Johnsfolly

Haven't posted a meal in a while. this was a pot roast meal that I made prior to heading out East. Done this recipe before, but is always a good inspiration for the cold winter day. Can't beat braised meats.

Livie really liked getting close to the piranha as well. I think that this was one of the best set-up tanks in the aquarium. Another South American favorite fish of mine is the peacock bass.

Thought of Ham fishing the Pacific waters with this tank of rockfish ! Good looking and great eating fish!

Here's a fish on my bucket list. Then there is the goliath grouper !

A few marine tanks that I enjoyed. Of course I want to catch every fish that I see. One thing that I did not like too much was that in there large community tanks they mixed species from all over the world instead of grouping by regions. The smaller tanks did focus on fish that were from the same regions.

It was a long week here in Maryland and I was looking forward to getting out and not having to go to work. I had heard about a trout stream in northern Baltimore CO that has naturalized ("wild") brown trout population. I had seen a brown from that river that was caught by one of guys in our lab. He fished that brown for over a month and landed it using a mouse fly pattern at night. It was over 30". All that I had read about this fishery tempered my expectations for fish in the 8 to 12" range. The Gunpowder is a highland tail water river. It has a fairly steep gradient and is surprisingly narrow in the spots that I would fish. It was 40 deg and had been raining since noon and I got to the access just around 4 pm this afternoon. I followed a trail that went over an oak ridge and then down through an extensive mountain laurel thicket. The trail was slick with ice in many sections. The river (stream) was tight quarters and loaded with small to very large boulders. I was fishing spin tackle so the tight quarters with the laurel lined banks did not affect my fishing. This would be roll casting waters. I'm sure that I will try to fly fish this river at some point. I better have a lot of flies. I fished a 1/16 oz tri-olive Zig Jig. I mixed up my drift strategy, fishing cross and down stream as well as upstream. With the dark conditions on new water, I did not force trying to retrieve Folly Rigged jigs. Before I lost my first jig, I drifted the tri-olive jig down a current seem, as I gently bounced the jig over a flat boulder it got hit just as it drifted below that boulder. I could tell if it was a trout, a chub, or a large sculpin. Turned out to be my first naturalized brown trout in Maryland. I fished for about another 60-70 mins. I climbed large boulders and fished deep plunge pools and between large boulders. The ice on the rocks and rain made my footing really dangerous. It often changed from just misting to steady rain the whole time. I made a long cast into a plunge pool and drifted the bait between the current seam and the rock shelf on bank side. I got my last trout of the day, another brown just under 11" in length. It was also as darkly colored as my first one. Sorry no Photo ! I did spook a large sculpin and it stopped out in the middle of the creek. I tried to get a bait near it, but I spooked the fish before I could get a good look or interest in my bait. Based upon the distributions that I have seen there are two species of sculpin in MD and this would be the Blue Ridge Sculpin. If I could catch one, it will be a new life list species. Maybe next time. Hopefully we don't continue to get rain through next weekend.

I'm guessing 26 lbs.

Very nice fish! Congrats!

I just wanted to chime in. The photos add to the reports. Without them there is no context. Hog Wally you should post some photos of some dink fish and maybe then that may satisfy those haters. Nah post what you want to post and I will still read the reports. Most folks on this forum couldn't care less about the bait fish that I like to catch but I will still post photos because that's what I enjoy about this forum. I'm not shy about posting a big fiah picture either just to let you guys know that I catch those as well. Now I may be acccused of being a bit stoic about catching one but I'll still post about the trip and include photos where I can.

I still have aquarium photos to post. I thought the whole deal was well worth the cost to get in.

Quillback Looks like i am out. Likely have to be back in MD that weekend. Have fun guys and good luck!

Marty with the number of ducks and goose that fall in BilletHead, the odds are definitely in your favor to get a banded duck eventually. Good Luck buddy! If I can find some access on the Eastern shore, there are lots of waterfowl!

I wonder if they still net the fish or if they doing their counts just from the video! You can clearly see the number and the species of nearly all of those fish. Thanks Griz for posting.

Thought this was a really cool display. You can see above and below the water in this school of tuna.

A few bucket list animals !

Of course they had plenty of my favorite North American big game on display and the history behind when the and where the animal was harvested/found.

Really liked the paintings depicting the Lewis and Clark expedition. My phone did not do them much justice. Here's a couple of my favorites.

Took the family to WOW a couple of weeks ago. We had gone and went through the original version back when we were only a Folly Family of four! I have been watching the progress of the rebuild for the last decade and really could not wait to see the final product. The price tag to see both the museum and the aquarium seemed steep at $40 per person. With four in total (son stayed home) it was a bit of a bite to the wallet. The museum of the rise of Bass Pro shops is free and actually quite interesting though my oldest won't look at Uncle Buck the same after seeing his look on the cover of the X-rated BSP calendar. I had to agree that it's a bit creepy. We started in the museum heading up an escalator past a herd of bison. I thought of Al, BilletHead, Hog Wally and others that have gone out to hunt stone age artifacts when I saw their displays. Also they paid a lot of attention to the native Americans and their attitudes towards our environment. Also appreciated the coverage of Theodore Roosevelt and his ideas about conservation.

I was wearing a camo bass pro hat. Had camo coveralls and a black jacket. I was the one carrying the cool landing net ! Sorry that we missed you as well. Could have used a fourth down below the whistle bridge to cover a couple of those holes a bit better. Sure that we missed lots of opportunities.

Laker67 - where were you fishing? Did we bump into at all? How did you do?

It was a melancholy ride home. However, I was glad we got to spend the day fishing. I caught my 63rd species and enough fish to put me over 1000 total since March. I may have even cracked a smile on a few fish ! I got to see Marty get absolutely giddy catching those native sculpin and minnows ! Even chuckled a bit when Ham did not want to catch something as mundane as another rainbow trout for his 50th fish on the day, but ended up catching one just the same because they wouldn't stay off his jig! Though he did admit later in the day on the Niangua that he was also done catching bleeding shiners. Hopefully we can get in one more trip before I am in Maryland permanently. If not I will have to see about scheduling a business trip back to Missouri around the time for Jigfest 2018!

Very Nice spot Quillback. Congrats buddy!

Fished worms below the 64 Bridge yesterday. Only caught one rainbow, a creek chub, and a couple of hornyhead chubs. Still looking for a Niangua redhorse sucker!