Pacemaker Fishing Forum

Today I had the pleasure fishing with John Nguyen for the first time. After two prior cancellations due to weather, stream flows, etc. we set out today to do some trout fishing. The original plan was to hit PA but the stream flows were really high from the rain this past weekend, so we decided on a more local trip.

The plan was to meet at a hotel parking lot off of 495 and John would jump in with me and I would be his chauffeur for the day. Little did I realize that it wasn’t a public parking lot. Rather than wasting time searching, we decided to go up in separate vehicles. When we arrived the 2nd of the mishaps came to light when John realized he left his chest waders at home and only had his waist high boots with him. I assured him it wouldn’t be an issue as long as he watched where he crossed the stream, although the choice would prove to be slightly problematic, but more on that later.

I’ve never fished this stream at this high of a flow, but it looked beautiful.



We hiked in and started fishing and within minutes I hung bottom and was retying my rig. Another error for me was thinking I was going up to a stronger 4x tippet. I had my tippet spool holder turned around and I was grabbing 5 or 5.5 X instead. It took me a couple more lost flies to realize what I had done, one to another rock and two to a tree. It was clear I wasn’t in the zone.  It turns out John was having his own issues, although I think he fed several hungry trees today.

In spite of spending as much time retying rigs as actually fishing, we forged on in search of a bite. We finally came upon a stretch that had some nice slower runs and softer edges of faster flows. I finally had a hit but only turned the fish and he came off a second later. It was a start. A few minutes later I finally hooked up and landed a small but pretty brown.



I went on a little run and landed 3 more in that stretch. Two around the same size and one tiny one.



My lightheaded / dizziness was pretty bad today and I was having trouble focusing and it bit me in a big way. I walked downstream a bit and when climbing down into the water, my foot slipped and I went down in the water. My right arm got soaked and I took a little water into my waders. I was going to head back to the truck but realized with the way I was layered I wasn’t cold and had nothing to change into anyway so on we went. I fished that area a bit without a hit.

We continued further downstream and I climbed out on a steep bank on my hands and knees. When we got to our furthest point I reach in my waders to grab my phone which hangs on a lanyard and my phone was gone. John helped me search where I fell in to no avail. I was about to give up and decided to check where I climbed out on my knees and there it was. Crisis averted.

We hiked back to the trucks to have a late lunch and then continue fishing upstream of the trucks. John brought some awesome sandwiches from the Italian Store and took this pic to make Ernie jealous.



As I was starting to eat, John realized that he had broken his rod down and had to put it all back together to continue fishing. Perhaps he had the right idea and we should have packed it in then. lol

While eating, a guy gets out of another truck. Turns out it was an officer from Maryland Natural Resources and he was checking licenses. I handed him mine and John reached for his and came up with a soggy blob of paper. Those waist high waders prevented him from raising his hip pack up and the license got soaked. John gave him his ID instead. He did a quick check and John was good but I was lacking a trout stamp, which I didn’t know I needed to fish a non stocked stream. He was a nice guy, we chatted a bit, he wrote me a warning on on we went.

We fished upstream for a bit and I landed 1 more small yearling. John still couldn’t get out of his funk so we packed it in and called it a day. While we had a nice day on the water, we can’t wait for a do over. I was such a bad host, I never even got a picture of John. All in all, great company and a day off so I can’t really complain other than having to drive home wet. Looking forward to getting out with John again.

Last edited by Paul Naj (Mar-04-21 7:28PM)