I only lived in Pennsylvania for seven years. But the quantity and quality of the angling I squeezed in during grad school and my first career was remarkable. Primarily focusing on spring creeks, with the overwhelming majority of the time on three in particular, I can’t fathom how many days of my life were spent stalking Keystone trout.
While I’ve logged more hours fly fishing in Pennsylvania than in any other state, the list of different streams I’ve fished in Virginia is the longest by far. Driving down either side of the Shenandoah National Park, there are memories linked to countless trailheads and bridge-side parking spots. There are plenty of brook trout creeks south of the park and, further west, in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests that I have spent time on. I have ticked a lot of larger rivers and spring creeks off my Old Dominion list, but the mountain streams have worn the soles off of multiple pairs of wading boots.
There was the fishing that occurred alongside the outings when a friend and I performed amateur biological surveys with the blessing of the Department of the Interior. Often these days started in the dark and ended in the dark. Multiple times have I been fishing a stream with the strong, sneaking suspicion that I had been there before. In all likelihood, I was in the same pool that I had stood in a decade or more before.