Center celebrates lake’s wildlife
Visitors can listen to birdcalls in preparation for the outdoor nature hikes.
LINESVILLE, Pa. – Nature lovers visiting Pymatuning Lake won’t want to miss the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s Pymatuning Wildlife Learning Center in Linesville, Pa.
The center features more than 300 mounted specimens of Pennsylvania birds and mammals, including numerous waterfowl and songbirds, foxes, bobcats, black bear, deer and coyotes.
Some of the animals are displayed in open settings that mimic their natural habitats, while others are displayed inside glass cases.
The rear room of the center will remind visitors of a science lab.
Here kids and adults can look through microscopes, listen to various birdcalls and watch educational videos about Pennsylvania’s forests and wildlife.
All this information will come in handy when visitors hike one of the center’s outdoor nature trails.
One paved trail snakes pleasantly along the lakeshore and features various lookout spots with raised platforms and wooden benches.
This trail is a quarter of a mile long and is mostly shaded.
Bring your binoculars and search for bald eagles, or watch for purple martins and bluebirds.
The Pymatuning Wildlife Learning Center is located at 12590 Hartstown Road in Linesville and is open April through September. Call (814) 683-5545 for more information.
FISH HATCHERY
Located about a quarter of a mile from the Wildlife Learning Center is the Linesville Fish Hatchery.
Built in 1939, it is one of 15 hatcheries in the state and sits on 97 developed acres of land owned by the state and managed by the Fish and Boat Commission.
The grounds are a maze of earthen ponds, concrete raceways and tray egg incubators used to supplement natural fish reproduction and contribute to one of Pennsylvania’s greatest economic boosters – recreational fishing.
While touring the hatchery, visitors can learn more about methods for taking and fertilizing fish eggs, sorting fish from trap nets and determining the ages of fish.
From July through September, hatchery workers raise paddlefish, musky, flathead minnows and steelhead.
At other times of the year, the hatchery is stocked with walleye, panfish, bass, salmon, crappie, perch, bluegill and catfish.
Some of the fish housed at the hatchery are smaller than your pinkie finger, while others are real whoppers – the stuff fish stories are made of.
Tourists can observe these trophy fish swimming around in the hatchery’s huge aquarium.
The Linesville Fish Hatchery is located at 13300 Hartstown Road and is open from 8:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. seven days a week. For more information call (814) 683-4451.
THE SPILLWAY
Speaking of fish stories – you won’t want to miss Linesville’s notorious Spillway, which is also located on Hartstown Road near the fish hatchery.
The Spillway is known as the place where “the ducks walk on the backs of the fish,” and yes, this really does happen here.
Since the 1930s, people have been coming to the Spillway, which is a small dam, to feed carp.
The carp have stuck around, and today many of them measure 3 feet or more.
The waters around the spillway are thick with these giant carp, and when you toss in a slice of bread, eager ducks or geese also scramble for a morsel.
The result is fowl walking on the backs of fish.
The masses of writhing, slurping carp and skittering, squawking ducks are a strange and rather disgusting sight, but kids will love it and will gleefully toss entire loaves of bread into the water in the blink of an eye.
You can bring your own bread to the Spillway to feed the fish (and ducks and geese), or you can buy bread on site at the souvenir stand.
The Spillway is open all year (except when the lake freezes, of course).