontown, baitfishing for stocked trout, and done well enough. We didn’t have limits, but were close.

We’re now about a decade into Leaser Lake once again having water in it, and entering the third year of anglers being able to keep fish – of all kinds, not just stocked trout – pulled from that water.
So the novelty of the twice-drained lake being back has faded. The fishing, on the other hand, is in some ways just heating up.

If Ricketts Glen State Park was Las Vegas, the Glens Natural Area would be its headliner.
A National Natural Landmark, the Glens is home to 22 named waterfalls, the largest being 94-foot-tall Ganoga Falls. Crowds of people visit, especially on weekends, to hike past all that tumbling water. But no one goes to Vegas just for the headliners, and no one – no anglers, anyway – should go to Ricketts Glen just to hike.