Mar 21, 2015 4 min read

It would be honest to state they probably lurk along every stream fished in Western Pennsylvania.

They can cause language that is not common to Sunday school. While their foliage is nothing spectacular, they clothe themselves in decorations belonging to others.

I am referring, of course, to that old enemy, the bobber tree, which also can be know as the spinner or lure tree. It waits for anglers hidden around the next bend, hanging over the water. Much like Charlie Brown’s kite-eating tree, it swallows up spinners, hooks and assorted line, but it is more famous as a collector of bobbers. Thus, the bobber tree.

While a few unfortunate souls have but one, I have many bobber trees. There is one along a local lake that becomes decorated by the middle of April. Its branches are usually covered with the red and white of plastic bobbers. It is a tree that is true to the nickname.

A bit north of here flows a wonderful-sized stream, aptly named Sugar Creek. While the banks of this clean flowing water has many trees, it is one tree in particular that I remember. It is a medium-sized Sycamore whose roots stick out from the bank, with some hanging like tentacles in the water. It stands there waiting and watching. It wants my lure, and the trap is baited with an 18-inch brown trout.

The first thing that strikes you is how the riffles drop into a deep dark hole and sweep back under that network of roots. But don’t ignore the eddy that washes debris back in what is the upstream direction. There is really a double hole here with a sandbar separating the two.

I would really like to spin such a spot, but how?

A cast upstream would most likely be another victim of the tree and downstream would not wash back in the darkness under the roots. Also, an upstream retrieve would cause the spinner to rise and ride the surface.

Since I not only wanted back under those roots in that jungle of growth, but down near the bottom, the only avenue left was to cast upstream and bring it down.

With bait, you can cast above the hole and allow the current to bring it down into deeper water, but the spinner offers a different problem. Allow a spinner to sit still for even a moment and, as often as not, it will become stuck on the bottom.

Goodbye $3 spinner. Goodbye big trout, for at least an hour. The mighty bobber tree did its duty and protected the trout.

Downstream a bit is another of those trees that steal lures in the form of a small willow. It was at this evil shrub I beat the odds and removed an 18-inch rainbow from its protection.

Casting short and allowing the lure to fall short of the trout’s den is fruitless and doesn’t result in a fine fish dinner. You have to get in where they live.

That is one thing that can be said about trout; they hide! Walleye and crappie swim around in schools but trout seek cover and hide.

It might be flattened out against the side of a rock or under a submerged limb, but you can be sure of one thing, if he is the boss trout, and isn’t that what we look for, he will be hidden in the best of locations.

A large trout didn’t get big by being dumb but he also didn’t get big by being starved.

After about six or seven casts fell short of the desired cover when I landed that 18-inch rainbow, I said the heck with it and ignored the hanging growth. I threw the lure back.

A miracle occurred and the rainbow hit. You have to get where they are.

As for the bobber trees, remember you heard that from me, they are lurking out there waiting for that first day just like us. Better get out and buy some extra bobbers.

George H. Block writes a Sunday Outdoors column for the Observer-Reporter.