Fish carefully! Big Fish on the Savage River

Fish are in full spawning mode on the lower Savage right now. I fished yesterday morning and there are a lot of fish paired up on redds. Redds are sections of cleaned light tan gravel that are very noticeable and many of them are very close to the bank. Do not wade through these areas because that would destroy the eggs and future generations of fish for the Savage. Fishing for these fish on redds is not a good idea either. When a female in spawning mode is hooked many times this distress will cause her to jettison her eggs losing future generations of fish for the Savage. You can fish responsibly this time of year with great results. A method that I used in Colorado is once you locate these redds fish deep water around them. The biggest fish in the river spawn mainly at night, but are always close by during the day. This way you can avoid walking on the redd and fishing to actively spawning trout. This is how I caught the beautiful male brown pictured below yesterday. There is still a BWO hatch in the afternoon, but it is starting to tapper off a bit and will probably end soon. I have had my best success with small scud patterns fished deep. That is what this guy took. I am happy that I caught that fish contrary to my face in the picture, but it was the best picture of the fish that I got.

Fishing out of your comfort zone

I spent this past Thanksgiving holiday in the Outer Banks of North Carolina visiting my parents and of course had to wet a line. The surf was too ruff to fly fish effectively, so we had to use spinning gear and bait to catch fish. I am not experienced with fishing in the surf with anything other than a fly rod, but with help from the locals we did very well catching many red drum. We used drum rigs with 4oz sinkers and cut mullet to catch these beautiful fish. Low tide was the best time to be on the beach. Friends in Ocean City have been catching nice strippers in the surf using the same rig and bait.

Rick's 38 inch Stripper in OC

Stef on the pier in NC

November on the Savage River

November has been an interesting month weather wise, but that is to be expected in the mountains. We've had sunny days in the 60's and 28 degrees and snowing. Even with all this crazy weather the fishing has stayed pretty consistent. The worse the weather the better the fishing. I've had some tough days when there wasn't a cloud in the sky and incredible fishing when it was snowing.
There has been a very good BWO hatch for the last two weeks it starts around 11 am and is usually over by 1:30 pm. These are very small bugs size 24-26 and dark olive. The hatch is heavier on cloudy days and will last a little longer too. When there are no bugs hatching scuds, caddis and midge pupa have been taking fish. I noticed a few fish on redds while fishing today. In the Savage these spawning areas can be all over the place, so be careful and do not wade in these areas or fish them. The will look like shallow bowls of tan gravel against the slate brown river bottom.

Scuds for lunch on the Savage River

It was a pretty hard morning. I fished near the dam with a sculpin and had only one strike in an hour and a half. I made it to the Phd pool and there were some fish taking midges off the surface, but I only managed to fool one and scare the others. I decided to move down stream and work some pocket water with nymphs. There were some small BWO's flying around, so I tied on an emerger and eventually caught one nice brown. I pumped the fish and found emergers and a couple of caddis nymphs. The pump really didn't tell me anything I already didn't know. I moved up to the next pocket and after a couple of cast took another nice brown. Not being satisfied with the results of the previous pump I pumped this fish and what I found did tell me something. This fish was filled with scuds around size 20. I tied one on and caught a fish in every likely looking spot.

Yep...still here

No I didn't fall in and float down river. There have been a lot of things that have kept me from fishing over the last month and a half, but who wants to hear the fishing guide complain about not fishing? Not me!

          The fall colors are all but finished here in western Maryland at least above 2000 ft and this makes the fishing a little easier not having to deal with all the leaves in the water. The brookies have been spawning in the upper Savage for about 2 weeks, so it is best to leave them alone and do their thing. Fishing those streams this time of year requires wearing bright orange which is not too conducive to sneaking up on those weary fish.

         Fish on the lower Savage and the North Branch probably have a couple of weeks before they start to spawn. In Colorado the fish didn't really start to spawn till the water temps dipped below 50 degrees and right now both rivers are in the upper 50's. Fish have still been chasing streamers pretty well from the reports of other guides in the area (check out PJ's huge Savage River brown on the Savage River Angler FB page https://www.facebook.com/savage.river.angler) I fished the lower Savage yesterday and picked up a lot of small fish on emerger patterns, but did not move anything big. I even let the small fish swim around for a while in deep pools, but nothing came to have a look. Bugs on the water include crane flies, caddis, midges, and a mayfly spinner that I have no idea what it is. This spinner has been on the water since mid August. Fish were rising when I was on the water and enough fish took my indicator to make me think a hopper or stimi will take fish. 

Mystery Spinner

  

Fishing Yesterday

Starting to Feel like Fall on the Savage River

I fished the Savage twice this weekend. Once before the front moved through and once after. The temperatures dropped 15 degrees after the front moved through the area and the over night lows were down in the lower 40's. On Thursday, the high was 78 degrees and the fish where really keyed in on terrestrials flying ants especially and I also found bees and house flies in stomach pumps. One thing that both outings had in common was that fish took the indicator and some times would not let go. A hopper dropper is a good rig when this happens, but make sure the hopper can support a decent amount of weight.  On Saturday the high was 60 degrees and when the sun came out so did the little grey stone flies. If you haven't been on the river the past two weeks there has been a stone fly popping off in the mid afternoon that is grey and size 24-26. This hatch gets the fish feeding and is fun fishing in the abundant pocket water. We caught a good amount of fish on Saturday, but nothing over 12 inches while on Thursday I caught a half a dozen fish over 15 inches. We did get some swipes on streamers from larger fish on Saturday, but for the most part they were half hearted. It looks like our day time highs are going to stay in the mid to lower 60's for the next 10 day, so fall is just about here.

Flying ants are candy to trout

Nice Brown on a little yellow sally nymph

Ryan & Chris working pocket water with stone flies

John showing us how to high stick

Casselman River over the weekend

I had three trips this past weekend all clients new to the sport of fly fishing. I decided instead of beating them up on the Savage to try the Casselman since the flows where good. I am pleasantly surprised by the amount of trout that have survived the summer. We caught two trout on every trip along with a ton of rock and small mouth bass. There are some big smallies in the Casselman! We had some 20+ inchers chase after little fish that were caught. My best flies have been slate drake nymphs, crayfish patterns, and hoppers. The flows have gone down since this weekend and are now below 30 cfs which limits the holding water, but you will have the river to yourself.

Denise with her first trout!

Paul with a nice Casselman Smallie

Keith with a beautiful holdover Rainbow

Western Maryland fishing report Savage River and Casselman River

I had a full week of trips this past week and the fishing was very good. I fished the Savage 4 days and with stabilized flows around 120 CFS it was fishing very well. Morning to early afternoon seemed to be the best time although I am sure the magic hour before dark was good as well, but I didn't have the chance to be on the water then. In morning there was a pretty good BWO hatch that lasted longer on cloudy days. These guys were small size 24, but we caught some nice fish on emergers. Late morning to early afternoon there were some little yellow sallies and crane flies bringing fish to the surface. These bugs ranged from size 18-22 and got the attention of some big browns. I had one client find out how hard these fish are to catch on dries when a beautiful 17 inch Phd pool brown took his dry 3 times, but he could not get a hook set on him. Catching BIG fish on dry flies is the ultimate experience in the sport, but it is also the most challenging. Another brown of similar size followed a client's hopper for a good three feet twice but would not take it! In between hatches little yellow sally nymphs produce very well. On Sunday I took a couple of clients to the Casselman to fish for some smallies. To my surprise we hooked a couple of rainbows along with small mouth and rock bass. There is still a good slate drake hatch going on on the Casselman and nymph imitations accounted for most of the fish. Crayfish and hoppers also brought fish to the net. The water temperature was nice at 67 degrees with flows around 80 CFS.

Lisa working a riffle on the Casselman for rock bass 

Ray trying to catch a Casselman Rainbow

Ray with that Casselman Rainbow

Libby with a beautiful Savage River Brownie

Libby fishing in the mist

Kyle with a Savage River Bow

Kyle working a run on the Savage

 Little brown we saved from being eaten by its big brother

Bob fishing the Phd pool

Rodney & Enrique on a guys weekend

Enrique's nice Savage Brookie

Rodney working a seam

A nice Savage Brown for Rodney's hard work

I love when Clients share... especially fishy stuff

I had a client yesterday who's first passion is poetry and now fly fishing is hopefully her second! Anyway she shared this poem with me from one of her favorite poets. Thanks Libby!

Northern Pike

  by James Wright

All right. Try this,
Then. Every body
I know and care for,
And every body
Else is going
To die in a loneliness
I can't imagine and a pain
I don't know. We had
To go on living. We
Untangled the net, we slit
The body of this fish
Open from the hinge of the tail
To a place beneath the chin
I wish I could sing of.
I would just as soon we let
The living go on living.
An old poet whom we believe in
Said the same thing, and so
We paused among the dark cattails and prayed
For the muskrats,
For the ripples below their tails,
For the little movements that we knew the crawdads were making
 under water,
For the right-hand wrist of my cousin who is a policeman.
We prayed for the game warden's blindness.
We prayed for the road home.
We ate the fish.
There must be something very beautiful in my body,
I am so happy.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15808#sthash.Kfc9ff42.DbkzIwdf.dpuf

Fly Fishing 101 on the Casselman River

The Savage River Lodge has recently acquired the Little Crossings Bed and Breakfast on the banks of the Casselman River and it provides the perfect setting to conduct fly fishing 101 classes. There is classroom time in the 101 course, but lecturing is really not my thing and I believe in keeping things interesting. I try to do as many things on the river as I can, including casting, entomology, and basic rigging. The students had a great time and the setting was perfect!
The Casselman was flowing at 50 cfs and was a nice 67 degrees. There were a decent amount of slate drakes flying around and we found a lot of nymphs in our stream sampling along with some huge crayfish. I even caught a nice rainbow while demonstrating a cast to the students, so we might have some holdover fish this season. The smallmouth were really keying in on the drakes and nymphs produced some nice fish during casting practice. The Casselaman is a great river in the summer for warm water species and the surprise trout.

Students in the classroom

Fly Fishing 101 Graduates 

Catching fishing during casting practice

                                          Nice Smallie!                                         

  The Casselman

The Savage River Wins Again!

We received a lot of rain early this week and with a full reservoir that meant high water on the lower Savage. Flows top out at over 250 cfs and came back down to 120 by this weekend. One thing I have noticed is that spikes in flows completely change what is going on in the river. This could be due to the volume of water or the temperature change that results from spill over. I know the fish are there, but what was working before the high water does not produce the same results afterwards. I had two guided trips this weekend and while we caught some fish we did not set the world on fire. This is one of the mysteries on the Savage that I have not been able to crack yet. It was nice to see people actually fishing the river this weekend. If anyone had success let me know.

PhD pool Rainbow

Will showing his technique

Ralph and Ari on a father son getaway 

Pretty Cutthroat!

Alma working an eddy 

Get out there and fish!

If you haven't been fishing the Savage recently you have been missing out. I fished in the late afternoon for about 2 hours today and it was great. I caught a lot of small fish in shallow pocket water, but there is a trout in every likely looking place. The Savage has some of the best natural holding water I have ever fished! The short section I fished today had one nice pool in it and that pool gave up this beautiful brown that was just a hair under 18 inches.

Sunday Funday!

My wife and I spent a couple of hours on the lower Savage this Sunday and it was awesome. Small caddis emergers were the fly of choice again. She caught over a dozen fish in about 3 hours including this gorgeous brown . We first saw this beauty when it tried to eat a small brown she had caught earlier. Once we had it located it was only a matter of time. This fish followed her fly twice, but did not want to stray too far from its lie under a rock overhang till she got the drift just right and bam! It might be time to stop guiding her and teach her some knots, so I can fish!

Early Rise Flies Western Maryland's Fly Shop

Those of you who do not live in western Maryland are probably unaware of the great fly shop we have in Cumberland. Early Rise Flies opened its doors last October and is a full service fly shop conveniently located off Interstate 68. If you are headed to the area and forgot a essential piece of equipment, need on the water supplies, or that fly tying material to get your pattern just right Early Rise Flies has it all. Dan and Chris are the proprietors of the shop and two of the nicest guys you will meet. The shop's address is 457 N Centre St. Cumberland, MD 21502. Their website url http://www.earlyriseflies.com/

Directions from Deep Creek Lake Area
I 68 East towards Cumberland
Take Exit 43C Downtown Cumberland
At the stop sign off the Exit turn left onto Queen City Blvd (stay in the right lane) 0.7 miles
Take second right on to N Centre Street (you will go under a rail road bridge) 0.2 miles
The shop will be on the right just before the first stop light

Directions from east of Cumberland
I 68 west towards Cumberland
Take exit 44 US 40 Alt/ Baltimore Ave/ Willow Brook Road 0.2 miles
Slight right onto Baltimore Ave/National Pike (signs for US 40) 0.6 miles
Turn right onto Henderson Ave/National Pike 0.5 miles
Turn left onto Knox Street
Turn right onto N Centre Street the shop will be on the right before the first stop light 0.2 miles

The Shop

The Hours

Sign for the shop

Hidden hatches...how do you find them?

The Savage River like many great wild trout streams can be very frustrating especially when there is no apparent hatches. We are in kind of a lull hatch wise with many different bugs on the water little BWOs, crane flies, caddis, and a few slate drakes, but none of them in appreciable numbers that would indicate the fish are keying in on any one insect. What I do in these situations is start a process of elimination to try and find what the fish are eating. It is not a true guessing game because I fish with what I see flying around. One thing that I did notice was that only little fish were rising meaning that something is keeping the bigger fish under the surface. I can at least eliminate dry flies from my choices now where in the water column are the fish feeding? When prospecting with nymphs I divide the water column into three sections the bottom, middle, and just under the surface film. You can easily determine if fish are feeding just under the surface by observation. These fish can usually be seen and sometimes look like they are porpoising out of the water (they look like what dolphins do when the swim near the surface). I didn't see any of this, so I focused on the bottom and middle of the water column. After a couple of fly changes, I tied on a size 22 rs2 to see if the fish where eating BWOs and after numerous cast had yielded nothing I was about to change flies when I got a strike and lucky for me it was a nice 13 inch rainbow that was big enough to pump. When I pumped the stomach what I found was surprising. The trout was filled with size 20 caddis emergers. There were small tanish grey caddis flying around but nothing that would lead me to believe the amount that this fish had in its stomach. I switched to the appropriate fly and had an incredible morning of fishing. I got most of it on video, but did not realize the lens had fogged up after I got some awesome underwater footage. Oh well at least you can enjoy this video check it out!

The State of Western Maryland Trout Fishing

We have had a lot of rain the last 2 weeks. The rain gauge at Savage River Lodge showed almost 6 inches in a little over 5 days. Needless to say we have had high water for the last two weeks. There are good and bad aspects of this though, the brook trout streams are in great shape for this time of year, but the large rivers have run high for the last two weeks. Rivers are now back to normal flows and should stay that way with a fairly dry forecast for the next week.
I have not had the chance to get to the Youghiogheny River in the last 2 weeks, but looking at the USGS chart it should be in good shape now. Deep Creek vacationers have turned on their air conditioners and increased power demands which requires generation from the dam. They have been running the turbines every day for the last ten days for 2-4 hours a day, which helps the fishing tremendously, as long as you plan the day accordingly morning fishing till about 11 and afternoon/evening fishing after 2-3 pm you can have great dry fly fishing on caddis.
The Savage River tailwater is back to normal summer flows of around 50-75 CFS, but any amount of rain can bump due to spillover because the reservoir is completely full. The Sulphur hatch is over for the season, but little yellow and lime sallies are still showing up right at dusk to provide about 45 minutes of good dry fly fishing. Low light in the morning and evening are great times to try your favorite little trout or sculpin imitations for lager fish. There has been a descent BWO hatch in the late morning the past couple of days bringing a few fish to the surface, though is has been more productive with emergers 2 ft under the surface. These bugs are small size 22. If you are coming to the river do not forget fly ant patterns. It has been a little hit and miss the past week, but you don't want to be on the water without them. They can range from size 18-24 and are usually more productive when fished under the surface.

Savage River Brown on a flying ant 

This guy was hungry for BWOs

This guy took to the air a couple of times

Presentation is key on the Savage

John with a hook up on the Savage

Fishing Report for Western Maryland

Summer is gradually coming to the mountains of Western Maryland. I have had a chance to fish most of the area rivers over the last two weeks, so I will give you a rundown of what has been going on.
The Youghiogheny River has been feeling the effects of the heat the most by noon the water temperature creeps above 70 degrees and you should stop fishing when I was there the water temp was 74 at 2pm. This limits you to morning fishing and afternoons after water releases. The releases usually stop at 2pm and the water drop s quickly, so you can be on the C&R section by 2:15. Caddis are the primary bugs on this river and nymphing with a rock worm caddis will always catch fish on the Yough.
The North Branch of the Potomac is fishing well and right now is at a good level for wading at 260 CFS. I have done well with size 16 pheasant tails, tan scuds size 14, and slate drake nymphs 12-14. Slate Drakes are good swimmers so put some action into the fly during your drift. 
The Savage River below the damn is fishing well with hatches of sulphurs and little yellow and lime sallies on the menu. When you are on the stream bring your favorite emerger patterns as most of the fish I have been catching have been in the middle of the water column. There has been a good evening hatch on most nights, so if you can try to stay till dark.
We have received a good amount of rain over the last week and the brook trout streams are in good shape with water temps in the low 60's. This time of year there are not a lot of hatches going on beside some sporadic caddis, so terrestrials are going to be your best bet. The key is to have a fly that makes a plop when it lands to get the trout's attention. Two more good traits in a fly are something that is easy to see and will float for a long time without floatant.

                                                                North Branch Rainbow                                                    

                                                     Garrett County Brook Trout Stream

                                             
                                                                 Rhododendron Blossom

                                                                    Mist on the Savage

                                                         Ron with a Rainbow on the Savage