In the previous blog, I discussed the section south of Blue Mount Road – the Monkton wild trout section of the river. While in the area, I also fished north from the parking area in the catch and release area.
In a word – rough. There is no defined trail on either side of the bank. Once you park, you walk under the bridge and immediately begin wading your way upstream. The lower right and left of this river are on private property – so stick to the river as you walk up. I assumed the first 100 yards or so would have been worked pretty heavy by the casual fisherman, so I skipped that part.
The water is deceptive in that you can’t really tell from looking upstream where the deeper sections are and I found myself working areas that were too shallow to hold any significant fish.
But, there were fish here. The farther I worked from the parking area, the more productive this stretch becomes. After fishing this once, I would adopt a totally different approach on my next visit. This time, I walked up the center of the stream and worked a fan type casting pattern. Next time I will walk the edge and work the bank directly by throwing up the bank and working the lure as close to the undercut bank and overhanging trees as possible. The fan technique did not give a good presentation to any fish that may have been hiding under the clumps of grass. Adopting this technique would cause the angler to move back and forth across the river as he works upstream.
As you can see from the pictures below, there are good sized fish in this stretch – and a lot of little guys who want to get in on the action.This section is artificial lure only – no bait. I used my Panther Martins and rapallas. But, next time I hit any significant trout water, I am going to take some smaller top water baits. The fish seemed to like hitting the floating rapallas as soon as I twitched them after casting. I’ll bet a Scum Frog or small Jitterbug would blow these guys away – after all, how many times do these fish see any lures that are typically used for bass? Smaller poppers would also be productive.
The river itself was pretty narrow – and I was surprised to see canoes working their way down. The canoeists all indicated that the water was so low that they were doing more dragging that paddling and that they had seen a good number of big fish. The canoes did not bother me – it’s a public river – and when they pass, they go pretty quick – not like the tubers.
Bottom line: I’ll come back to this section. But the Gunpowder has a lot of access points – of course – I’ll have to try them all before I do any repeats…
Getting There: Head north on 83 and get off at exit 27 for Mt Carmel. Head East until the road deadends. Turn right (York Road) and then take an immediate left onto Monkton Road. Follow this for a bit and take the left onto Blue Mount Road and follow it to the Gunpowder. There are several different pulloffs.
Remember – artificials only, catch and release, no bait or scents
View upstream from the bridge at the parking area
I wish I had recognized the need to work the banks better. As you can see here, they are prime trout hiding areas given how shallow the center of the river is.
Easy to walk the river – it’s only about 6 inches in a lot of places
Caught plenty of these little guys
This is a nice hole up near Falls Road. Work this area extra carefully, There is a deep hole under the bowed tree that holds a bunch of fish
Goofy picture of me trying to hold a fish while screwing with the self timer on my new waterproof camera. Nice fish though..
Unless stated otherwise, this article was authored by Steve Moore