A big smallstream

Three straight days of 60*+ temps Sun.,Mon.& Tues. has the deer movement down to a minimum during daylight hours and they confine most of their rutting activity to the cover of darkness and cooler temps.The bucks are definately chasing the does with gusto as dead deer are popping up regularly along the roadways after getting smacked by vehicles.So I leave my bow at home and continue to take the fly rod out.After all, why waste these nice temps.Sunday found me on the Antietam Creek at Devils Backbone State Park.Here are some pics of the area.
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a great dry fly flat but despite some caddis flies coming off I saw no surface activity
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The county I live in has close to 40 stone arch bridges all but 2 still carry traffic across waterways.These range from small single arch bridges to a few 5 arch bridges with most being 3 arch in size. This one is in Devils Backbone Park and just a scant few miles downstream is a bridge the same size as this one.If you are a civil war buff you don't even have to be in the states to have heard of the one downstream.You can fish for trout literally in the shadow of history as the other one is known as Burnside Bridge where Union and Confederate troops clashed on Sept.17,1862 in the bloodiest single day in the history of this country during the battle of Antietam.Just over a small hill and across a pasture field is an area known as Bloody Lane.Gives one chills just trying to imagine the carnage that occurred that day resulting in casualties in excess of 28,000 Americans in approximately a 14 hr period.
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