Beaver Creek, Maryland - 10 May 2007

Tucked away, running through the backyards of friendly homeowners, is a gem of a Maryland spring creek - one of the few, if not only, such creeks in Maryland. Once a fishery in trouble, through the efforts of Doug Hutzell, who lives by Beaver Creek, and his friends in Trout Unlimited, it's been transformed. If my memory serves me, It was the first place that PHW went over two years ago when our program started. Then, on a 95 degree day, owing to the stable stream temperature, we were able to put the wounded warriors on fish. We've been back every year.

This year's group included CPT Eivind Forseth,USA, SFC Diane Cochran, USA. SPC Sam Floberg, ARNG, and Bill Johnston, former USMC. As always, Doug Hutzell, who had tendered the invite, was in attendance, as was Paul Helm, a local gent we had met the previous year. We had media company this year too. Holly Woodward, Special Projects Producer for Comcast, CN8, was there, too, to film the event for broadcast later in the week. It was a glorious Spring day, and with Paul and Doug directing we were lead to a section of the stream where they thought we'd find agreeable fish. I went with Sam Floberg, who as a Fargo, ND resident, had only recently, through PHW, been introduced to a fly rod. Beaver Creek is a small stream with plenty of growth along its channel. A tough place for a new caster. A quick lesson on the elements of a roll cast and Sam was at work. In no time he had gotten the hang of it and was covering the water. It's times like this that you want a new fly fisher to hook up and get that positive reinforcement. There wasn't the hook up, but in short order there was the slam of a strike and after that experience Sam was all business, fishing intently, waiting for the soon-to-be "fish on". Sam can now say he's a trout fisher and catcher.

 

Meanwhile the other group had gone down stream and were regularly catching some nice trout. Doug has on the "duty" set of waders and they were getting wet regularly as he entered the river to net and retrieve fish. Bill was doing a particularly good job landing fish. Bill's a Marine Corps Viet Nam Vet who lost both his legs 36 years ago and spends a great deal of his time in a wheel chair. He’s been a rock solid regular with PHW and a great inspiration to all the younger servicemen and women at Walter Reed. Bill can go just about anyplace in his chair and when he can't get the chair where he wants to go, he's out of it in a flash and does whatever he has to do to accomplish his aim. I say this because on the 10th, having found a honey hole full of trout, he suddenly became immobile. He wouldn't give up his hole to anyone and short of hanging up one of the blue and while disabled signs, he allowed he couldn't move. As the cameras rolled and his interviews proceeded, there was Bill hooking one fish after another.

Diane and Eivind caught their share of fish too, so the day was a success all way around. Another wonderful outing on Beaver Creek too soon came to a close, and we were shaking hands with Doug and Paul and thanking them for making all the arrangements for our visit. By the way Holly did a great job and piece on Comcast Channel 8 was superb.

Ed Nicholson