Big Hunting Creek is small, cold and steeped in history — the little Catoctin Mountain freestone where Joe Brooks and the early Maryland fly fishers helped write the country's catch-and-return ethic, and one of the first fly-fishing-only waters in the state. It tumbles down through Catoctin and Cunningham Falls past Thurmont, a stream you can step across in places, holding wild browns and native brook trout that have grown up wary in clear, thin water. There's no dam to lean on here: it's a true freestone, so a dry spell drops it to a whisper and a summer storm browns it and bumps it overnight. Fish it light, fish it small, and tread like you're in church.
- Mixed metamorphic
