Pymatuning spillway is hard to explain to someone who's never been there. People stop by to gawk and throw stale bread at thousands of big hungry fish that gather there. The fish are carp—not originally native to this country; they came from Germany in the late 19th century—thriving and growing big on a high-carb diet. Obviously, they love bread.

The whole carp scene is a bit freaky but totally fascinating. These fish fight for crumbs. They seem obsessed, ready to wiggle up onto shore (perhaps how land creatures evolved?) for a piece of day-old white bread. Pymatuning spillway is in Crawford County in Pymatuning State Park, just south of the town of Linesville on Hartstown Road. Pymatuning Lake is a large, manmade reservoir, formed from an old swamp after the completion of a dam near Jamestown in 1934. The lake is actually in two parts: the upper part is separated from the rest of the water by a causeway, an earthen roadway bed, which acts as a second dam. The water in the upper lake is 2 feet higher, and the only way water flows from the upper part to the lower is over the spillway. Perhaps the fish were first attracted to this spot because the water is fresh and full of oxygen, having just come over the spillway. People driving by in the late '30s must have noticed the carp and pulled off the road to stare at the wriggling fishes. Multitudes of people and fish have shown up ever since. There are carp galore in the upper lake and all along the causeway, but the mind-boggling concentration of fish is at the spillway. In fact, it seems there's not much water at all, just fish with fat bodies and open mouths, begging for more bread. And everyone loves it. You can't look away. Much has been made about the fact that ducks (and geese) often walk on the backs of the fish, but that has always been secondary to the amazing fish themselves. I've been going to the spillway since I was in diapers, and I'm still not tired of it, but I'm sorry to report that it's closed now until Memorial Day 2007. They're renovating the place, making it more tourist-friendly. There has always been a "not an official tourist spot" charm about it, and the state of Pennsylvania is now going to make it snazzier. Assistant park manager Dennis Mihoci told me the walkways are going to be closer to the water, so you'll be even closer to the fish than ever before. Cool. Weird. Maybe wonderful. So start saving your old bread.