Trout Recon – Gunpowder River (Big Falls Road)

Didn’t have much time after doing the other fishing this day – so I just swung by to see what the Big Falls Road access to the Gunpowder river  looked like.

As you can see from the pictures below, this is a flat water section of the Gunpowder.  Like the Blue Mount Section below it, it is Catch and Release with deep overhanging banks with cuts that hold large trout.  In fact, we could see some monsters right under the bridge as we took these pictures.

There is a trail on the East side of the river at this point (going north) – we saw some folks riding horses come up to the bridge – so there may be a good access route to sections of the river farther up.  In fact, when you look at the map, it does show an unimproved road that tracks the river.

It did not seem like there was much pressure on this section.  There were 5 cars in the parking area, but 2 of them belonged to the riders.  At least one or more of the others could have been canoe/kayak/tuber sources of transportation.  At any rate, there was no evidence of other fishermen right at the bridge.

This section merits additional investigation and some fishing to see how productive it is.  I was here on a day where there were fishermen every 50 yards up at Prettyboy – seems like the attraction up there is the better scenery associated with the faster water.  Nice to see there are sections of this famous river that may not be beat to death.

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 Big Falls Road and follow it to the Gunpowder.  There are several different pulloffs around the bridge.

Looking north from the bridge – upstream

Looking south from the bridge – note how narrow this gets – this is deceptive as it widens out downstream again

Parking area – not too many cars – could indicate that this is not a really beaten section of the river

Trout all over the place.  You can see them here from the bridge.  There were some monsters just off to the right that did not get captured in this picture.