Bow Hunting Maryland

Headed back out to the Gunpowder river yesterday morning to do some trout fishing.  After the last non-closure stocking there are more trout around to catch and fishing pressure has been less.  I have been several times over the past week or two and yesterday I was able to change around 8 and the friend that was with me caught something close to the same number of fish. We fished for about 4 hours and we didn’t hang around in any one spot long.  Had we stayed places where we were getting bites we may have caught many more.

Trout fishing is one of my favorite things to do, they fight decent, decent chance at catching a decent one since they now stock larger fish, and you normally catch fish!   I have probably caught 100+ fish this spring, maybe more.  I have had a ton of  fun and had some good meals as well as provided several family members with good meals.

Now that trout stocking is complete and the fish will slowly start to dwindle in numbers, I will start looking to find other things to catch for the summer months.

Soon, I will be turning my focus back to hunting as June is normally my month to get the bow out and start getting ready and getting back in the habit of shooting..  I also plan to write more for those who have noticed I have been slacking off, spring is always busy at work and this year I have been focusing more on fishing then hunting..  I never did make it out turkey hunting this year, but since last year was my first time out, I don’t feel I missed as much. However, next season I am looking forward to attempting to get out turkey hunting!

Has anyone been out turkey hunting or trout fishing?  Have you done any good?  Have you been doing some other kind of fishing or hunting?  Love to hear some stories or see some pictures!

Headed back out to the Gunpowder River yesterday while it was nice and warm out.  I took a good friend of mine with me for his first experience fishing for Maryland hatchery fish with Powerbait.   It was a nice day, and we started getting bites almost as soon as we got lines in the water.   Soon after I got a nice 12 or 13 inch rainbow trout to finally bite enough to set a hook and landed the fish.

While we were fishing this particular spot we noticed a large number of shad schooled up and swimming around in this spot.  They were all  probably 3 – 7 inches long and were in fact mostly just annoying. I think the large shad school was in fact spooking the trout.

After a little while longer we headed up stream to another location.   First cast I was able to catch another decent rainbow trout, we stayed here for the next hour and were able to see trout swimming around and we almost were constantly getting bites, not bad for mid-day two weeks after the last opening day.  I was able to land 3 more rainbow trout, 2 of which were very small and I let them go.   We only fished for about 2 hours and I was able to land 5 fish and keep 3, not a bad couple hours.

With stocking continuing over the next few weeks I will likely head out a few more times before I switch to summer time fishing.

Anyone else been out trout fishing lately?  How have you been doing?

Last weekend I was able to get out trout fishing on the Gunpowder river on both Saturday and Sunday.   Saturday of course was the end last closure, our last opening day for the year.  Sadly, I had to work Saturday morning so was unable to get out first thing in the morning.  But I was able to head out Saturday afternoon for a few hours. I took a family member along and we headed up to the Gunpowder hoping their were some trout left.  We arrived up the river around 3:30 pm and started fishing, shortly after that I caught one decent size rainbow trout and the day was off to a good start.  Fishing in the same hole, I shortly after caught two very small like 6 or 7 inch long brown trout which I put back to get bigger.  It was now around 4:30 and we decided it was time to head up river and try some of my other normal spots.  As we worked up the river we didn’t have many bites and we found others fishing in my normal spots so we kept going on to the next spot.  Finally, we decided to head up to one of my favorite spots of all, on our way we were looking in the river in shallow water along side a fallen tree and saw a good size palomino swing along with several rainbows in clear sight.  So, I left my cousin  there and headed up to my favorite spot as we were fairly close to one another.  Shortly after I got to where I was I started having bites but couldn’t keep the fish on for more than a couple seconds, well by that  my cousin caught a trout and we added it to the stringer (now at two) 5:30 pm.   We both decided to stay at the hole I was in and would return back to tree if nothing much happened in the hole we were in. Soon after, I learned that my number 6 hook must have been too big, I went to slightly smaller hook and started caught fish as opposed to feeding them Powerbait as I was doing before.  I was able to land a couple fish in the next 20 minutes and my cousin added one more as well.  It was now close to 6 and we both needed to get home, but I said I need to make one more cast because I had a fish that kept stealing my bait!

So, I made my “last” cast.  Boy am I glad I did, shortly after it hit the water something hit it like a ton bricks and I set the hook and started reeling in. I quickly knew this wasn’t an average 12 – 14 inch rainbow but rather one of those slightly larger ones that they put in the river.  After it actually put up somewhat of a fight on my ultralight with 6 lb test line, I landed the fish.  I didn’t have my phone with me so I just took a picture of the fish before I cleaned them at home, but that last cast fish is as you can tell at the top in the picture below.  Measured 20 inches guessing between 2 – 3 lbs? maybe, but honestly not sure.  Made for a great meal for Amber and I though.

Sunday, I headed out trout fishing with a friend of mine and his son.  We went to further north spot on the Gunpowder as it looked like it would rain ( as it did) and we were not sure how hard it would rain so we wanted to be close to the car.  The day started out around 4:30 pm and like most days fishing, slow, there were people in the spots we intended to fish so we went to other spots near by.  My friends son caught a small rainbow after just two casts at our first hole, but that was it for a while.  A while later I was able to pick up one decent rainbow out from under a tree but with it starting to rain nothing seem to be biting.  It wasn’t until much later 6:30 – 7 that we started to get tired of the rain and headed toward the car, I said lets fish some of these spots that look less like pools but maybe are holding fish.  Well,  I was able to quickly pick up two trout, the first was very nice 18 inch rainbow the second an average 14 inch rainbow.  After that things started to slow down again so we kept walking, finally we found a pool where we could see several Palominos  swimming around so we figured we could give it a try… Nothing much would bite and finally my friend and his son gave up, one my last cast I was able to catch one more smaller rainbow and in told brought home 5 fish.  Not a great day, but certainly not a bad day. I didn’t think and had half the fish cleaned before I thought about a picture, so I lack pictures from Sunday, and plus it was raining so my phone was buried under a fishing vest and rain coat.. Sorry….

All and all not a bad year so far for me trout fishing, and I plan to try to get out one or two more times over the next couple weeks.

Have you been out trout fishing?  How did you do?

I also as a side note to this post  wanted to make a recombination, I normally take several different colors of Berkley’s Powerbait out with me trout fishing and switch back and forth depending on what the trout are biting. This year one color in particular has been on fire for me which I caught most of my fish on as well, so I wanted to pass that long.

Berkley Powerbait  with glitter in the color Sherbert.