By Larry Forte
For me, one of the great joys of fly-fishing, of which there are many, is fly-fishing new water While I love fishing Town Creek in the spring, what really gets me stoked (how do you like my use of a skateboarding word!!) is to fish a stream or lake for the first time. This can be a river in Montana, a beach in New Jersey or a stream in Maryland. It is the unknown that is exciting. It is casting a line in new water and possibly catching something different. Plus, it is also forces you to get out of your comfort zone and try something new. If you are lucky, it is also sharing the water with a few fellow club members.
That was the case for me in early July. Several of us fished the Conococheague Creek, a beautiful stream west of Hagerstown that starts in PA and ends up in the Potomac River 23 miles later. While I have driven over the stream at least a 1000 times, I had never fished it until last month. FYI. This was to be the Monocacy outing but changed due to high water on the Monocacy.
Jon Thames acted as our guide and has been fishing the stream with his son for some time. We fished the stream on the morning of July 4th, a couple of miles north of the I-70 bridge. It was clear and sunny and we had the water to ourselves. Seven of us made the trip. Immediately, Dave had a large fish on the line.
Over the next 2 hours, we all caught fish. The bass were taking both surface bugs and streamers. About 200 yards downstream from the bridge, I found a nice pool by some downed trees and caught a couple of nice smallmouth. Andy caught the biggest one – see the picture below. Plus, Henri caught his first fish ever on a fly-rod. Congratulations Henri! Very cool. It was an awesome day and everyone caught fish.
Have a great August and see you at our September meeting!
Larry Forte
Club President
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