Maryland's best trout river sits thirty minutes from downtown Baltimore. The Gunpowder Falls below Prettyboy Reservoir runs cold all year, and its catch-and-release water holds a dense population of wild brown trout in a wooded valley that feels nothing like the city upstream of it. For eastern anglers, the Gunpowder is proof that a tailwater can thrive in the suburbs.
The Gunpowder Falls below Prettyboy Reservoir runs cold all year, and its catch-and-release water holds a dense population of wild brown trout in a wooded valley that feels nothing like the city upstream of it.
The Gunpowder fishes in every month. Sulphurs start in May and run into June. Caddis show from spring through fall. Tricos bring the most technical fishing of the year in late summer, tiny white-winged flies over sipping browns before lunch. Terrestrials carry July and August, and streamers work when the reservoir releases push water. The wild browns are the point: the river has not needed stocking in its special-regulation water for decades.
Western Maryland is the other half of the story. The Savage River and the North Branch of the Potomac flow through Appalachian mountain country with wild brook trout in the headwaters and wild browns in the bigger water. The Casselman River adds more mileage of regulated trout water. These are freestone fisheries, best in spring and fall, with the brook trout streams at their finest after the leaves turn.
The Gunpowder is fishable year-round and is often at its best in winter, when the valley is empty. Mountain streams fish best from April through June and again from September through October. Watch release schedules on the Gunpowder: water rises fast when Prettyboy spills.