Those who fish — and I’m sure it’s true of those who hunt and hike — have a habit of naming familiar places in the great outdoors, branding them in some personal way. Gunpowder River Along the Gunpowder River in northern Baltimore County, most anglers know where to find Whale Rock. Given the large boulder … Continue reading An old tradition: Naming places on rivers and trails
The best three-fish day of fishing ever
Fishing Journal Entry: Sept. 1, 2025, Labor Day Sometimes you just want to write things down so you don’t forget them, and that’s the case today: I just need to describe what the day was like and how it ended so that my son and I will have a record should one day memory fail … Continue reading The best three-fish day of fishing ever
Roadside assistance for a fellow angler who “ain’t from around here”
I had just come from the river when a big man in a big pickup truck pulled suddenly off the main road after spotting me in the parking lot, where I was about to take my waders off. He stopped in a cloud of dust and rolled his window down.“How’d ya do?” he asked, which … Continue reading Roadside assistance for a fellow angler who “ain’t from around here”
Afishionado: A ‘large minnow’ that builds and shares a spawning bed
It’s always the first example of an oxymoronic phrase — jumbo shrimp. Here’s a new one — large minnow. Yes, there is such a thing. It’s called a fallfish, a silvery species that swims in rivers of the U.S. Northeast and Canada. It’s a chub of the family Cyprinidae, and the largest minnow species native … Continue reading Afishionado: A ‘large minnow’ that builds and shares a spawning bed
The Susquehanna Swarm
It might seem like a freak of nature, a bizarre phenomenon set off by the latent effects of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident 50 miles (and more than 46 years) upstream. But it’s actually a natural phenomenon and a sign of environmental health. Workers at Conowingo Dam, on the Susquehanna River, were recently awed … Continue reading The Susquehanna Swarm
Afishionado: The stubborn guy with a fly rod
The fly-fishing angler who won’t fish with nymph imitations is a stubborn fool. He will stand there, 20 feet downstream of a fishy-looking pool, and hope for a rise. He will hope for a trout to nose into the surface and give away both its position and its interest in devouring a fly on the … Continue reading Afishionado: The stubborn guy with a fly rod
Nothin’ wild about fishing for stocked trout
You can see from the photograph with this post that the young man in waders, my son Nick, is fly-fishing for trout in the traditional, usually productive way -- nymphing or stripping a streamer through a fairly deep run along a bank in a freestone river. He's fishing a spot that looks fishy. Such a … Continue reading Nothin’ wild about fishing for stocked trout
Waiting for the rise
Fly fishing requires a lot of patience; some anglers give it up for that reason -- they don't want to be bothered with all the fuss, with all that "match the hatch" business, the precise (and sometimes tedious) matching of artificial flies with the real bugs that trout happen to be feeding on. But, for … Continue reading Waiting for the rise
Casting into the bubble line
You see that? That’s what we call the bubble line, those little specks of white that float on the surface downstream of a riffle. It’s where we look for feeding trout in Father’s Day Creek, and just about everywhere else. Sometimes you’re casting to flat water, a place in the river that looks almost still, … Continue reading Casting into the bubble line
How the Founding Fathers Fished
I went to the Pennsylvania Fly Fishing and Film Show in Carlisle Saturday morning for the purpose of giving some exposure to Father's Day Creek in the commonwealth of the book’s setting. I was fortunate to be assigned a vendor table near Ye Olde Colonial Angler. While I’m sure I would have spotted him no … Continue reading How the Founding Fathers Fished
Dan Rodricks 