Time on the water is a seemingly priceless commodity for me nowadays. So when I saw an opportunity on Sunday, I took it and revisited an old friend. This stream doesn’t have as many fish as some of the other places I like to fish, but it has a decent population of larger fish.

I started out by fishing a stonefly nymph through some likely holding water. Although I didn’t get any hits to start out, I moved a few sizable fish. At this time, I reflected back to my time in New England. Although, I’ve fished in far worse conditions in New England and western New York, something about that morning air just felt unusually cold. Maybe living in Maryland has made me soft.

At the first deep run, I missed two fish right away. I stubbornly made several more drifts through the same seam, hoping to hook the fish I knew were in there. Eventually, I decided to downsize my flies and try again. Luckily, it worked and I hooked up with a decent wild brown immediately. Over the next hour or so, I continued to methodically pick apart the run and caught a pile of fish. The highlight was a 16″+ fish with some of the broadest shoulders I’ve seen on a brown trout. It was a beast and took me for an absolute ride. My photo really doesn’t do it proper justice.

 

I continued fishing my way upstream, but the fishing slowed down considerably. I caught a couple of more fish in random spots before deciding to check out a new spot that a friend told me about.

There was another car already at the pullout when I arrived at the new spot, but I didn’t see anyone on the water. I rigged up and started walking upstream. As I made my way up, I arrived at a place where heavy rains had washed out a large part of the trail. Faced with having to Billy Goat around and potentially work my way back in the dark, I turned around and fished a stretch close to the road with an incredible wintering hole. I put on the ol’ bobber rig and hooked a few more fish. The only indicator I had was an oversized airlock from my Salmon River trip so the takes were quite comical.

After a while, I decided to leave so that I could catch the rest of the championship games.  It’s been two months since I started writing this post and we all know how the season ended. Life gets in the way and sometimes you have to evaluate your priorities. Days like this are what keep you sane when you’re not on the water. Hope everyone is enjoying this awesome spring weather.