Whet appetite for trout in Md.
Most area trout anglers won't get serious about the new year's activities for at least two months, when the state's hatchery trucks begin stocking delayed-harvest areas of streams.
But in nearby western Maryland, about a three-hour drive away, flow some exceptional waters that provide great action well before Western Pennsylvania waters get crowded with anglers eager to shake off the winter's doldrums.
Places like the Casselman River, the Youghiogheny River and the Savage River tailrace afford outstanding sport for both stream-bred and hatchery-reared trout.
"I expect things to be just as good as they were last year," said Jody Johnson, a western region fisheries biologist with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. "We are still stocking the same amount of trout in both the delayed-harvest areas and the put-and-take areas. The rivers that contain naturalized and wild trout are doing well, such as the Savage River."
The Savage River tailwaters section contains both wild brown and brook trout. A few rainbows are taken occasionally, but they likely are fish that survived a trip through the Savage River Dam.
"Some of the biggest wild brook trout we find in Garrett County come from the lower Savage River," said Johnson. "We hear reports of folks catching wild brook trout up to 12 to 13 inches. The wild browns seem to top out in the 17- to 18-inch range. That seems to be about as big as they get in there."
Biologists also sampled the Youghiogheny River and were quite pleased with what they saw.
"It's loaded with fish," said Johnson. "It's stocked with fingerling-stage browns and rainbows in there. We don't stock any adult trout. We get a great return from these naturalized fish. We've seen trout in the Yough last fall in excess of 20 inches."
Johnson noted that the Casselman River was stocked with some exceptionally large trout last year from a freshwater institute in West Virginia.
"They donate trout from time to time, so we stocked some very large fish in there last year," said Johnson.
Though trout typically don't holdover from year to year on the Casselman, Johnson said there was a possibility conditions were such that some trout will do so and be available this spring.
"We had a fairly mild summer," recalled Johnson. "There was a lot of rain early in the summer, which is a plus. But we really won't know until this spring."
While the overall trout-fishing picture in western Maryland is a bright one, fisheries and hatchery personnel continue to deal with the threat posed by whirling disease, a parasitic infection discovered in certain state hatcheries three years ago.
Since its initial detection, an aggressive response by the state DNR included the closure of affected hatcheries. Efforts to stamp out the disease have been ongoing and are aimed at reopening hatcheries when the threat of the disease has been reduced as much as possible.
"We've been running tests with swim-up fry, which are newly hatched, two-weeks-out- of-the-egg-fish, by putting them in cages and placing them in hot spots, where whirling disease has been an issue," said Charlie Gougeon, inland fisheries operations manager.
"Some areas, such as the settling basin below Randolph Jennings Reservoir, continue to come up positive. But tests have been negative above the dam.
"At the Bear Creek Hatchery, tests have been coming back negative, except in the settling basin at the terminal end of the raceways. That area still has to be renovated. Much of the hatchery has already been renovated, the old surfaces cleaned and coated with a slick polymer."
Gougeon said that if all continues to go well, the agency may get some production from the Bear Creek Rearing Station in the near future.
Maryland DNR maintains a page on its website regarding whirling disease. The page, which is updated regularly, can be viewed by visiting: www.dnr.state.md.us/fisheries/recreational/whirlingd/whirling.html.
Jeff Knapp is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle.
