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46 . Big Spring Creek

Location: South-central Pennsylvania, about a 1-hour ride from Harrisburg; a 2½-hour ride from Philadelphia; a 3-hour ride from Pittsburgh; and a 1½-hour ride from Washington, D.C. Full-service airports are available in all four cities.

Big Spring Creek is a “good news/bad news/good news” story. In fact, it may be that all-too-rare fish story with a happy ending.

While working in the Greater D.C. area, I was on an every-other-week, 3-day weekend stayover, to cut down on flights—and do some fishing. I was on a three-stream

rotation among Letort Spring Run, Falling Springs, and Big Spring. It was also a three-species rotation among brown, rainbow, and brook trout, respectively. When you consider that limestone streams are best known for brown trout, this was an odd coincidence.

Big Spring is located near Newville. It runs roughly 5 miles before terminating at Conodoguinet Creek. The stream originates from a large spring. The gin-clear water runs in the low-50s range most of the year. It has the heavy weed growth typical of spring creek—and the insects and crustaceans. It is one of the most famous limestone creeks in the country. Big Spring was a favorite of Vince Marinaro, Charlie Fox, and the rest of the Fly Fishers’ Club of Harrisburg faithful. It also has a

history as a working stream, once powering several mills. Many early pictures show these historic buildings. Most of the buildings are gone—but you can still see the remnants of some old dams.

Big Spring is arguably the finest limestone creek brook trout fishery in the country. Being from New England, I am not easily impressed by brook trout—I see a whole lot of them, and some very large ones. But these brook trout impressed even me. I caught several that were as large as any I had caught outside Maine and Canada. They were as