I'm aware of the age of this thread however I am a Pottsville native and would like to share info about Tumbling Run Dam and creek.
It is legal to, you can, fish the creek as long as you do it off of private property. The private property areas are the reservoir, the dam, and Guers Dairy's property. You can legally fish anywhere in between the reservoir and Guers Dairy. That is the legal status of being able to fish the creek.
As long as you are not on reservoir property you’re welcome to fish that area. There are signs posted where fishing and hunting activity is prohibited. As long as you’re outside of the signs...enjoy. The thing is, though, the creek is very small. There are barely any sections of the creek that are wider than being able to step over it except the half mile or so where it meets the reservoir.
It is not legal to fish the reservoir. And that is a horrible shame because there are tons of fish in it. Large Mouth Bass, Trout, Pike, Pickerel, and Muskie have been caught there by people bold enough to ignore laws and regulations.
If you look in to the history of Tumbling Run it was originally built to supply water to the city of Schuylkill Haven and it was originally open to the public, it was actually a resort that had restaurants (at least one from what I’ve heard) and other attractions and activities that included swimming, fishing, and boating.
Local 'legend' explains that the resort was short lived due to multiple drownings that occurred as well as the lower dam broke in 1850 destroying most of the resort. As far as I'm aware there are no remnants of any of the buildings left. I haven’t personally hiked too far around it.
The reasons you see vehicles randomly parked along Tumbling Run Road are:
1. People hiking. There are miles of decent trails to walk, and for novice hikers. There’s a trail that follows along the north side of the upper dam’s reservoir.
2. Hunters. Small game mostly but there are larger game in the area too. Deer are abundant and Bear are seen fairly often.
3. People fishing the reservoir illegally.
The water from the reservoir does spill in to the Schuylkill River where it’s possible some of the aquatic life from the reservoir can get in to the river. The Schuylkill River is legal to fish however locals frown upon it with plausible reason for their thoughts on it because Pottsville’s sewage plant is right next to Weiner’s Iron & Metal and Pottsville’s run off from storm drains and gutters spits out in to the river in several places. Because of that it’s believed by locals that while fishing is pretty good in the river wherever you can find a spot to cast in to it it’s probably not a good idea to harvest what you catch, which are mainly Trout, catfish, and carp. In my experience Bass and pickerel are extremely rare to catch out of the river.
There are quite a few good fishing spots along the Schuylk (“Skook”) if you walk along the tracks which can be accessed behind KFC by the bus station and Dunkin Donuts as long as you’re in good health and can climb the steep embankments to get to the spots you can stand on and throw a line.
