North Branch Potomac River and Youghiogheny River C&R Rainbows

Type: Nontidal
Region:
Location: North Branch Potomac River

My son Kyle and I fished the upper Catch and Release Trout Fishing Area of the North Branch Potomac River just downstream of the Jennings Randolph Lake Dam last weekend. We targeted the upper boundary stretch that was opened for anglers just this year; it includes a rather large deep pool and some pocket water. It was a bright sunny day, and not a lot of insect hatches happening, but I managed to land a rainbow and a brown on Stimulators. Kyle did better on his spinning tackle with three rainbows and a brown trout all about a foot long. We did see a lot of fingerling brown trout from a stocking earlier in the summer, as well as a few wild young of year rainbows. Later that evening we hiked down into the remote part of the Yough C&R Area, and again not much happening with the insect hatches, but landed 4 nice rainbows on Elk-hair caddis. I switched to a bead-head caddis larva pattern and proceeded to catch river chub after river chub, some approaching eight inches long. The fishing experience was made even better by seeing a fisher (member of the weasel family) feeding along the river, an immature bald eagle, and a very curious beaver kit that would swim right up to us.