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