Deer Creek

Though it's been a recreational sport since the mid-1800s, kayaking is currently enjoying a major moment in the sun — or shade, as the case may be. The Baltimore region is home to dozens of kayaking clubs and groups, each full of friendly paddlers eager to share the water — and their expertise — with newcomers to the sport. "Kayaking is a sport of information," says Brad Nelson, owner of Starrk Moon Kayaks in southern Pennsylvania. From boat recommendations to whitewater adventure spots to the best place for a leisurely paddle followed by a great crab cake, kayakers keep no secrets.

If watching Katniss fire off arrows in “The Hunger Games” made you yearn for a bow of your own, a trip to Churchville and a visit with George Bennett of Deer Creek Archery may be in your future.  Bennett was a builder by trade, but as he neared retirement, he decided to change gears and opened Deer Creek Archery in 1995. Now, almost 17 years later, at the age of 70, Bennett is taking advantage of the renewed national interest in archery. “The popularity of the sport has risen in the last few years especially with 'The Hunger Games,' and it is being introduced in schools across the country,” says Bennett.

Madonna Road at Deer Creek in northern Harford County is closed to through traffic for approximately six weeks, the county government announced Friday. The bridge deck and the approach road were damaged during Tropical Storm Lee last month, necessitating repairs, the county said in a news release. The closure took effect Friday morning and effects a road that links Jarresttsville Pike (Route 146) with Route 136. The county said questions regarding this project should be addressed to Dan Svrjcek at Harford County DPW at 410-638-3299.

Though it's been a recreational sport since the mid-1800s, kayaking is currently enjoying a major moment in the sun — or shade, as the case may be. The Baltimore region is home to dozens of kayaking clubs and groups, each full of friendly paddlers eager to share the water — and their expertise — with newcomers to the sport. "Kayaking is a sport of information," says Brad Nelson, owner of Starrk Moon Kayaks in southern Pennsylvania. From boat recommendations to whitewater adventure spots to the best place for a leisurely paddle followed by a great crab cake, kayakers keep no secrets.

Deer Creek, a 40-mile stream that meanders from the sloping hills of Baltimore County to the Susquehanna River, used to be in the middle of Indian country. In fact, an old Indian village once stood near the Rocks, a massive pile of boulders nine miles northeast of Bel Air, which is one of Harford County's most interesting formations of nature. A legend has it that one stone formation is an ancient Indian burial marker.Deer Creek "is a history of rural America," contends Christopher Weeks, the county's historical preservation planner.

A $2 million state grant will help Harford County preserve more farmland along Deer Creek and the Susquehanna River and ultimately protect the Chesapeake Bay. "It is the most we have ever received in any one year and brings to $7 million the amount we have received from Rural Legacy," said William D. Amoss, manager of the county's agricultural preservation program. "We could hypothetically add 200 more acres and fill in a lot of blanks on our preservation map." The state awarded more than $26 million last week to preservation projects across Maryland, including Harford's Lower Deer Creek valley.

Aberdeen City Manager Peter Dacey says the town planned to begin drawing water from Deer Creek over the weekend under an emergency-use certificate approved this month by state environmental officials. In a document dated July 14, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission - which regulates water use on Susquehanna tributaries - authorized withdrawals of up to 500,000 gallons a day, when available, after the Maryland Department of the Environment declared an emergency because of contamination in Aberdeen's wells.

HAVRE de GRACE -- May is the weather-window for climbing Mt. Everest, and also for paddling Deer Creek.In the Himalayas, this month is the break between winter and the summer monsoons when the mountains are supposed to be safe to climb, or so it said in the newspaper reports about the eight climbers just killed in a single May storm. In Harford County it's a period when Deer Creek is especially beautiful, and when water levels are generally high enough for good canoeing and kayaking without being dangerous.

At age 71, Jack Streb isn't one to get swept off his feet, go off the deep end or get in over his head. But he checked all the boxes late last month when a short but intense cloud burst turned his Deer Creek shad fishing trip into a full-contact sport. Luckily, except for a sore tailbone, the Pasadena angler survived and - miraculously - so did his fancy fly rod and reel, thanks to the keen eyes of other anglers. Streb and a buddy got to their favorite Harford County shad site about 8 a.m. April 28 and staked out the landmark big rock by the pumping station.

It is,by this time, 3 p.m. and my companion is wondering whether I wish to endure the impending thunderstorms so that we might spend another hour or so afterward further attuning our senses to the gurgling of the creek, the whisper of the wind in the trees and the complete indifference of the smallmouth bass.We are on Deer Creek in Harford County, and by this time, some six hours after we left Annapolis, we have managed to grope our way across highway and byway from a quiet stretch of water near the bridge on Furnace Hill Road to a popular stretch near the pumping station in Susquehanna State Park.

Another black bear sighting in Harford County was reported in the Darlington area Friday afternoon. This time the bear was seen at the home of Cal and Pat Gilbert in the 1900 block of Nobles Mill Road around 1 p.m. Pat Gilbert got several sharp photos of the bruin, who appears to have found a few snacks on his visit to their home, which is near Deer Creek. The latest sighting was the third since last Wednesday, when a black bear was seen in the Webster Village area. A bear was also seen at a home in Susquehanna State Park on Thursday morning, a few miles east of where Friday's sighting was. The bear photographed by Pat Gilbert Friday is very similar in appearance to the one photographed near Quail Way in Webster Village last Wednesday.

Editor: I would be remiss if I didn't note the passing of the longest serving voice for Deer Creek land stewardship. Sensible politics and characteristics of a true gentleman. Monroe Duke was 94 and his beautiful wife, Olga, who predeceased him, were the kind of couple that continue to keep Darlington's integrity intact. Bob Chance Darlington

Madonna Road at Deer Creek in northern Harford County is closed to through traffic for approximately six weeks, the county government announced Friday. The bridge deck and the approach road were damaged during Tropical Storm Lee last month, necessitating repairs, the county said in a news release. The closure took effect Friday morning and effects a road that links Jarresttsville Pike (Route 146) with Route 136. The county said questions regarding this project should be addressed to Dan Svrjcek at Harford County DPW at 410-638-3299.

As much as the landscape around here has changed over the years, in some respects, nature may have changed more. Or maybe changes to the landscape forced those changes in nature. The bald eagle, for example, was thriving, then it wasn't and then a few survivors became tourist attractions. People flocked to the base of the Conowingo Dam and walked downriver along the Susquehanna for a glimpse of one. And there was a nest alongside a driveway to a farm on Stafford Road just north of the Susquehanna State Park.

"There is no guarantee that when a middle-aged man enters the dark forest where the black dog is waiting, he will come out healed. It is possible to be broken there beyond hope of repair. " -- Howell Raines, from "Fly Fishing Through The Midlife Crisis" Mike Flanagan and I became friends after his major league pitching career ended and most of his old teammates and fishing buddies from the glory years of the Baltimore Orioles had scattered across the country. We were transplanted New Englanders, rooted in Maryland and approaching middle age with fly rods in our hands — mine in my right, Mike's in his left.

A woman who was riding along a trail at the Deer Creek Preservation Area in Street was knocked off her horse after it was attacked by a pit bull early last week. The attack was the second in this month in Harford County involving a pit bull and other animals. The woman, 35, of the 300 block of East Jarrettsville Road in Forest Hill, told police she and a friend, were riding their horses in the Deer Creek trail around 6 p.m. May 15 when they saw two men and a young girl, who had two pit bull terriers with them, walking toward them from the opposite direction.

From the restored 19th- century truss bridge at the edge of his 200-acre farm, Monroe Duke watches Deer Creek kick up a riffle of white water as it meanders past on its way to the Susquehanna River. Duke's farm is a few miles from the creek's juncture with the Susquehanna south of Darlington. In its nearly 40-mile course across Harford County, Deer Creek waters animals, fields and wells as it winds through parks, forests and farmland. The creek, about 2 feet deep on average and 80 feet wide at most, is home to diverse plants and animals, including rare bog turtles and one of the state's best-known shad runs.

Aberdeen's water woes deepened after a water-use commission again delayed a decision on whether the city could supplement its supply with water from a Harford County river. Tom Beauduy, deputy director and counsel of the Susquehanna River Basin Commission, said the group would likely wait until December to rule on the permit because the city has not submitted results of a well-capacity test performed several weeks ago. The city wants to use water from Deer Creek so it can reduce its reliance on wells near Aberdeen Proving Ground in which perchlorate, a hazardous chemical, was discovered in June.

Last call for the Maryland darter. The elusive little fish, one of the rarest in the world, hasn't been seen in 21 years. Now, government and university biologists are teaming up for one more, perhaps final search for it in Harford County, where it's never been spotted more than sporadically since it was first noticed almost a century ago in a fast-flowing creek near Havre de Grace. Named for the only state in which it's ever been found, this bottom-feeding member of the perch family has been seen in just three creeks off the lower Susquehanna River.

State officials agreed yesterday to pay more than $2.7 million to buy development rights on about 360 acres of farmland and forest in three stream watersheds in the Baltimore area. The Board of Public Works approved spending $1.6 million to place conservation easements on four tracts totaling 192 acres along Deer Creek in Harford County. The easements will guarantee maintenance of green buffers along parts of the creek, a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay. In one Deer Creek case, the landowner agreed to accept state payment not to proceed with plans to build six houses on his tract, according to Ned Sayre, who works on farmland preservation efforts for the county.