Semper on the Fly: Little Falls bests the GunPowder

Armed with a new new BC-bred appreciation for Czech nymphing and a 10' 3wt SAGE rod Henry and I tried set out to question some trout on Maryland's famed Gunpowder and lesser known Little Falls this past week. Our plan was to acquaint ourselves with unfished (by us) watery on Little Falls in the morning and then hit more familiar water on the Upper Gunpowder in the afternoon hoping that the trout might cooperate and glance up to a light hatch in the short afternoon.

This is Little Falls -- lovely size and flow

We met at Bagel Meister again in the small town of Phoenix, MD. This is by far the best place to meet for any journey to the GunPowder. Loaded up with Coffee, lunch bagels, silly-delicious breakfast sandwiches and good cheer we headed off to one of the uppermost access point to Little Falls.

Little Falls is one stream system north of the the Gunpowder and aggregates cool water from tiny feeders just below the Pennsylvania border as opposed to the GP which begins at the tail-race of PrettyBoy Reservoir.

Hen Works a deep seem under the Trestle

The water was clear and the sky was grey as we started out. As happens in the Fall both water and air were 54 degrees. Henry ran a long leadered, double-dropper rig under a colored tippet indicator. I started with a standard double dropper under an indicator, but it quickly became apparent that Henry's dead dropping and tight to his fly technique allowed him to adjust to the depth far better and sense strikes that I either didn't get and or couldn't discern.

GunPowder

Throughout the rest of the day I went back and forth and Henry's nyphing method seemed to raise the strike count substantially. The key here is to keep a high tip, follow the fly through a short drift and stay (by way of no slack in you line) directly connected to the fly.

After we both caught a few leap frog fishing on Little Falls will wolfed down our bagel sandwiches on on the 20 minute drive to the Gunpowder. To our dismay the Gunpowder was running too high to be effectively fished. They must have been releasing water from PrettyBoy Reservoir and discharge we around 260cfs. Henry and I decided that we'd only fish this top portion above Falls road where the gorge channelizes flow when its at 200cfs or less and for the record believe that the sweet spot is probably around 130cfs.

Eastern Fly Fisherman Photo? ... Hen High sticks a full Gunpowder

I took these to show Fishing friends the amazing cobble on Little Falls

With the sun quickly falling behind the high walls of the GP gorge and only a fish or three brought to hand we headed back to another access point on Little Falls to see if we could duplicate our morning success. We were in luck and w/o another angler in site we found trout that we had to work for but were happy to play.