Species List

What do you want to fish for? Chances are I’ve done it and may be able to show you a different approach. Here’s a few I offer… and I’ll customize any trip to suit your needs.

Striped Bass, aka Rockfish, aka Morone saxatilis. I offer trophy catch and release rockfish trips in the spring and smaller resident striped bass trips the remainder of the year. Over fishing has greatly impacted their abundance but hopefully with the right education and fisheries management will encourage “life to find a way” as spoken by our friend Dr. Malcolm in Jurassic Park. Oh…. everyone of the giant stripers pictured below was safely released to spawn and fight again.

Monster Blue Catfish

Monster Blue Cats are the top dogs in the entire system. They seek and destroy as much as any predator and are capable of growing to 100 pounds or more. They eat whatever they want and go where ever they want. Without question the most numerous fish, the largest fish and the easiest fish to find in the tidal potomac. These invasive gluttons have started to infiltrate every available habitat on the entire chesapeake bay watershed and have begun to populate non tidal areas as well. Before too long our waters will only have blue catfish, and only when they have eaten everything and everyone else, then they will start to eat each other and then and only then will be be able to control the numbers. In the mean time I’d like to do my part and cull a few. The commercial fishery in the lower tidal Potomac for blue catfish is a booming business. But Washington DC doesn’t have a commercial fishery. DC is a giant catfish sanctuary. These guys are just as happy gorging on a dead deer carcass as they are eating whole 20” American Shad. We mostly catch them while anchored on structure with current and fresh bait on the bottom. It’s the perfect trip for a beginner fisherman. I’ll do all the work, you just get to sit back and crank the reel. But if you wish, we can chase these beasts on artificial with light tackle as well. Say, ten pound test outfits, 3/4oz jig head fixed with a 5 to ten inch plastic on a medium action spinning rod and a 3000 size real. Or we can drift deep water with a few rods out in rod holders and one in your hand with the drag cranked past 20 pounds. “You want to go to war? Okay, I’ll take you to war,” spoken in my best Al Pacino voice from the movie Scarface. A Tug of war with a 40 pound catfish and 20 pounds of drag is good fun.

CARP

The “prince of mud” as Sebastian O’kelly once said in his book “The Offbeat Angler” is as difficult and rewarding a species that swims. Now do it with a fly rod and make everything more difficult just because, yea sure why not. The Potomac River, its tributaries and the C&O Canal are chocker block full of these fish that can grow to incredible proportions. Come give it a shot either on foot or off the enormous casting deck of a practically new 21 foot Carolina Skiff.

TROUT

Trophy trout and Potomac River shouldn’t even be in the same thought, yet alone sentence. But yes they do. The upper Potomac, specifically the North Branch of the Potomac River, inhabits some of the largest trout found anywhere on the east coast. In fact, I’ve fished all the famous Great Lake tributaries for giant Lake Run Brown Trout and I have never caught anything as big as this one beast I caught from the North Branch of the Potomac River one summer night some 20 years ago. Yes it’s true these giant fish are not as easy to come by anymore now that they removed the nutrient rich hatchery from the base of Jennings Randolph Lake, but there are still a few behemoths swallowing whole stocked trout for breakfast and literally scaring the crap out of the dainty dry fly guy and his 3wt fly rod casting #20 BWOs. Other very important updates for the North Branch of the Potomac is that the lower section in Luke, MD is exploding with life now that the waste water treatment plant and paper mill plant have been shut down. For years this was an excellent section of the river loaded with both smallmouth and all trout species but the turbidity was so bad you could barely see your foot in ankle deep water from the waster water discharge from the paper mill. But somehow the fish survived and you could even expect to catch more than a few fish. Well, those same fish have just been given the most impressive gift imaginable, the gift of sight. Both fish and fishermen will now be able to see the prime lies, holding water, bait fish and even sight fish to the numerous trout found in over 30 miles of the river. The paper mill was shut down in June of 2019 and though will be a serious economic hit to the people of the area, the trout and bugs should explode as a result. Things could be very interesting on the river in the coming years, and trust me, you want to be a part of it.

Then there is also a spring creek less than an hour’s drive from Washington, DC that sustains both natural rainbows and browns in the double digit size. Yes, you heard that correct, trout measured in pounds, not inches take up residence in a tiny spring creek that’s a 30 minute drive from my doorstep. To fish and properly hunt these trophy beasts that lurk in this spring creek takes a stealthy and different approach. A good friend of mine who lived on the stream for several years showed me the light and I never looked at a spring creek the same way again. We will dress in full camo or at least in all dull colors where we will stalk our query as slowly and as quietly as we possibly can using the trees and vegetation to block our silhouette. We won’t blind cast very much and we literally hunt these fish like you might expect a traditional bow hunter to a well educated mature whitetail doe. If we see them swimming instead of the sulking lie and wait, that means they are on the hunt and looking to feed. It’s sight casting at its finest. It isn’t a numbers game and you’ll likely only get one chance at the fish so you better make that cast count. Luckily there are quite a few of them around along with a decent handful of “regular” size trout. Come on out and give it a try. All year long fish like this can be encountered in this cold nutrient rich tributary to the Potomac. My largest 29” rainbow came the day after Christmas a few years ago and I’ve more than once gone into my backing on this stream that I could cross in three or four steps. But if the fish takes that much line, it usually finds a log to wrap around leaving you heart broken and dumbfounded as to what just actually happened.

Or we could go to more lesser known, secluded environment where the trout are more normal size and sip tiny bugs from the surface film. I have a handful of places that are within 30 miles of DC, some even closer, in the Maryland suburbs where the trout are natural or grow to adults from fingerling stockings. There is the free stone natural and stocked trout water of the upper Patuxent River and an unknown little tailwater gem who’s name will be omitted for now. This little suburban tailwater stream is to me what the St. Vrain is to John Gierach. When these fish grow year round in a tailwater stream where water temperature rarely exceed 60 degrees even in the dead middle of the sweltering Washington summer, they tend to be some of the strongest fighting fish you’ll see. Pound for pound I’d put these fish up against anything. Multiple waste high leaps and acrobats like a silver steelhead fresh from the ocean are the norm when fighting these smaller but feisty fish. But when I say smaller, a trophy fish is still possible. So much so that I recently attended an electro fish sampling event on this one particular tailwater stream with biologists from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and Montgomery Parks. We encountered a fish that would raise an eyebrow to even a Southern Argentinian fishermen. Check out this fish story from July 2019…..

I have been pleading and badgering DNR and trout unlimited to reinstate a catch and release status on a local tailwater trout stream near my house In Montgomery county for nearly 20 years. It was a catch and release stream in the 90’s but was delisted because of some stupid reason unknown. Basically the DNR did not think this stream was viable and a strong enough fishery to remain on the Catch and Release status. The regulation changed from a year round catch and release trout stream to basically no regulation except for an unknown classification of “natural trout water”, no tackle restrictions, 2 fish per day creel limit. What this did was basically take all the pressure and knowledge from the general public where it was forgotten for the last 20 something years. The DNR occasionally stocks left over fingerling trout in the stream unannounced and unbeknownst to the regular Joe Shmoe. A trout unlimited program called Trout in the Classroom where area schools grow trout from eggs to fingerlings (usually an inch or two) are also stocked in this stream every year. And a few of these fish survive to incredible size. Well, recently in July 2019 we finally met with DNR and Montgomery Parks to electro shock the stream to see if trout survive and get an idea on abundance. I already knew there were adult trout in there as I fish it often but how many or what size was uncertain. The first two stations were very slow, then the third gave up a fish that dreams are made of. An absolute giant brown trout. Larger than the DNR has found anywhere except the north branch of Potomac and that spring creek listed above. And guess what else, they compared photos of a fish that was sampled in the same area in 2010 (attached on the board). It's the same fish!! Compare the markings on the belly. In July 2010 the fish was 19.5” and yesterday it was 23.5” and as thick as a football. An absolute monster, king of the roost in a stream you could jump across in some places. He’s still out there and I’ll name him Eagor. I’ve fished his lair countless times over the years and never knew he was there. But now that I do know he is there, I’ll probably never fish for him. I may however go down to the creek in the evening and have a beer with him…. and maybe just see him eat something.