Johnsfolly

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!

I guess that I could have titled this post as OAF at BSSPP 2018 of Folly's Feb Fishing at Bennett's with Ham and BilletHead. The day started with 5:45 am groups texts from Flippin AR, Milo MO, and Columbia MO. Three anglers heading to Lebanon MO to try to catch some trout as well as anything that would bite. The first texts were notifications of guys leaving their homes, then a weather discussion like "11 degrees", "A balmy 9 in BilletHeadville", "It's downright balmy 14 here in Camdenton." "Heat Wave", "Is it going to make it up to freezing?", "Yep". I have a tendency of being a bit of a lead foot any time that I leave the house before dawn to go fishing. That is especially the case when I am meeting guys at a certain time who like myself are up before dawn. We originally were to meet at 8 am. Ham through that he could be there by 9:30. I had a long day on Thurs and thought may get there by 9 am. I was wrong. I got there right before the 8 am whistle. Figuring that I was early, I had some time to make a cast or two. I hooked and landed two rainbows on a 1/125 oz white grub microjig. After the second fish, I headed to the store to meet Ham and Marty. Soon after I parked at the store, Ham pulled in next to me. The two trout shredded the chenille off on my microjig and I needed some replacements. Ham and I went in and looked over the baits and rods and we both picked up a few microjigs to use. As we were getting gear ready, the man from Milo pulled in to the parking lot. Little did Marty know that he brought a flyrod to a JIG Fight! We started above the plunge pool below the spring. Ham was fishing his Zig Jigs and I started with the white grub microjig. Marty was fishing a leech and hooked up first. Then Ham caught his first trout of the day. One of the amazing sights that occurred time and time again was when Ham would get bit on his white or the olive ginger jigs, the hooked fish would get mobbed by lots of other trout apparently to try to take the bait from the hooked fish's mouth. Marty came over and we all were catching trout. The first to tire of rainbows was Ham and he started to target the lesser fish in the area, with attention paid to the hidden and then plentiful sculpin. Ham landed his first Ozark sculpin of the year (his tenth species for 2018), then another, and another. Some were males that began to show their breeding coloration, their blue-green face and chin. Even Marty with his Y2K fly got into catching these microfish, his new lifer an Ozark sculpin. Often he even had five or six sculpin after his baits at any one time. He caught one Ozark sculpin after another and he even found a large sculpin with a smaller one in its jaws. Ham switched from catching sculpin and rainbows. I had seen a large banded sculpin in the channel. but could get it hooked. Ham found one closer to the bank and tried to get it hooked, but could not get a hook set on the fish. I tried with a John Deere microjig and I didn't get the fish's attention but got surrounded by Ozarks. After catching a couple of them, I finally got the attention of the banded sculpin and got it to bite. This fish clearly shows the coloration of a banded sculpin and the most important feature is that the lateral line extends all the way to the caudal fin (tail). Whereas this Ozark sculpin with a similar coloration has its lateral line ends in the middle dark stripe below the second dorsal fin just before the caudal fin. The picture makes the 1/125 oz jig look huge. In order to try to catch a few more species, we headed downstream to a spot that I had caught a rock bass and some striped shiners on my last trip. There were also trout to be caught as well. Ham caught the first striped shiner. When it came to catching trout, no need to hide the bank, since the spring branch was full of trout in every hole that we fished. Lots fell to the olive/ginger, white, olive/orange zig jigs as well as various microjigs, white, john deere, pink grubs, etc. Ham even made the statement that these Bennett Springs trout made the White River trout look educated! We caught lots of chunky trout. Still had to protect the striped shiner hotspots (crouching Marty - Striped shiner)! These holes held bleeding shiners as well that were susceptible to Marty's fly and our jigs. Ham and I each caught northern rock bass and a hornyhead chub was fooled by one of Marty's flies. The early single digit temps may have dissuaded other fishermen. We didn't see more than a hand full of guys fishing all day. The temps rose and it was a pleasant day throughout. I had caught seven different species in the spring branch and two others in the Niangua. Ham caught at least six species with three of those new on his 2018 species total. Marty caught at least five different species, including a new lifer. (they can correct those totals). It was a great multispecies trip with great friends from OAF.

I'm out. I prefer fewer crowds at Bennett's. Good luck to you guys that will stand elbow to elbow trying to catch trout on Opening Day!

I catch hundreds of fish that I release soon after the hook set☺!

I haven't heard about cooking a roux in the oven. It's got great color and I would imagine flavor as well!

I always equated Guinness to liquid bread, either a brown or Irish soda bread☺. When we were living in Northern Ireland 18 yrs ago my wife was pregnant and it was common to have women drink a half pint of Guinness each day during their pregnancy. Of course it was recommended that the father drink 2 to 3 pints oer day as well! At least I think that recommendation was for expecting fathers ☺! Hang in there Patfish and stay strong.

I would like to see using the drone more like a planer board and release the line once the fish hits then you fight the fish on rod and reel. I know saltwater guys just use them to drop baits into a school of fish well off the shoreline. Haven't looked into using drones to drop baits and whether they would be allowed to drop a bait in a tailwater where you cannot get in with a boat.