White Clay Creek State Park in November - fresh trout and a Friday hawk count

Newark kids grow up with White Clay Creek as a backyard. Plenty of us who moved here later found it by accident, probably by missing a turn off Route 896 and ending up on a road that suddenly felt a lot more like Vermont than New Castle County.

It's worth finding on purpose. The park is over 3,600 acres stretched along the creek north of Newark, with more than 37 miles of trail, and November is when I like it best. The leaves are down and the creek just got a fresh load of trout.

What you're walking into

Delaware State Parks says the park has 13 trails covering more than 37 miles, a lot of it right along the water. The state assembled it piece by piece, opened it as Walter S. Carpenter State Park in 1975, and renamed it White Clay Creek State Park in 1995.

The creek itself has federal protection. On Oct 24, 2000, White Clay Creek was designated a Wild and Scenic River, and the National Park Service says it was the first time the program covered an entire watershed, tributaries and all, on both sides of the Pennsylvania line. The Park Service also calls the area the most extensive piece of Piedmont forest left in Delaware, which explains why it feels so different from the rest of the county.

The park's nature center is the Chambers House, which the state puts at about 200 years old. More on that in a minute, because that whole corner of the park is a construction zone right now.

The trout

DNREC stocked about 1,000 pounds of rainbow trout in White Clay in late October, from up near the Pennsylvania line down toward Newark. It's the fall and winter stocking, so there are fish in the water right now.

If you're going to fish, the rules are short:

• You need a Delaware fishing license unless you're exempt.
• Through Nov 30, you also need a Delaware trout stamp to fish White Clay.
• You can fish from a half hour before sunrise to a half hour after sunset.
• The limit is six trout a day, or four if you're in or near the fly-fishing-only section.

Licenses and stamps are sold online through DNREC or at license agents around the state. The trout program runs on stamp money, so the stamp is basically you paying for the fish you're about to catch.

Hawk Count, Friday afternoon

Fall migration is still going, and the park is running a Hawk Count on Friday, Nov 6 at 1pm at the Carpenter Recreation Area. You don't need to register, and it's free once you've paid to get into the park. You don't need to know a red-tail from a vulture to go, which is good, because I don't either. Details are on the park's program page: https://www.destateparks.com/programs/hawk-count42/

Where to park

For most people, the Carpenter Recreation Area is the easy way in. It's at 880 New London Rd, off Route 896. The Wilmington Trail Club's directions say to head north on 896 from Cleveland Avenue for about 2.5 miles and look for the entrance on your right. The park office is a separate spot, over at 750 Thompson Station Rd.

The park is open every day from 8am to sunset. Sunset is just before 5pm this week, so an after-work walk is basically off the table until spring. Get there on a weekend morning.

Fees still apply through Nov 30. It's $5 per car with Delaware plates and $10 for out-of-state plates. Walking or biking in is free. If you go more than a handful of times a year, the annual pass pays for itself pretty quick.

The detours

Here's the part that'll trip you up. In August, DNREC broke ground on two projects at the old nature center area. One is the Creekside Discovery Center, a new visitor and education building going in where the nature center parking lot is now, scheduled to open in 2028. The other is a new Tweed's Mill Bridge. The state puts the center at about $13.4 million and the bridge at about $1.5 million.

While that's going on, you can't drive into that section of the park at all. The PennDel Trail is closed between Hopkins Road and Chambers Rock Road on weekdays from 6am to 4pm, and WDEL reports it opens back up after 4pm and on weekends. The park is also asking people not to cut around it on the Tri-State Trail.

So on a weekday, skip the PennDel Trail and stick to the Carpenter side.

Saturday, check first

This weekend has its own wrinkle. The Wilmington Trail Club's calendar lists a hunt closure Sat Nov 7, a youth shotgun hunt on the Carpenter area trails. Check before you head out by calling the park office at (302) 368-6900. Deer season brings more closures later in the month, so that number's worth saving, and if you go during hunting season, wear something bright.

The short version

Friday afternoon, go to the Carpenter Recreation Area for the Hawk Count, then walk the trails by the creek while there's still light. Bring a license and a trout stamp if you fish. Stay off the PennDel Trail on weekdays, and check on that Saturday hunt closure before you head out. Five bucks for the car, free if you walk in.