by Ret Talbot with Photography by John McMurray and Illustrations by Karen Talbot
Published January 2008 in Fur-Fish-Game.
 Most of the Mid-Atlantic fly fishermen I know consider mid-December through early April to be a time ordained by the Almighty for fly-tying by a roaring fire. The companionship of like-minded folk at this time of year generally yields stories that exceed even the customary embellishments. I know I’m as prone to telling tall tales as the next guy, which is, I suppose, one reason I try to also put my proverbial money where my mouth is during the lean season. My currency in this endeavor is the number of days I get line on wintery and sometimes even ice-skimmed water.
That’s why I am up before dawn this day, stiff coffee in hand, making the 45-minute drive to the shores of the Upper Chesapeake Bay and the Susquehanna Flats.
Flats fishing is generally associated with warmer climes, and while I have logged my share of days in the backcountry of Southwest Florida’s mangrove-fringed flats....
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Ret lived in Maryland for five years where he frequently fished the the Chesapeake Bay with his fly rod. The Susquehanna Flats were one of his favorite areas to fish in the Bay, not only because of the outstanding striper fishing in the fall, winter and early spring, but also because of the remarkable ecosystem that exists there. In this article--in addition to giving solid, practical advice on how to fish the Susquehanna Flats early season--Ret also alludes to his grandfather, Preston Lea Spruance. "As a loan duck soars overhead," Ret writes in the piece, "I think of my grandfather’s shotgun hanging on the wall in the waterfowling building at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, and I imagine him here on a similar morning decades before. Such moments remind us how connected we are through the landscape." Fortunately for Ret, his wife's family still lives in Maryland not far from the Chesapeake, and so Ret and Karen periodically still have the opportunity to get line on water on this remarkable portion of the Upper Bay.
PHOTO: Ret & fishing buddy Tom Reed after working the flats in Southwest Florida. © Ret Talbot Collection.
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