Booking a Fishing Guide for your Deep Creek Lake Vacation
By Capt. Brent Nelson


A father/son guided fishing trip on Deep Creek is a great way to start your vacation.

So you and your family decided to rent a lake house on western Maryland’s Deep Creek Lake this summer. You’re going to love it! Tucked away in Garrett County, in the western part of the state, Deep Creek Lake offers plenty of outdoor recreational activities to the vacationer. Sailing, hiking, golfing, waterskiing, whitewater rafting, and fishing are only a few of the things you can do here. Most amenities such as restaurants, pubs, shopping, and cinemas can be accessed by boat, so your vehicle will often remain parked behind your lake house.

For visiting anglers, hiring a guide is the best way to make the most of your time on the water. The professional guides with Ken Penrod’s Life Outdoors Unlimited (LOU) offer the opportunity to enhance your fishing by showing you the most effective angling techniques and presentations to provide a successful fishing adventure.

Deep Creek Lake harbors many popular species of freshwater fish. Bass, walleyes, yellow perch, crappies, northern pike, chain pickerel, and trout all live here, not to mention bluegills, sunfish, and even catfish and carp. As LOU guides, Bret Winegardner and Brent Nelson bring a combined 60 years of fishing experience on the waters of this highland reservoir. We are both teachers and instructors who genuinely like people. We are seasoned pros, fully licensed and insured, and each of us pilots a state-of-the-art Ranger bass boat powered by a Mercury engine and outfitted with modern electronics and top-of-the-line fishing tackle.

A good strategy for vacationing anglers is to book your guided fishing trip early in the week after the weekend congestion has settled – Monday or Tuesday, if possible. You can then use all the fishing techniques and lake information we teach you to your maximize advantage throughout the rest of the week.

When your guide picks you up early in the morning from your lake house dock or meets you at the state park facility, you and a friend or family member will be on your way to an exciting 7 to 8 hour fishing adventure. Your safety is our top concern, and we require lifejackets be worn when the boat is underway. All lures and fishing tackle are supplied, and of course, you are welcome to bring your own gear as well. We recommend a 6-foot medium-action spinning rod and a reel spooled with 8- or 10-pound test monofilament.

Our goal is to teach you where the fish live and how to catch them. Many times, we start the day throwing topwater lures, which is both easy and exciting. A smallmouth bass busting a topwater lure in the early-morning fog is a thrill all its own. As the summer sun rises, and depending on your fishing ability, we may have you skipping soft-plastic lures under docks or low-hanging tree limbs. Sometimes, the fish are deeper in submerged aquatic vegetation, and we will teach you deep-water presentations and techniques.

We practice catch and release, but occasionally, some clients want to take a fish back to their lake house to grill for dinner. We have no problem with that. Bass aren’t the tastiest fish in the lake, but if you should land a few walleyes, perch, or crappies, you will have the making of an evening fish fry you will long remember.

We can accommodate both full-day and half-day trips. Our rates are posted on the LOU Rates page. Our commitment is to teach and show you how to catch fish on Deep Creek Lake. We have fun and always strive to make your fishing experience here a great and memorable one.

Call Bret (301-616-9889) or Brent (240-460-8839) to book an informative and enjoyable fishing trip on Maryland’s Deep Creek Lake.