Maryland blue lining?

[mute]

Does anyone know how the state of Maryland handles wild trout stream avilability? THe closest thing i found on the states site is their Trout management areas, but to me thats more like DHALO and FFO type streams.

Is there not a resource to be able to explore "Class A" type wild trout waters in MAryland?

 

[kentwetz]

Well they don’t have anything quite like that but you can use this Brook trout study data to find streams with wild trout, they have the watershed and gps coordinates. I live in Frederick county and have used it locally with great success

https://dnr.maryland.gov/fisheries/documents/MD_Brook_Trout_management_plan.pdf

 

[JackM]

Personally, I view their regs as being "fish wherever you want on no-stocked streams any time you want just don't harvest." Of course, buy a license.

 

[mute]

kentwetz wrote:
Well they don’t have anything quite like that but you can use this Brook trout study data to find streams with wild trout, they have the watershed and gps coordinates. I live in Frederick county and have used it locally with great success

https://dnr.maryland.gov/fisheries/documents/MD_Brook_Trout_management_plan.pdf

That helps, thanks!

JackM wrote:
Personally, I view their regs as being "fish wherever you want on no-stocked streams any time you want just don't harvest." Of course, buy a license.

I can see that being an assumption. The only known water I know of in Maryland closest to the SEPA side of the state is the gunpowder river. Without investigating every single tributary that exists in a 5 mile radius of the river at any given point I dont know how one would even know where to start to know their exploring a natural waterway with trout in it or just run off.

 

[Tucker733]

The brook trout study posted is the best available source but it isn’t a complete guide for even brook trout waters. It is a good starting point to get an understanding of the watersheds with brook trout but you’ll have to put in some time yourself to find wild trout streams.

 

[mute]

Thats fair Tucker, being 2hr away means not much exploration time or efficiency from me. I just know I have 11 months of Maryland license.

 

[StreamBottom]

Mute,
check yur PM.

 

[sarce]

The two areas with the best public access and best odds of getting into good wild trout fishing are Catoctin Mountain, starting around Big Hunting Creek and going southward is primarily all wild fish. Then farther east the Gunpowder between Prettyboy Dam and Loch Raven and any and all tributaries.

If you want to drive a few extra hours, western MD/Savage River basin is phenomenal. I typically don't drive nearly that far though. I've caught wild trout in many dozens of MD streams so they are plentiful. The two areas I mentioned above have a LOT of individual streams that hold fish, probably 40-50 streams. You have to work for them in the smaller trickle type streams as those have small populations but some of the 15-30 ft wide streams are quite good.

Other areas of MD can also be pretty good but there's a lot less public access.

That brook trout document includes several streams that no longer hold brook trout, unfortunately. User beware.

 

[Dave_W]

The Catoctin area has been a lifelong favorite of mine but the wild trout fishing is the same as you'd find further up the Blue Ridge (South Mountain) in PA in Michaux SF. I often tell folks that this is not the wilderness experience you may be used to in a place like Potter or Lycoming Co., although it can look and feel that way. Wild fish (mostly brookies) are widespread but don't expect a 50 fish day. I consider a good afternoon of brookie fishing on South Mountain to be maybe 8-12 fish with a one or two in the 8" range if I'm lucky.
Visit the Blue Ridge with realistic expectations.

Western MD - Garrett and Allegany Cos - is, in my view, a much greater place to FF for trout and I think it compares favorably to the best places in central and NCPA. Always worth a visit and much to explore.

 

[LongWader]

I am only aware of one tributary to the Gunpowder that still has wild brook trout and sadly the State of Maryland decided to improve it and essentially destroyed it by removing all the tree cover and straightening/channelizing the stream.

How that is stream improvement is a mystery to me, but the State has similarly improved/degrading the river this trib. feeds into, so now they are a matched set. My guess it is the result of a lowest bidder situation.

Maryland seems to be doing a little better with its stocking program this year, but sadly there is little enforcement to protect wild trout. I have seen the wild populations of brown trout slowly decline over the past 15 years while many native brook trout populations have disappeared from the Gunpowder watershed.

My property is on one of those tributaries and a recent Biological Benthic index score for Biological integrity was very high, so these tributaries could support Brook trout again if Maryland had a good freshwater fisheries management program to manage and protect them. The Tributary's score was 90% with a wide range of macroinvertebrates and a ph of 8.4.

Great for growing young trout or char.

 

[TheBluegillMaster]

Here’s a brookie from that stream
(Hand is sopping wet as you can see)

 

[sarce]

Certainly there’s way less brookies now, but I will assure you that they still exist in the gunpowder watershed.

I second this.

I'm pretty sure I know of the stream you're referencing. Someone else I know fishes it once or twice a year. However I would urge caution as the park regs prohibit fishing. I think that's aimed at another body of water in the park but I've always avoided the stream for this reason. Add in the fact that it's a small and isolated population and I'm not sure I would have divulged this amount of info, but it's not that easy to reach the stream, if it's the one I think it is.

I agree with parts of both yours and longwaders posts. The brook trout have been disappearing, at an alarming rate, but there are far more populations remaining than just one. In 2018 I personally found two streams, one GP trib and one Little Falls trib, that held brook trout and were not previously known to DNR. Then there is the one posted about above, another sizeable trib on public land with a mixed population holding steady, and probably a half dozen more on private land. So that's approaching 10 streams and that's only the middle portion of the watershed. Are they at risk of disappearing? YES, 100%, and I generally don't think enough is being done to save them. But they aren't gone yet.

As for the gunpowder itself, I wasn't around to see what it used to be like. But I've found it to still be pretty phenomenal. It's not my favorite place to fish because of the crowds, but I have no doubt it is loaded with browns, and the reputation for producing small fish is based on all the reports coming from the same overpopulated section. If it has declined, then it was truly off the charts before.

 

[TheBluegillMaster]

Oh darn I did not no that. I never saw any signs and assumed that it applied to only that other body of water. I took down that post bc you’re right, that is too much info to give away. I just hoped someone who could do something could hear it, but there’s a lot more bad people than good lol

 

[TheBluegillMaster]

Now for the topic actually at hand lol blue lining… Washington county has a lot of spring creeks and I’d love to fish some, but most are sadly private. I’m a new and young fly fisher so any advice on posting laws? Can you pull off and fish a stream if it doesn’t say no tresspasesing?

 

[sarce]

Oh darn I did not no that. I never saw any signs and assumed that it applied to only that other body of water. I took down that post bc you’re right, that is too much info to give away. I just hoped someone who could do something could hear it, but there’s a lot more bad people than good lol

Kudos for taking it down! And as for the park regs I really think it's aimed at that lake.

One thing I've learned about DNR...for situations like this where a brook trout population may be harmed by something in the watershed, like the pond you mentioned, just contact them directly. Those folks are friendly and are trying to help brook trout wherever they can. But they are somewhat limited in what they can accomplish by funding and more importantly the forces of human population expansion and development. It's hard to fight against development in MD. And unfortunately for the brookies in the area you and I are talking about, a lot of those battles were lost decades ago. Regs are better now but the writing is already on the wall for some of these isolated populations. Brown trout are spreading into every one of these streams too.

 

[sarce]

Now for the topic actually at hand lol blue lining… Washington county has a lot of spring creeks and I’d love to fish some, but most are sadly private. I’m a new and young fly fisher so any advice on posting laws? Can you pull off and fish a stream if it doesn’t say no tresspasesing?

In MD you cannot fish private water even if it is navigable. In PA if water is navigable, you can wade through properties and fish. But that's unfortunately not true in MD, private land also equals private water.

Now, as for if it's not posted, I tend to fish those, but only if it's a secluded area away from houses. Only a handful of spots like that. It's usually posted and private, or public.

 

[TheBluegillMaster]

Thanks so much for the rules. As a high schooler I don’t want to get into trouble lol. Yeah, I’ve read up on some of the streams that lost trout, it truly is sad. It’s crazy how we place more value on golf courses and luxury mansions than on the habitat of a fish that has been here for thousands of years. I do know that the yough and Potomac are considered navigable and are public within the river Chanel’s but there isn’t any trout in the Potomac near me and I am not driving 3 hours to get to the yough lol

 

[TheBluegillMaster]

Oh yeah, any brownie tips? My biggest brownie to date was in balt co. Yeah this pic looks goofy I already know lol. Any “big brown” water in Fred, wash or carol co?

 

[sarce]

I'm glad you are looking to stay out of trouble. When I was in high school I didn't have much regard for property boundaries especially if I was in the woods and no one was around. Figured I could just play dumb or run. As it turns out I never needed to, no one ever gave me any trouble. Probably because I was near Philly and a lot of the posted signs were from developers. Not like the rest of PA where folks actively hunt and manage their land. But I grew out of that. Now that I'm 30 there are no excuses.

In MD there are some areas that I know get fished often that are technically private. And people tell the landowners they're allowed to be in the stream. I cringe when I hear these stories because sooner or later the landowners will look up the laws and then you know it's getting posted. These days I'd rather avoid those situations entirely. There's plenty of water out there to explore without having to push the boundaries. And if you want to get on private land, usually you just have to ask, but I still tend to just leave folks alone and stick to public water.

 

[TheBluegillMaster]

Haha, yeah. One thing though, I really don’t think the “younger” generation is into trout that much anymore. There are around 1000 kids in my school and less than ten trout fish, and god knows how little fish for wild trout. The rest are off doing games and stuff and here I am talking about trout lol