Brookies on The Upper Savage River watershed and a couple of Rainbows

We had high water on most of the big rivers in the area this weekend, so as I usually do I hit the upper Savage River to do some brook trout fishing. The water was flowing at a great level and the fishing was awesome! I didn't catch any big brookies, but there were tons of fish in the 6-10 inch range. It was very windy on Sunday, but some big mayflies were coming off the water getting the fish very excited. I couldn't tell if they were Hendricksons or Quill Gordons, but they were size 14. I caught most of my fish under the surface. I caught a couple of rainbows in the brook trout water and took them home for dinner. I encourage everyone to do the same.

Evening Sun on the water

What to do with those Rainbows

Low Flows and Blue Quills on the Lower Savage River... Casselman River

I have had some very good fishing on the lower Savage River over the past week. In the morning there are still some little black stones coming off and the fish are rising to them. Keep in mind that these flies migrate to the bank to emerge, so you should be fishing tight to the bank. The Blue Quills start hatching in late morning and continue to late afternoon which makes it a great hatch for fisher people who do not like to get out of bed early. I have done well with dry flies, but nymphs out produce them by about 3 to 1. The flows on the Savage have been below normal for April and the Didymo is pretty thick on the rocks especially closer to the dam. Hopefully with the rain we are getting the river will get a much needed flush. It would be nice to have a couple of days of 300+ CFS to clean up the rocks a little.
The Casselman is still fishing well and the caddis are hatching, so now is the time to skip your favorite elk hair across the riffles and watch rainbows launch themselves at your fly.

Red Bud and Dogwoods on the Savage it's Spring time!

Bill with a nice rainbow from the Casselman

Patty showing us how it's done

BWOs popping off on the Lower Savage River

I fished the lower Savage yesterday and the BWO hatch was great. It didn't start till about 1 pm, but it lasted a good 3 hrs and the fish were really keying in on them. I caught all of my fish on size 22 nymphs, but there were plenty of fish taking bugs off the surface. The flow dropped to 90 CFS which is my favorite flow to fish. This hatch should last most of the spring and will start to mix with Blue Quills in the next week or two. I did not see any little black stones on the water, but they should still be in play for a little while longer.

A serving of bug soup on the lower Savage River

We fished the lower Savage river on Friday and the hatches are starting to pop off. There were little black stones, tiny grannoms, and BWOs all coming off at the same time. I will give everyone a hint for the lower Savage whatever size bug you think you are going to need for your fishing trip go 2 sizes smaller and that will probably be the size of the bugs you encounter. We had a good day both Craig and Eric landed some nice fish.

Eric working a Pocket

It Rained on us a little

Spring Brookies on the Savage River Watershed

I had a chance to fish in a couple of spots on the upper Savage River Watershed over the last two days and the fishing was great. The water temps are in the low to mid 40s and flows are in great shape. There are little black stones emerging, but the fish aren't taking bugs off the surface with any consistency. Nymphing in pockets with slow to moderate current will produce the best results. I did catch a couple of rainbows while in the brook trout water and I took both of them home for dinner. I encourage any one who fishes these waters to do the same. DNR still stocks the lower river just above the reservoir and we do not need Rainbows establishing any sort of self sustaining population. The southern Appalachians have had a serious problem with rainbows out competing brookies and we do not need that here. 

Nice 10 inch Brookie

 Beautiful Waterfall

Please take Rainbows home for Dinner!

Typical Savage River Watershed Brook Trout

January on the Savage River

The rivers in western Maryland have been running high for the last month. This week flows on the Savage came down to safe wading levels and I had the opportunity to fish for a couple of hours yesterday. I found most of the fish in deep slack water sections of the river and they were stuck to the bottom. I didn't observe any fish in higher sections of the water column. With the water temperature in the high 30's the key is deep and slow. I had to make numerous drifts through likely holding areas to produce strikes. It seems like the fish will not move far to take a fly, so you have to put it right on their nose.

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.

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

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

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!