Savage River and The North Branch of the Potomac

[AaronJasper]

Made the drive this morning. Some spectacular scenery out here.... except for the papermill and Kingford Charcoal.

We arrived to a very muddy Savage River. I suspect that the fish were put off due to the discolored water. They say it usually runs clear. However, today the water is usually rinning dirty ;D We fished for a while and I had one take to show for it. We are going back there in the AM for revenge.

Here are a few pics of the Savage and the Scenery.... the fish are coming....




We left the Savage for the North Branch of the Potomac... against what everyone had told me. The river was too high they said... We had some epic fishing there. Alain got it started off with a 24 inch spawned out... and I mean spawned out brown on the first cast!


Needleass to say we fished the high water in true TPO style! Going up to the tops of the waders and nearly falling in all afternoon. All of the fish were caught on San Juan Worms or egg patterns.

Enjoy the picutres!

[AaronJasper]

Here are some pictures of the river.... The velocity was amazing, the pictures do not do it justice. You could hear it ROAR!






Some nice colored rock formations.

[Magnet]

Looks like a beautiful area to fish. Alain, that is one long thin brown! Nice pictures. Looks like you had the place to your selves.

[alanb_ct]

Magnet: at full girth, that brown might have weighed 5 lbs! In this state, however, it was probably about two! It fought great and its head was as large as my hand!

A few more pictures from the N. Branch Potomac.

Here's the view from the Maryland side at ~2000 ft of the paper mill below. The plume you see is the effluent cloud from the factory.



The dam itself is incredible to behold, although we were not able to get that close.



From the high (Maryland) side, we contemplated this descent, only to find a 200 ft sheer rock face leading down to the water. I don't think an Olympic athlete could make this descent, and I surely could not!


We fished gamely in the high water, and I like this picture of Aaron, as it conveys the volume of water in this high-gradient stream


Finally, it wouldn't be TPO if we didn't fish to the limit, but not illegally beyond this wire


Considering I was sick as 10 dogs all weekend, we fished hard and had a great time. When we made the first long hike, it was about 60 degrees and with my fever, I was getting dehydrated. Fortunately, I was able to find a spring in the rock face with a nice big leftover frozen chunk. I carried that chunk of ice in my big net (Pere Marquette) and broke off chunks for drinking water, what fun and no ill effects so far!

[AaronJasper]

I like the quote on the bottom of your posts! Where is the picture of the pretty brown from the Savage?

[alanb_ct]

We also fished the Savage River for a short while on sunday afternoon. We both managed a handful of small browns and I photographed two.

Some of them were beautiful



others were ok, but lacked pectoral fins (state markings?)


If you look closely, you can see the fly of the day.

Finally, I spotted this guy underwater, a nice mouthful for a big brown!


What a great trip!

[alanb_ct]

Hey Aaron-why couldn't this happen we we went? We could have take about 50 more fish pictures!!!

[AaronJasper]

I know 500 cfs and we could get to the other side... Dammit!!!

[Kaz]

Still trying to track down some access info on the NBranch for when it is high like that. Usually, you just wade across so never really gave it much thought. Although 500 is more than fishable, if you could find it at 250 -350...Well, that's prime time.

[Kaz]

Confirmed with some folks who fish there often...that there is no access Road to the other side of the river