It was a beautiful Friday afternoon and the man was sitting in a lawn chair, catching some sun and reading a newspaper, at the fly fishing parking lot at the middle section of Beaver Creek. I had just finished my day of fishing and was chaining up the access gate when he stood up and looked at me.
"I know where you live," he said as he mentioned the county.
I told him he was correct and asked him how he figured this out. My car has nothing on it that indicated which county I was from. Except, which I found out from him, for one thing.
"I saw that decal on your car," he said as he pointed at the small high school sticker on my rear window. "My grandson goes to that high school."
We talked for a bit and I found out that his grandson not only goes to the SAME high school as my kid, but he also lives in the SAME neighborhood and lives only ONE block away from my place. Strange. Weird. A Twilight Zone moment that put an end to a pretty good day of fishing on Beaver Creek.
After fishing at Big Hunting Creek last week I made a brief stop at Beaver Creek before heading for home. Both fishing expeditions were great, but when I fished Beaver Creek it felt rushed. Trouting at Big Hunting Creek was my original plan and Beaver Creek sort of just popped up as an afterthought. Since it was close by and on the way home I figured "why not" but I was always checking my watch because I wanted to avoid the after-work traffic mess.
We had some pretty heavy rain a few days ago and I expected the creek to be even higher and dirtier than last week. I arrived at the fly fishing parking lot and found one vehicle already parked there. There's lots of room on the creek so I wasn't expecting any problems and I could probably guess where that person was fishing.
Since the water was going to be high, dirty and probably running fast, it was going to be a nymphing day. I rigged up with a homemade Czech-style indicator, a heavy and light nymph, and began fishing.
At the first spot I fished I scored a rainbow after a couple of drifts. I slowly made my way down the creek as I put drifts through all the likely trout water. The water was pushing over the banks in some spots and was really flowing fast. It was also very colored, so I took my time and thoroughly fished a spot before moving on. Fish have to see the fly before they can eat it.
I got out of the creek and walked down to the first bridge. As I expected, the other angler was nymphing this spot. This section of the creek is pretty deep and has some strange and complicated current making it tough to fish. But it also holds some big, very big, trout. The angler was leaning on his very large landing net and soaking a heavy fly just outside the current near the opposite bank. A good place to fish.
The trail began to get really thick and narrow and I struggled here and there to free the rod, line, flies and myself from the undergrowth as I followed one of many paths past around mature shrubs and trees, which is really a pain in the butt to navigate but good for erosion control. I stopped at a few spots and picked off trout before making it to the second bridge.
The water was moving at a pretty good clip as I followed the small trail to fish some of the spots I knew of. Most of my fishing kept both feet on shore, so the high water wasn't a problem. A problem was accidentally hooking a large piece of underwater debris that was tumbling by. A couple of times I set the hook on what I thought was a trout but turned out to be a broken tree limb or a hunk of grass.
Thunder began echoing through the area and it began to rain. The rain became more intense and I pulled on a jacket and took shelter under a tree as the storm passed. I decided to turn around and fish back at this point and revisited all the spots I previously fished before returning to the parking lot and my appointment with the Twilight Zone.
EQUIPMENT: I used a medium action 9 foot 4 weight rod, a weight forward line which never got more than 3 feet out the tip of the rod, a Czech nymph setup and flies from size 16 to 20.
DIRECTIONS: From I-70 heading towards Hagerstown, take Exit 66 (Boonsboro) and turn left at bottom of ramp. Continue down the road and turn right onto Beaver Creek Road, it's a small street sign as you enter a residential area so slow down and look carefully. Make a right turn at Beaver Creek Church Rd., follow the narrow road that will bear right across a one-lane bridge. Turn left and 100 yards up the road on your right will be the parking lot for the upper section of the creek which is fly fishing only. Gear up, cross the road, unchain the gate to enter and please replace the chain on the gate when you pass through. Respect the private property signs.