Marsh Creek State Park

Monday, 6/11/2007 – Marsh Creek Lake (Marsh Creek State Park near Philadelphia)

Boy, what a lake. Deep and clear and loaded with fish. Less than an hour west of Phildelphia, this is part of Marsh Creek Lake State Park. There is lots of fishing room along the lake’s shores, and there are plenty of rental boats at reasonable rates – which is what I did all afternoon.

When I arrived I introduced myself to a bass angler coming off the lake. Kevin Nash, commercial photographer, was generous with his advice: spinnerbaits, soft plastic jerkbaits, big Zara Spooks (there are muskies). He’d caught one good bass today. He assured me that things would be “dead” up until 3:00, and would then pick up.

My line hit the water at 1:30 and I caught my first bass at 3:05. Perhaps Kevin had hit it on the nose, but I of course like to think that I finally figured the pattern. Prior to 3:00 I’d thrown Pop-R’s and buzzfrogs over weeds, Zoom flukes through weeds, crankbaits alongside weeds and off long points, and tiny finesse worms everywhere.

At 3:00 I went to my money bait, the Senko, and during the rest of the afternoon I caught a bunch of bass including a dozen over 12 inches, a couple pushing 3 pounds and one weighing 5 pounds. All on the same pattern: let the unweighted Senko flutter down to the bottom on the outside edges of deep weedbeds. The further offshore the weedbeds, the bigger the bass. Weedbeds right up against the shore produced no bass.

And I saw a musky – a pretty big one I guess. I’d never before seen one in its natural environment. This one was swimming just below the surface above some deep weeds. He was up long enough for me to pull a buzzfrog past him twice. He just ignored it and swam away. He looked as big around as my leg and perhaps five feet long; but as I say, I’d never seen one before, so my estimate is questionable.

I looked for other fish in the clear shallows – just to see what I could see. Kevin had said there are spotted bass. I never saw or caught one, but I did see lots of abandoned spotted bass beds – deeper and smaller than those that largemouths usually make. I also saw lots of bluegill – some still on beds. And at one place I saw two little yellow perch. And of course four or five big carp. Every water these days has big carp.

The folks at the boat rental facility are wonderful. It took them about 10 seconds to get the boat ready including attaching the electric motor and a double-charged battery. (The battery still seemed full of juice when I finished around 6:30.)

And I discovered a good luck strategy. We anglers always try various things for good luck, and this is the only thing having to do with fishing that the www.takemefishing.org Web site doesn’t cover.

The good luck strategy had to do with a green and black canoe which contained a young couple with the female maintaining an ongoing cell phone conversation. That’s what got my attention; you know how far sound carries over the water – even at a great distance. At any rate, when I looked over in their direction I could see that the male was wearing a dark blue athletic jersey with a big white number 13 on it. I had not yet caught a really big bass, so I decided that that number 13 might do the trick and headed in their direction. When I got to within 100 yards I looked down through my polarized glasses and saw weeds – WAY offshore. On the first cast with the Senko I caught the 5-pounder. And the couple saw me catch it. She discontinued her cell call, and he wound in his line and cast out farther. (They were anchored next to the shore.)

Lucky Tip: If you see a 13, don’t pass it up.

Score for Marsh Creek Lake: A+. Of course I score almost every fishing water A+. The only failing grade I’ve ever given was to a pristine mountain stream – not because I never got a bite during 3 hard hours of fishing, but because the ranger later told me that the stream was fishless because of acid rain. Fishing is a lot of fun when there is hope.