For those of you who enjoyed John Scott's adventures with his Elkhorn bamboo rod last year, I'm happy to say that the rod lives on. I was lucky enough to win it in the bench raffle, and feel compelled to continue its saga.

I first took it out in February, shortly after "snowmageddon" here in the DC area. Getting about the Gunpowder Falls was difficult, and I wasn't surprised when I ended up skunked. Nice to be out, though, and the rod handles streamer quite nicely. (I have some pictures from that trip, which I might post after I get home.)

Yesterday was a different story. With all the meltoff from our snow events, and 3 inches of rain on Saturday, pretty much every stream in the region iss blown out. Where I normally wade the Potomac for smallmouth in the summer at 3,000 cfs was flowing at 180,000 cfs. I don't think I'll be doing any early season smallmouth fishing.

The only stream I could think of within a 100 miles of my house which might clear enough to fish is also the only stream within 100 miles of my house which has wild rainbows (at least the only one that I know of). It's a lovely, tiny spring creek in Pennsylvania's Cumberland Valley. I would ordinarily have fished it with a 7' four weight, but I really wanted a fish on the Elkhorn.

Since it was pouring rain when I got there, I rigged up under the door of the SUV with the fly I intended to start with, a small soft hackle (a Light Spanish Needle to be precise) that I use as a searching pattern in later February and early March. I should have waited until I saw the stream. When I got there, it was covered with little olives and fish rising to them all over. I decided to fish what I had on, because it was at least the right size, and if I took the time to change, the hatch might be over. (It was already close to 3 PM, and I don't often see BWOs that late in the day on that stream.) It was probably a good choice.

My camera is not waterproof, so it got left at home. That's too bad because the 10" rainbow I was rewarded with after about 5 minutes was brilliantly red, as are most of the 'bows in that stream. It really deserved to have a picture taken. I hooked another fish about two casts later, but lost it, and then the hatch turned off.

I fished less than hour total, missing one more fish just before I quit, but the Elkhorn now has a fish in the east.

I must say that it was not the ideal rod for the situation. It doesn't turn over 14' of leader with 5 feet of line out very well at all, but then again, I didn't expect it would. I'm looking forward to fishing it in bigger water very soon.