Blogs

I know the story about George Washington throwing a stone across the Potomac, but when I saw the Potomac near Washington, DC for the first time, I knew it was nothing but a popular myth. It seems that his grandson G.W. Parke Curtis was writing about George’s great strength when he said that George did throw a silver dollar across the Rappahannock River below Fredericksburg, still an impossible feat. No one knows how or when the story morphed into the stone across the Potomac.

I have been told that the European flyfishermen have been prevailing in trout fishing contests, so with the help of my good friend Ken Sperry of the Fly Fishing Reporter, I did some investigating. I found that unlike the Czech Nymphing technique which is similar to "high stickin" and uses a short leader, the French Spanish leader is much longer and frequently reaches 18 feet in length.