Upper Savage Exploration Brook Trout

[3wt7X]

With all the recent brook trout topics in the general forum, I figured that I would represent the "old line state." The high water caused my originally planned trip to Penns Creek to turn into a Savage River trip, which then turned into a Upper Savage River tributary trip. Not a big deal, it has been a big goal of mine for a couple years to explore some more brookie water in that area. It did not let me down. I fished three different licks/runs and all produced beautiful and good sized natives on a yellow foam caddis dry fly. I will let the pictures do the talking, but I will add that I finished on the Upper Savage, which was nice enough to produce a fat 12 incher on a March Brown Nymph.

 

[3wt7X]

Here are the last two

 

[streamerguy]

Great fish! Thanks for sharing..

 

[geebee]

lovely photos - i gotta get out to the savage some time this summer whilst in VA.

 

[Brownie101]

Very nice.

 

[Tucker733]

A lot of nice brookies! I logged over 6 miles this past week in the Savage watershed. There are so many little streams chocked full of trout there. I think the regulations are really helping the brook trout.

 

[wildtrout2]

Beautiful natives! You never disappoint 3wt7x.

 

[troutbert]

Tucker733 wrote:
A lot of nice brookies! I logged over 6 miles this past week in the Savage watershed. There are so many little streams chocked full of trout there. I think the regulations are really helping the brook trout.

Were the regs changed in recent years? If so, from what to what?

 

[Tucker733]

The 100+ miles of stream watershed, besides a small section of the upper river and impoundment, has a zero-creel catch and release regulation on brook trout with artificial lures only. Don't quote me but I think that this went into effect in '06 or '07.

 

[sarce]

Can never have enough brookie posts ;-) Those are some great fish, nice job! The second one is my favorite.

 

[Fishidiot]

The point is often made that freestone brookies will (mostly) be small due to lack of food. However, this isn't always the case. These fish - after a very tough winter - are clearly very healthy and very fat. That watershed is fertile and not hit hard by acid issues or other such limitations and rock rolling reveals a lot of bugs. The fish grow big and fat. Every now and then, on the MD DNR website, a pic will turn up of a wild brookie over a foot long from western MD. It's a great area....not to mention a heckuva lot easier to fish without all the rhododendron that seems to magically appear as soon as you cross the Mason Dixon Line. :roll:

 

[beeber2]

Good sized fish and beautiful scenery! Very nice!!!

 

[Bearski]

i'm not sure if its the way you took the pictures but those two stream pictures make it seem like you had a lot of uphill hiking to do!

 

[Chaz]

That's some great looking natives, the way they would grow if better protected in PA.