Pennsylvania Dock Tales: Piping Plovers, Records and Limestone History

Dock Tales are researched stories from the waters in these guides. They are written by BCRods from published sources. They are not Adam’s stories and they are not first-person fishing experiences. Each Pennsylvania tale below says which sources it rests on and what we could not confirm. If you have a better source for any of them, we would like to see it.

Why a tackle shop tells stories

Water has a history, and the history changes how you fish it. A bird that nested again on a Lake Erie beach explains why part of the park shoreline is off limits. A state-record catfish shows what a river can hold, and a creek that once drew 44,000 anglers a year explains why today’s fly-only rules exist. We write these stories to give anglers the background to a place, and we hold them to the same rule as the guides: if we cannot source a claim, we leave it out or say so.

Tales you can read now

• The Plovers That Came Back to Gull Point. In 2017, piping plovers nested at Presque Isle for the first time in about 60 years. A storm swamped the nests, and biologists took the eggs to be hatched in captivity. It belongs with our Lake Erie and Presque Isle guide.
• Where the Ducks Walk on the Fish. Since 1934, visitors have fed bread to carp at the Linesville Spillway until ducks stand on their backs. Officials say to stop. It sits at the north end of Pymatuning Reservoir, covered in our lakes guide.
• The Letort and the Terrestrial Fly. Three famous fly anglers used a small limestone creek as a testing ground, and a 2019 fish kill nearly undid it. See also our trout guide.
• The Stream They Called Fisherman’s Paradise. A 1930 fish-culture project became a crowded public fishery and, in 1962, a fly-only, catch-and-release stream.
• A 20-Pound Brown Trout From “The Condos”. A trolled spoon off Walnut Creek produced the 2020 Pennsylvania record. See the Lake Erie guide.
• The 66-Pound Flathead and the Record It Beat. A 2023 Susquehanna flathead, released alive. See the Susquehanna guide.
• A White Perch Record From the Delaware Estuary. A 2024 catch near Chester on a bottom rig meant for bigger fish. See the tidal Delaware guide.

Shorter tales

Two more stories are short ones, summarised here rather than given a page because the sources are thin.

Zane Grey’s river (Lackawaxen). The author Zane Grey, called the father of the western novel, had a home on the banks of the Upper Delaware, where he met his wife and began writing. The National Park Service says he came to canoe and fish the river, and his house is now a museum beside the Commission’s Zane Grey access. The sources we read give no dates. See the Upper Delaware guide.

The striper capital of the Northeast (Raystown, 1994). The inland striped bass record, 53 pounds 12 ounces, was caught at Raystown Lake in 1994 and is credited to Robert Price of Huntingdon. A local visitors’ page names the angler “Sparky” Price and calls the lake the “Freshwater Striped Bass Capitol of the Northeast,” neither of which we can confirm. See the lakes guide.

Selected Pennsylvania records

These are from the Commission’s state record list, read in November 2026. Records change when a new fish is certified, so check the list.

Species	Weight	Water	Year
Brown trout	20 lb 9 oz	Lake Erie	2020
Steelhead	20 lb 3 oz	Walnut Creek, Erie County	2001
Lake trout	31 lb 13 oz	Lake Erie	2019
Yellow perch	3 lb 0 oz	Lake Erie	2021
Striped bass, inland	53 lb 12 oz	Raystown Lake	1994
Striped bass, marine	53 lb 13 oz	Delaware River, Delaware County	1989
Flathead catfish	66 lb 6 oz	Susquehanna River, Lancaster County	2023
White perch	2 lb 1 oz	Delaware River, Delaware County	2024
American shad	9 lb 9 oz	Delaware River, Pike County	1986
Smallmouth bass	8 lb 8 oz	Scotts Run Lake, Berks County	1997

Corrections

If we got a date, a name or a number wrong, tell us. The corrections address is on our “how we research” page, and we will fix the page and say what changed.