Jason Paugh of Red House, Maryland goes to Sunday services at a physical church like many folks in Maryland, but fishing on Deep Creek Lake feels like going to church too, he said. Paugh, is the state’s newest official master angler.
He finds a lot of inspiration out on the waters of the lake where he earned the new title. Most weekends you’ll find him there, immersed in the natural world and casting a line in hopes of finding a lunker.
In the fall, he became Maryland’s fourth designated master angler since the Department of Natural Resources started the FishMaryland program in 2019. Any angler can earn a state-angling designation by catching and recording species. The highest designation, master angler, requires 10 species of Maryland fish being caught that have trophy-sized measurements.
Paugh’s Deep Creek Lake accomplishment was all catch-and-release this year, except for the unlucky 47-inch northern pike he landed. That giant fought so hard it did not recover, so it’s in Paugh’s freezer.
“That lake is my church,” he said. “I go to church.–don’t take that the wrong way. I go all over the country and there’s not another lake like it, because you can’t stand on one dock and throw a stone, and not hit the next one. What gets me up and going is it just never gets old to skip a jig under a dock and hook a big bass–the rush of it. You just never know what that thing can hold. My personal best is seven pounds two ounces, but I’ve seen way bigger than that.”
