'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America

What a difference a few 80-degree days can make. Dale Knupp, who lives in La Plata, Md., and who fishes the upper tidal Potomac River as often as possible, launched his boat at the Smallwood State Park boat ramps in Mattawoman Creek this week and, thanks to his electronic depth sounder, discovered that the surface water temperature had reached almost 60 degrees.

OK, so we're not having Arctic weather, but it will be cold again soon enough. When the mercury drops and the wind turns a 40-degree day into one that feels like it's 25, more than one of the Potomac's fishing insiders begins to take a hard look at the Occoquan River in Prince William and Fairfax counties.