The rains of late spring caused water to spill over Prettyboy Dam to create warmer water for Gunpowder trout and push them into a summer mode of fishing, according to Theaux LeGardeur, owner of Backwater Angler. But that also just changed this week with the water temperatures dropping down again. Now, the dam lip spillage is not occurring, with the result being dropping water temperatures and water flow.

LeGardeur, who has owned the shop for seven years, posts water temperatures on his Web site, www.backwaterangler.com, that for comparison can be checked back a year or three.

Anglers visit the shop on Monkton Road in northern Baltimore County for flies and supplies before hitting nearby Gunpowder. The wild trout are dependent upon the Gunpowder water flow over the top or through lower spillways (read: cooler water) of the dam.

LeGardeur also noted current weekend temperatures of around 58 degrees (no water spillage) when normal temperatures would be around mid-60s. The difference changes what you throw and how you fish it.

This story continues below
Advertisement

“I feel that what we are seeing now is a July fishing pattern in early June,” LeGardeur said of the current situation. He noted that ant, beetle and grasshopper patterns are working well whereas they do not usually produce until very late June when terrestrials take over during low water conditions.

“We are also seeing sulphurs in sizes 16 and 18,” he said of the size and type of an emerging mayfly that is a favorite on the trout menu.

The small size of the flies that seem to be required by the trout to encourage them to come play with us also dictates fine leaders, with LeGardeur suggesting 7X. Much of that is a result of the spooky fish that are now in skinny water, which makes them shy about eating anything suspicious. LeGardeur said the previous 135-cubic-feet-per-second flow is now around 35 cfs.

What we had prior to this was water “hip-to-knee deep and now is it knee-to-shin deep,” LeGardeur said.

Low water makes trout as nervous as long-tailed cats in a room full of rocking chairs. But overall, he likes the way the city (it is city-drinking water, you know, that ends up in Loch Raven and then filtration plants), along with the Department of Natural Resources fisheries division, is taking care of the trout and water flow. He also said that early on, Hendricksons and March Browns (fisherman's names for types of mayflies) were on the water, signaling a broadened variety of insect life available to trout.

That's good. Controlled water temperature is good. Clean water is good. More trout food is good. Catch-and-release fishing as on much of the upper Gunpowder is good.

After all, we have to take care of the habitat and the trout. Then we can figure out how best to have fun with them.

You can reach C. Boyd Pfeiffer at cbpfeiffer@msn.com