For a Fly-Fishing Treat, Go No Farther Than the Gunpowder River

He pointed to a favored pool and had me wade in gently. "Now," he said, "we'll just stand here for a few minutes and watch. These fish get enough pressure, they can feel the ripples when an angler steps in. It takes them awhile to settle down."

Sure enough, after a few minutes the trout came back to the surface and resumed slapping and sipping at tiny flies emerging. Crossland-Smith reckoned they were caddis, the most common insects to hatch here, but it turned out later they were mostly small stone flies.

So began the fly angler's process of elimination as we went through the flybox trying to find something to match the hatch. We went larger, smaller, lighter, darker, and tried a pattern that copied the look of a fly rising from the rocky depths to hatch on the surface.

It was slow going. In a less beautiful place that might have proved annoying, but it's hard to get annoyed when you're knee-deep in clear, cool water on a bright autumn day with a breeze in the trees and fish rising all around.

We tied on a size 18 Adams and bang, there he was. Then, as I played around with small fish on the surface, Crossland-Smith put a small white grub imitation on his line, weighed it down with a split shot and dredged it through a fast run just upstream.

On the third or fourth drift, the strike indicator went down and he set the hook on something of consequence. It was a wild, 12-inch brown trout, and when he lifted it from the water, gently cradled in the landing net, it caught the sun just so and took your breath away.

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Someone reading the preceding account might scratch his cheek and say, "Gee, this guy knows a bit about trout fishing." Ha, ha, ha. I'm a tidewater man, more at home with crabs and channel markers than strike indicators and wading staffs. But a good trout stream never lets you down. They are among the purest, prettiest, most interesting natural places you ever will see, whatever your background.

It helps to have a guide when you're new to this stuff and Crossland-Smith is a good one. He's one of six guides booking trips out of Backwater Angler (410-329-6821), a well stocked fly-fishing shop near the river.

Those with some fly-fishing expertise can learn everything they need to know to fish the Gunpowder and 14 other trout streams by getting a copy of the Guide to Maryland Trout Fishing by local anglers Charlie Gelso and Larry Coburn ($19.95, from Falling Star Publishing; e-mail putinpocket@aol.com).

Coburn is giving a free slide show and talk on fall fly-fishing for trout from 11 a.m.-noon next Sunday (Sept. 23) at the Bass Pro Shop in Hanover, Md. (Disclaimer: Yes, Coburn is my No. 1 fishing partner, so I am biased. Still, he knows his stuff.)