Gunpowder Trip 2-5-05

I may have finally found my home water. I went to the Gunpowder Falls river Saturday morning. My wife and son had been in Texas for a week and a half and she was flying in to BWI around 5. So, I had to be in the area anyway.

I started at Backwater Anglers outside of Monkton/Hereford. Theo helped me with directions to the good spots and gave me a selection of flies including some small black stoneflies (expected around noon) and some midges. Amazingly, he only knew of two books about Maryland fly fishing and he was out of both. Theo told me to take two rights out of the shop and park right past the high school on the left.. before you get to the bridge. There was only one car there so I pulled in and had a nice conversation with a local angler in the parking lot. I went down to the river which was about 1 to 2 feet deep and fairly fast moving at the bridge access point. I cast a size 16 black stonefly up and let it drift across and there was a violent take. It was a small rainbow maybe 9". He put a good fight but I brought him in and released him. Beautiful colors and very healthy.

Unfortunately, that was it for fish for the rest of the day. The water was extremely cold and when I got out of the water, I was about a foot deep in snow on the banks. There wasn't anywhere to get warm. At least the air temp wasn't below freezing so I had no problems casting.

I took some pictures of the river, but will have to wait a while to get them developed as I have 20 more exposures on the camera. I need to get a cheap digital to take fishing with me. I don't want to take my good digital fishing. My last one ended up in at the bottom of a waterfall in Georgia.

So, I really liked Gunpowder. I don't know what it would be like when the weather is warmer as I bet it is filled with anglers. I only saw one other person on the river that day. He had been skunked so I felt lucky to get my one fish. The fly shop down the road was great, good prices and nice folks. It's about an hour and a half from me so not too bad of a drive. Now if I can get a job in Baltimore, I would be set!!