Suburban Wild Trout On The Monocacy Creek

Last week I stumbled across an old Game & Fish Magazine article from 2010 called Our Finest February Trout Streams. In the article, Mike Kaufmann, an Area Fisheries Manager for the PA Fish & Boat Commission, mentions a naturally reproducing wild brown trout population on the Monocacy Creek (“Monocacy”). This peaked my interest because the Monocacy flows through the busy suburb of Bethlehem, located in the heart of the Lehigh Valley. Kaufmann also mentions that three rainbow trout were harvested out of the Monocacy in 2009 that weighed over 10 pounds. That really got my attention. I’d never fished the Monocacy before but I’d heard the name. I recalled chatting with a former employee of TCO Fly Shop in Reading that had shown me pictures of two good-sized wild brown trout he’d caught in the Monocacy. I decided I’d head there to explore some new water.

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