Salmon & Steelhead in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania's only coastline is Lake Erie, and it doesn't need another one. Between the trout streams of the Allegheny Mountains and the Poconos, Erie's walleye and smallmouth grounds, and big rivers like the Susquehanna, Delaware, and Allegheny full of smallmouth, musky, and panfish, the state covers nearly every kind of freshwater fishing there is. Guides here work the full range, fly rods on secluded brook trout water one day, trolling rods for trophy walleye the next.

Geography sorts the fishing. Western Pennsylvania has the Allegheny River, musky and smallmouth water, and the Erie tributaries, which turn into steelhead and salmon highways when the runs come in. Central Pennsylvania belongs to the fly anglers: limestone spring creeks like Spring Creek and Penns Creek run cold and fertile all year, and their brown trout have humbled generations of good casters. Much of this water is managed for trophy catch-and-release, and the local guides who fish it daily earn their keep on it.

The east holds the Delaware, smallmouth and shad in a river that predates the country, and the Pocono Mountains, stacked with trout streams and bass lakes. Lake Wallenpaupack, the big impoundment there, supports guided trips for striped bass, walleye, and panfish. And when you want big water, Erie fishes like an inland sea: charter boats, open horizons, and boxes of walleye, yellow perch, and lake trout. No salt required.