January has been bitter cold with a lot of snow making it hard to travel far from home so another trip to Gunpowder is my best option for close-to-home trout. I took the 13’ tenkara set up and remembered to bring the ‘good’ fly box this time.
After fishing the honey hole pretty hard for an hour, I started looking for a place to take the drone up. I didn’t wear waders today, so I moved downstream to find a place to cross in just my muck boots. The water was moving fast but was shallow enough to cross over and explore the middle area of the park. Spider ice on the side creeks was a sight to see. Also interesting was finding evidence of the hunt and stalk of a now-devoured robin. Possibly by a bobcat.
Much of the recent snow is now crystal clear melt water running fast through this area with chunky ice slabs laying in piles along the shoreline. In this lower wash the amount of slab ice is incredible to see as it is literal tonnage. The hard freeze turns this entire valley into a sheet of solid ice that breaks up and collects in the flood bottoms as the water recedes.
Not much evidence of spring out there though. Should see the beginning of shoots soon.