Larry A. Smail's Blog

   I needed a change of pace this day and a morning at the back waters of Crooked Creek was to fulfill the need.  I love Crooked Creek. As a boy, the waters ran orange due to mind drainage from mining sites near Ernest, Pennsylvania in Indiana County. I have been so elated since these waters have been cleaned up. Crooked Creek today is a most beautiful section of waterways in Armstrong County.                                                                                                                                                 

I fished an area once known as Cochran’s Mills due to a mill built here long ago. A small community was erected here too. The well-known journalist of the past, Nellie Bly was a Cochran from Cochran’s Mill, Pennsylvania. All that is left today are remnants of stone foundations here and there among the vegetation.

An old farm along the way to Crooked Creek. (Recognize it Randy?)

While fishing some old memories came flooding back to my thoughts. I remembered, my dad and I would come to these waters and wade around to catch crayfish for bass fishing. The quest for these “crabs” was as much fun as the bass fishing. This was an enjoyable sport for us!

Whammm!!! The first fish I caught didn’t bite all that hard, but man did it fight!  I could see narrow golden-brown flashes before the twenty-two to twenty-four inches of fish threw the hook! I can not say with any certainty what specie of fish it was.

Baby catfish

As the morning progressed, other species fell to the champion fisherman. I caught bluegill and pumpkinseed sunfish and smallmouth bass.

As what always happens to me when fishing is the quest to explore. I began walking upstream to see what tidbits of nature would show themselves to me. I could hear toads doing their mating sounds. Kingfishers flew by occasionally as did a pair of mergansers. I discovered a small school of very young catfish. I remember as a boy swooping up a can full of these little cats and raising them in an aquarium. Once they grew to four inches I would restock them back into the waters.                                                                                                                    

Upon gazing about a saw a water snake with a chub in its mouth. The little fish was alive and I thought of trying to catch the snake and giving the fish freedom. The fish, I decided, may have not survived anyway and snakes “gotta” eat too.

As my fishing trip turned into a nature hike I saw many jack-in-the-pulpits; false hellebore; skunk cabbage galore; trilliums…. I wondered how many people would walk along here and never see these beautiful species of wild spring growth.

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

Mother’s day is coming up and eventually I left the beauty of Crooked Creek to head home for some mowing. Rain is being forecasted and I wanted to get the yard mowed before Sunday as family is coming in to the house.