Gunpowder ESN'ng

With the Savage Watershed high and Henry and I put on hold our overnight to Western MD and set our sights on the Gunpowder.  If you need a refresher, is a well known tailwater flowing from the bottom-release damn at Prettyboy Reservoir just south of the MD/PA line North of Baltimore and South of York, PA.

GP was flowing high and clear at 270 cfs

The bottom release ensures year round cold water and the Browns and a few bows love it.    Issues at the Gunpowder often include a fair number of other anglers and the flow.  Anglers weren't the issue today, we saw one when we arrived and one when we left, but the 270 cfs flow was a challenge.  An ideal flow for me is 200 cfs and I'd prefer it on lower rather than higher.

Hen working a far side feeding slot w high-arm ESN

Fortunately our ESN plan works well with high flows so long as you can get in a position to cast upstream and lead the belly of your fly downstream during strike detection (stay tight to that fly).  Once again this technique proved deadly, and the more committed, the better the results.   Long tippet with heavy tungsten BH nymphs were the rule, 90% of the 25+ fish caught were on this set-up. 

Hen remarked later that proper positioning, so as to enable a 'cast' into a likely feeding slot was so critical. he could not have been more on the mark.  If you were not making an upstream and across cast and allowing the fly to sink tight into the target area chances of a strike and strike detection diminished substantially.

simple ESN fly

Towards the end of the day and after another amazing sandwich from Meister Bagels in Phoenix, MD., a light hatch broke out, a few caddis, a few stoneflies, maybe an early yellow sulphur and a few brownies started looking up.    I ended my day rejigging my ESN set-up to throw a # 18 BWO parachute to a rising brown and was rewarded with a surface caught brownie.  Lessons learned: (1) commit to ESN if that's what the water calls for. (2) use long 6x tippet (3) use only weighted tungsten-nymphs (4) put in the work to get in position to make the right cast (5) carry and extra reel with regular fly line loaded so you can switch over to WF line if the trout start rising.

                                                               Get yourself out on the river!