Tips for fishing patapsco

[Dave Marcus]

I'll be heading up to Patapsco State Park for the memorial day weekend. I plan on fishing the river but have never spent any time on it. I'll be bringing my 4wt and 6wt, my wife will have her 7wt also (probably a little over gunned for trout but it's her only rod).

The water gauge looks like it's falling but is still around 600CFS, median is mid 200s'. Anyone have more experience fishing this stretch of water? How does it fishing when it's high?

I had assumed nymphs and streamers for trout. Is there a smallmouth population? Just looking for some intel this weekend, any advice is appreciated.

Thanks,

David

[Misha Gill]

Hey David, I've fished the Patapsco a couple times since it's near my in-law's house. I've caught both trout and smallies in there. If you are focusing on trout, I assume you're going to the Daniels delayed-harvest section. The Daniels section of the river has quite a good flow. I wouldn't feel comfortable wading across it at much more than 200 cfs. The Daniels section is the most freestone-stream like section of the Patapsco, and that is why it feels like classic trout water. The other sections of the river are more classic Maryland piedmont stretches, with a predominantly silt bottom. 

I've had good luck in May on stretches above Daniels too. I had one particularly memorable day where I caught a mixed bag of stocked trout and 12 inch smallies on a sculpin pattern. It was just pure dumb luck though because it was my first time on the river. My theory on why that happened is that the Daniels section gets pounded pretty hard while the marginal stocked water gets ignored this late in the year. We've had a cool spring though so it might be possible to recreate. I would head to Daniels first, but if it's totally jammed with recreating Memorial Day people I wouldn't be afraid to switch locations rather quickly. Another section I've scoped out is the area around Ellicott City. It looks pretty good right there in downtown but wading would definitely be required.

Lastly, if you have a canoe, the section of the river directly above the dam at Daniels is sort of lake-like and holds both smallmouth and largemouth.