My buddy hooked it up and got us a pass on to Rolling Rock Creek in Laughlintown, PA for the day. This creek sits within the exclusive Rolling Rock Farms, which is part of the Mellon family estate. In my opinion, this part of southwestern Pennsylvania is some of the most scenic and historic in the entire country. Normally, I don't spot-burn with these details and location, but anyone can fish this stream for the right price. And while we're typically not the pay-to-fish type (unless it’s on DePuy's in Paradise Valley, Montana), this was great opportunity to fish a beautiful stream that I had only heard about growing up a few miles away. And it was free.
The stream has had some significant overhauls to the structure, mostly identifiable by all the downed trees creating plunge pools every hundred yards or so. Actually, the entire stream was manicured and the well established trails were labeled with signs more akin to a golf course than a stream. There was no brush-beating through jagger patches and branches that impeded casting were simply non-existent. The deep plunge pools in the stream allowed many sizable fish to be stocked and sustained. Of course its not normal to have hundreds of 15-16” brook trout in a stream this size, but again it is what it is. Rather than overthink it, we got some Rolling Rock beers and fried chicken and had a hell of a fun afternoon. We caught fish on nymphs and a Cahill hatch started and fish fell to a size 14 Cahill Usual pattern.
But when we switched to large articulated streamers, we started banging the big ones. The big brooks were aggressive and every cast had a couple solid fish in pursuit. At this point, nothing under 16” ate the big stuff. And the trip was capped off with a big Tiger trout. Only my second Tiger trout I ever caught. We were going to stay to the evening hatch, which was supposed to be great. But we had our fill and there was some playoff Penguins hockey to get back to on the home front. Let’s go Pens!
