Bloede's Dam & Violating My Fishing Rights

My son and I went fishing at Bloede's Dam near Ellicott City.  We decided to start fishing in different places other than the same old Piney Run Park.  I found this place on one of the fishing hot spot blogs.  Said there's small mouth bass, bluegill, creek chub suckers, and some trout.

I fished for small mouth, but didn't catch any.  I ended up catching a few bluegill (whoo-hoo!), but my son caught bluegill, a creek chub sucker, and a yellow perch.  The creek chub sucker is slightly more significant because they are more difficult to catch.  They are bottom feeders and like to eat algae and dead stuff.  I don't know too many fisherman who use algae as bait.  As far as the yellow perch, we never saw them as one of the possible fish in the Patapsco River Valley area, even on the Maryland DNR website.

We were able to wade in the river all the way up to the dam, which then has about a 30 foot drop.  It's amazing how much sediment has built up behind the dam over the past 100 years.  Notice the two knuckleheads at the top of the dam.  They eventually slid down the dam into the water below.  I took this picture to document their deaths, should that be the case.  They survived.  So did Budweiser.

There were probably over 100 people there all along the river.  We were a bit surprised at the number of people there on the weekend.  They were swimming, fishing, and picnicing.  What really surprised me was that about 95% of them were Hispanic.  I felt like I was in Little Mexico.  I don't have a problem with that, as long as they entered the country legally.

Then, while sitting there with a rod in my hand, I hear a woman ask if I'm catching anything.  I turn and realize there's a Maryland Park Ranger standing next to me.  I tell her nothing but bluegill.  She then asks to see my fishing license.  This is the first time I've even been asked for my fishing license.  Fortunately for me and Martin O'Malley (he wants the revenue from casual fisherman who only participate in catch and release), I had my license with me.  She looked at it for about 5 seconds, handed it back to me, got back in her truck and drove away.

After she left, I got to thinking.  I felt violated.  My civil rights were violated!!!!  How dare she ask to see my fishing license.  Was she profiling me?  When I vote, the election judges are not allowed to ask to show proof of my identity.  Police in many places are prohibited from asking people to prove that they are legal citizens.  Why must I show proof that I am a licensed fisherman?  What's more important - proving someone is a registered voter?  Or proving that you are allowed to catch and release a bluegill fish?  Where are our priorities in Maryland?  Is this a useful spending of our state's valuable financial resources?  O'Malley is crying that we do not have enough tax revenue and must raise our taxes again and again and again, yet we pay someone to check to see if we have our fishing licenses with us?  Can you sense my sensationalism?

So in summary, we can now add Bloede's Dam to our list of fishing places for 2012, which also includes The Farm Museum Pond in Westminster, the McKeldon area of the Patapsco Valley State Park, Daniel's Dam in Patapsco Valley State Park, Piney Run Park, Liberty Reservoir, Jonas Green Park in Annapolis, and, of course, Ocean City.