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