Somehow winter has crept back into the picture and it is cold again. On Saturday I drove north to spend the morning pheasant hunting at Martz Game Farm with three close friends of mine. The four of us call ourselves the “Founding Fathers.” This phrase refers to four friends who started a fly fishing trip to Big Pine Creek each spring as a way to stay in touch after college and share our love of the outdoors. It’s hard to believe but this June will be the fourteenth year we’ve gone. It started with the four of us and has grown into a trip that at times has included as many as thirteen people. I credit two of the founding fathers; Mike Haines and Mike Mamrak as being two people who helped me grow as a fly fisherman when I was first learning the sport. The pheasant hunt in March gives the four of us an opportunity to plan for the spring fishing trip. This year after the pheasant hunt we drove to the Muncy Valley to stay the night in a new property and cabin that Mike Mamrak recently acquired.

I thought I had western New York fly fishing out of my system for the year, but I didn’t. After catching a 20+” lake-run brown trout on 18 Mile Creek last weekend, all I wanted to do was go back and catch another. I ignored the lack of posts on the Burt Dam Facebook page and all the other indicators I use to know when it’s a good time to head north. I left early Saturday morning and arrived at the Burt Dam Fishermen’s Park at 6:30am. There weren’t many cars in the lot, maybe a dozen at best. I got dressed with my cold weather gear as the morning temperatures were in the high 30s. I headed down the hill to the water and as I got closer to the creek I could see that the water was lower than the weekend before. There were a couple of guys at the trestle bridge and one or two on the run above it.