Trout Fishing the South Branch of the Patapsco River

Type: Nontidal
Region: Central
Location: South Branch of Patapsco River

Friday night I saw that DNR had stocked the South Branch of the Patapsco, so we made plans to go down the next morning. It was about a 30 minute drive down, we decided to stop at the parking lot where Marriotsville road goes over the river. I geared up and headed upstream towards where the railroad crosses the river. I waded to the island, and began fishing, fishing finesse since I knew the "less smart" trout would already be taken out with powerbait. I went with 2 lb Mono with an 18 inch leader of Fluoro. I fished with my new 9' UL rod from Trout Magnet that handled amazingly and created the perfect natural drift, it was paired up with a Shimano Sedona. I also Fly-fished some with no luck drifting Woolybuggers in the current. It was in the 60's and 70's around 8:00 and 9:00 A.M, so I was getting quite hot in my waders and vest. I got a few small hits, probably from Fallfish or small Smallies. I didn't see any Trout. We would have gone upstream but it didn't look like the riverbed had too good structure. Next it was off to the uppermost section of the stocked river, by W Friendship Road. There's a very deep hole above the road that I caught a decent Smallie out of. I headed downstream to the bridge and fished my way through the riffles. Each pool was at the most 2 1/2 feet deep with the exception of 2 holes. There were 6 other fisherman (all fishing w/ powerbait) and one guy caught a decent trout out of one of the deeper holes where I got some hits out of but I just couldn't hook him. Another guy caught a big 12'' Fallfish out of a hole, but that's it. The water was running fine and pretty easy to cross the river in the upper section. The lower section was good to wade acroos too. It makes me wonder how many fish were caught and if DNR stocked the same amount of fish as they do in one stocking in the Spring.</p>DNR's response: The fall stocking is much smaller than the traditional spring trout stocking. For instance, this past spring well over 300,000 fish were stocked state-wide (close to 6,000 for the South Branch of the Patapsco alone), this fall an estimated 27,000 fish will be stocked state-wide, 200 have fish were put into the South Branch on Oct. 7.</p>