Savage River Md trip - 07/07/12
The Savage and Gunpowder are pretty much Maryland's two prized native trout rivers. The Gunpowder is pretty local to me (45minutes) but the Savage is a distant three hours and I can be up in PA at some frightfully good streams in that time so I've passed until now. That's now changed with our camp in WV so it's about an hour and a half so I made the trip out on the 3rd and thought folks would enjoy some pics.
Even though I've been fly fishing for 35-ish years I have to admit my trout education has increased a lot here the last decade with these heavily fished east coast fish and with one of the big pools called the PhD pool and the one downstream the 7X pool there was a certain amount of low expectations on my part and expected great fishing and poor catching.
The stream itself is a tailwater in this part and largely freestone with a couple nice pools.
This is the pool I ended up in. Air temp was 98 and the water 61.
Fishing alone, as I usually do, and wanting to get the fish back in good shape it's hard to get many hero shots but here's a nice brook trout. I caught the Savage slam with Browns, Rainbows and Brooks in the four hours I fished so was pretty pleased.
Was pretty well set for flies but stuck to orange CDC Sulphurs in an 18 and the green Elk Hair Caddis in 16 and did well.
Fished a 7' 4 weight Penn's Creek Bamboo but I can see the need for a 9 or 9 1/2 4 weight for further trips to really do well with the pocket water.
Even though I've been fly fishing for 35-ish years I have to admit my trout education has increased a lot here the last decade with these heavily fished east coast fish and with one of the big pools called the PhD pool and the one downstream the 7X pool there was a certain amount of low expectations on my part and expected great fishing and poor catching.
The stream itself is a tailwater in this part and largely freestone with a couple nice pools.
This is the pool I ended up in. Air temp was 98 and the water 61.
Fishing alone, as I usually do, and wanting to get the fish back in good shape it's hard to get many hero shots but here's a nice brook trout. I caught the Savage slam with Browns, Rainbows and Brooks in the four hours I fished so was pretty pleased.
Was pretty well set for flies but stuck to orange CDC Sulphurs in an 18 and the green Elk Hair Caddis in 16 and did well.
Fished a 7' 4 weight Penn's Creek Bamboo but I can see the need for a 9 or 9 1/2 4 weight for further trips to really do well with the pocket water.