I went to this Secret Creek and was shocked by what I found!! And not in a good way... you'd think I'd be catching lots of fish, and I did, but I also found some mine discharge that almost completely killed the creek below a certain point. It's rough out in the coal fields when it comes to brook trout. Although a large majority of the creeks used to hold wild and native trout, much of it has been almost completely killed off at one time or another. Luckily on this stream there are some strong holds left that produce brook trout and made for a fun few hours of fly fishing.
I ended up finding some incredible trout in that creek. I tried one other section of water and got totally skunked, further proving the theory that a good portion of the creek is seemingly lifeless due to some poor water quality. Which, at the end of the day, is the reason this creek is a secret. If the water quality and the fishing were better it probably wouldn’t be as low key, but the brook trout population would be far better off because they’d have the entire creek to roam rather than being so concentrated. Which begs the question of how good keeping secrets in fishing is? And how much exposure can help a stream and get people to care without totally overwhelming it and the fish population that lives there? These are tough questions to answer. But the fish are still hanging on and even thriving in small portions of the creek, showing how resilient these fish can be if you give them a chance. Just something to think about for the end of this video. As always I hope you enjoyed, and I’ll catch you on the next one.
