Antietam, 06/22/25

Heat warnings, well that did not scare Arthur from still wanting to fish while visiting his daughter. We started just before 8AM and fishing around 3:30PM. It was sunny and did get quite nasty heat wise from 11AM on. I had a great game plan going in to fish our lower waters. It is in a deep hollow and shaded. The water was slightly tinted, perfect flow and only warmed to 64 degrees. Nothing was hatching, so once again another nymphing day on hand. Arthur is a very skilled fly fisherman. He fished with my T&T 10’4wt. zone and he said one of the best casting rods he has ever fished with. It did not take long and we quickly landed a small brown. Then things got very interesting. He hooked into a huge solid trout which we eventually got a look at, and it was the biggest trout he had ever hooked and probably the biggest wild brown I’ve ever seen in the 31 years of guiding in PA. He fought that trout perfectly. It seemed like it was reading our minds. Every time we tried to move this trout one way, it had nothing to do with us. Net would touch the water, it took off. Finally this trout made the call and decided to head home on a downstream run into a log jam. Still, despite that, he had and I quote “That was the most outstanding of days”. Ended up landing a few small browns, but most were 14 to 16 inches and two big rainbows one at 18 inches. Not shabby for a 20+ fish day. Again as we say, “Welcome to Antietam!”