I normally get a trip or two in on local water during the winter but this winter has been miserable so I thought why add to the misery by standing in barely liquid water and not catching fish.
This last week is really when my season starts as my wife and I are out at our cabin in WV for a week for her birthday and our anniversary so I get a day on a couple streams in Western Md. I
thought I was ready, lines were cleaned, leaders replaced but I realized that I wasn't quite as ready as I thought.
The night before found me tying up some size 14 Elk Hair Caddis and some size 18 black stoneflies as the Caddis w/ the stonefly dropper is the ticket on the Cassleman and Town Creek early season. If it's warm you'll get a stonefly hatch but no chance of that this year. Once on the water I realized my reading glasses from my vest were not there. My spools of 5x and 6X fluorocarbon tippet were empty. (Ok, to be fair the 5X had about two rotations on it!). My fingerless gloves stank of the last fish of last year. I also remembered that at an air temp of 29 that the floatant has to go in an inside pocket if it's not going to be the consistency of JB Weld.
On the bright side, the waders didn't leak and I didn't fall in. I caught some nice fish in both streams (enough to lose count) and had a mature bald eagle silently sail up town creek 15' over my head. Saw a lot of deer and turkey and one coyote.
Western Md is as pretty as any place on the east coast with the only problem being it's attached to the populated liberal bastions in central Md. For any of you folks hitting the Cassleman this year, the bridge below Browning's cabins is closed so you have to do an end run from the north end to get downstream. Lots of Maple syrup being cooked out there and looking forward to picking some up next trip out.
