Pymatuning Reservoir, Pennsylvania, USA
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
Pymatuning Reservoir, Pennsylvania, is known regionally as the place 'Where the Ducks Walk on the Fish'.
It is actually the spillway at Pymatuning Reservoir, near Linesville, Pennsylvania, that is home to this odd spectacle. Theres a simple explanation for the phenemona - carp collect at the base of the spillway in such numbers that ducks can cross from one side to the other and barely touch the water.
And in the anything for a buck spirit that makes tourism the second-leading industry in Pennsylvania behind farming, the site has become something of a tourist trap. There are shops along the road leading to the spillway which sell bread and souvenirs. A fish feeding station is even available for people with disabilities.
OK, souvenirs make sense, but why do they sell bread?
Bread is the key to the whole phenemona. Visitors throw scraps of stale bread into the water and the fish go into a feeding frenzy and rush to the surface to get the bread. And not to be out-done by some fish, the ducks also charge toward anyone tossing bread into the water, often walking across the backs of the fish as there is no room for them to swim.
In a lot of ways it's kind of a creepy sight. One Researcher visited there 20-plus years ago, and the site of those gaping carp mouths opening and closing near the surface of the water with ducks hopping about, putting feet inside the odd fish's mouth, is still sharp today as it was then.
Still photos really don't do it justice. A video, preferably with sound, really conveys the horror and majesty of watching ducks walk over frenzied fish for some hunks of stale bread.
Of course, you could go and visit to see the spectacle for yourself. You can get there by taking Route 6 west of Meadville Pennsylvania until you reach the town of Linesville and then follow the signs to the spillway.
The lake and spillway are part of the larger Pymatunning State Park which offers boating, fishing, swimming and hunting as well as camping and picnic facilities. The large lake is located along the Pennsylvania-Ohio border with about a quarter of it sitting in Ohio.