One day fishing with the legendary Lefty Kreh

One day fishing with the legendary Lefty Kreh


THE HIGHLIGHT of my 2010 fishing adventures was the day I spent fishing the Potomac River with Lefty Kreh. A Frederick native, Lefty is without a doubt the most famous fly fisherman alive today. Approaching his 86th birthday in January, Lefty still can cast a fly line like no one I have ever seen!

Lefty was the original outdoor writer for The Frederick News-Post. His column, "Maryland Afield," was first published in 1951 and launched his career as an outdoor writer. The column ran until 1964, when Lefty moved to Florida to manage a prestigious big-game fishing tournament. He returned to Maryland in 1973 and became the outdoor editor for The (Baltimore) Sun. His column for The Sun, "Outdoors," ran three times a week until Lefty retired in 1992. He now lives in Cockeysville and still maintains a busy lecture schedule.

My connection with Lefty began with a bit of social networking through e-mails. I often forward my published columns and send fishing photos with brief anecdotes to my fishing friends and acquaintances. I was delighted that Lefty apparently took interest in my writing and began to correspond, sometimes replying with some of his personal experiences. I believe my exploits in the "wilds" of Frederick County must invoke pleasant memories for Lefty, whose soul is deeply rooted in our local landscape.

Smallmouths and poppers

Earlier this year, Lefty offered me the opportunity to fish with him. He suggested we fish the Potomac in the summer for smallmouth bass. Casting poppers to smallmouth bass is the kind of freshwater fishing that is closest to his heart and he hasn't taken the opportunity to fish the Potomac in years. We originally wanted to fish in August, but with daily temperatures in the high 90s, we postponed our outing until mid-September.

The day before our float, I found a suitable place with a low bank to launch my inflatable pontoon raft along the C&O Canal National Historical Park, near Maryland Heights. Lefty informed me that he was nursing an injury sustained when he fell from a casting platform and tore his kneecap. This injury makes it difficult for him to step down from the banks of the river without assistance.


The next day, I met Lefty in Frederick, drove to Brunswick to leave a shuttle vehicle and then drove together to Harpers Ferry, W.Va. From the moment we began, it was obvious that although I was rowing the boat, he was the guide.

Lefty never stopped teaching me throughout the trip -- from fishing tips to the history of the river. He began with the best way to attach a popper to my tippet. He also gave me advice about my own hand-tied popper. He told me, frankly, everything about my popper was wrong. I explained that it catches fish and he replied, "Don't expect any sympathy from me!" He then gave me a popper he designed and I was not about to argue. He had my complete attention and respect.

The rock


Lefty wanted to fish the Potomac in a specific location below Harpers Ferry, near the old Weaverton Mill. This particular spot just happens to be the very spot that legendary fisherman and writer Joe Brooks introduced Lefty to the sport of fly fishing in the early 1950s.

Brooks, a Baltimore native, was the fishing editor for Outdoor Life magazine. Brooks' writings were my first source of information as a young angler in the late '60s. In fact, I still have my father's 1958 publication of "The Complete Book of Fly Fishing," authored by Brooks. It was the most insightful resource for fly fishermen in its day.

Brooks believed that given reasonably good fly fishing conditions, the fly rod would outfish any other rod. On that day, Lefty was convinced that plug casting would produce the best results. However, when they stopped on a large rock for lunch and Brooks proceeded to take fish after fish on a small black-and-white streamer fly, Lefty was amazed. "Joe would pick up that fly and drop it to one rising fish after another, just like picking peaches off a tree," recalled Lefty.

Until that day, Lefty had never even held a fly rod. The very next day, Lefty met Brooks at a sporting goods store in Baltimore, where Brooks helped Lefty select his first fly-fishing outfit. Brooks became Lefty's mentor and close friend.

I asked Lefty if he would be able to find that particular rock since the Potomac is full of large rocks. Lefty answered, "I may not be able to remember what my wife wants from the grocery store when I go, but I know every rock in that river!"

It was on that very rock that Lefty and I stopped for lunch on our float. After lunch, I took several photos of him casting from the exact rock where Brooks gave him his first fly-casting lesson more than half a century ago. Then I was treated to a quick lesson on the double-haul cast on the very same rock!

As we continued downstream, Lefty pointed out things that I never noticed before, such as the steel anchors attached to the rocks at Weaverton that held the dam together. The dam backed the water all the way upstream to the U.S. 340 bridge, according to Lefty. He also showed me one of the few remaining funnel-like rock formations that were constructed by Indians to catch fish. The river had many more such structures that were eventually destroyed by the Department of Natural Resources in order to improve the flow of the river.

Lefty believes the Potomac is nowhere near the quality fishery that it was back in the '50s. When Lefty hears people talk about how great the river is today, he believes they do not understand what the river once was. He was also concerned that there is no longer the number of frogs along the river that were once very abundant.

We spent the full day on the float down to Brunswick, and by the end we were both exhausted.

It was a great day that I will truly never forget. The fishing was slow, probably due to the record low water levels and bright conditions, but the experience was priceless

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