Catoctins 4-29-07 (pics)

[Jeffrey Rasband]

Went to try out the new three weight rod today at LHC and BHC. The day was gorgeous and believe it or not wet wading was quite tolerable. I started out fishing below the highway and was pleasantly surprised to find an abundance of willing brown trout, all happy to rise for a simple attractor dry.



Nothing like the remote ambiance of fishing under the highway



Typical LHC brown



Apparently the big browns haven't eaten all the brookies yet!



Without question fishing this lovely stretch of water has one major flaw: theres too little of it! Its hard to "get lost in it all" when one knows the private property boundary is rapidly approaching.

With that said, it was off to big hunting creek to try target more wild browns. Fish were rising everywhere and I immediately started hooking up on a parachute adams size 16.




I've always been curious why BHC is stocked with rainbows and brook trout when the brown population is so robust. I thought MD dnr policy was to minimize stocking over wild populations? Oh well, I guess im just biased for the wild browns.








Mandatory scenery shots of BCH.


the catoctins were about three weeks behind DC in terms of evidence of spring. The woods in my backyard in Kensington are choked with green, so it felt like going back in time three weeks or so

- Jeff

[Dave Fulton]

Hi Jeff,

I believe that the DNR policy is not to stock fish of a given species over a wild population of the same species, i.e., not to stock brookies over wild brookies. I may be wrong and, if so, someone will correct me.

Nice shots of both fish and scenery BTW. I was thinking about hitting LHC yesterday, but took my son out to a few ponds instead. I like wild browns ... and wild brookies.

Dave Fulton

[goose70]

This is yet another reason why I need to stop watching and actually learn to flyfish. Great report.

[riverwade]

great report and sweet day on the water!

[mikehn]

Beautiful! Thanks for the report.

[chesapeakeblend]

Nice pics! Yeah that skunk cabbage has been popping everywhere the past couple of weeks - way behind schedule.

mike

[Salmo trutta]

I'll be out working in the field out that way this week and next. It's amaizing the trasformation those streams go through from spring to summer. Take those same pictures in August and you wouldn't think anything bigger than a 1 inch black nose dace could survive in there.

Nice photos. Makes me really want to go to work, I mean fishing. I still really havn't used my 3 wt I got for Christmas either. Yea I've used it in ponds for bluegill and bass but it was tailor made for throwing #16 adams in a stream where you wear out the knee portion of your waders long before the soles.

[Jeffrey Rasband]

I know, one can get spoiled fishing for trout in our area in springtime; great flows and trout spread out everywhere in the streams. Come summer and its a whole new ballgame. Maybe thats why god invented tailwaters

[OneMoreCast]

This is yet another reason why I need to stop watching and actually learn to flyfish. Great report.

great report... Nothing is better than springtime in the Catoctins!!! Those browns are spectacular..

Hey Goose... you have a ton of guys within spitting distance that would be more than happy to help you learn. Just say the word...

[Salmo trutta]

Lucky for us man invented tailwaters and man invented hatcheries. Those streams never had the carrying capacity to support all the fish MD stocks in those streams but somehow a few natives hold on and so do the naturalized browns.

Were those brookies in your photos stocked? I guess if they came from BHC below the dam they were stocked. Other wise, that's a nice native.

Ever since I figured out what a shad was and a striper, I've done very little trout fishing. Plus leaving WV didn't help matters either.