ON FLY: “I was freezing and knee deep in the West Branch of the
Tunungwant Creek when I caught my first trout on the fly.”

So writes Matt Martin, managing editor/sports, in a column
published in February in the Erie Times. Martin was taking part in
the Kinzua Fly Fishing School, one of the unique offerings held at
the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford. Our thanks to Kimberly
Weinberg in Pitt-Bradford’s PR department for sending along the
article.

Martin tells of taking the class in what was supposed to be
“late spring.” “But a rare May snowstorm chilled the stream
temperature, the air temperature and a bunch of campers better
outfitted for late spring weather.”

“The upshot was that we headed to the Tunungwant to test
just-taught concepts — rigging a fly line, casting, mending and
perhaps even catching — in too few layers of clothes and in a
manner one rarely sees on the cover of fly-fishing magazines: by
nymphing.

“The weather allowed lead instructors Steve Skvarka and Carl
Zandi to teach us how water temperature affects trout. In the Tuna,
the fish were active down to about 40 degrees. To reach them, the
students would have to give up the dry-fly dream for a day and fish
below the surface with beadheads and wet flies, some of which we’d
tied the night before in a Pitt-Bradford classroom.”

On that first day, Martin caught that first trout and, indeed,
he was “hooked.”

“Learning to fly fish changed everything for my wife and me.
What we do in our free time. Where and how often we travel. The
people who have grown to become friends. How a no-fish day can be
far better than a day of endless catches.”

Martin goes on, “… But I’ve fished with my wife in moonlight to
a symphony of moving water, bat wings and splashing trout. I’ve
learned that every fish she catches lights her face with a
little-girl smile that melts me. … We’ve put down our rods to watch
mink work the banks, great blue herons wade the shallows and bald
eagles patrol the skies.”

“It’s an enchanting way to view the world, all originating from
a snowy May day in Bradford. And with apologies to a terrific
instructor and a tail-hooked fish, I wouldn’t change the view even
for a moment,” he writes.