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I hit the North Branch on a bright but overcast day in early September. It was a bit chilly when I arrived at the river at 0730, but, warmed by a huge Grand Slam breakfast at Denny's that the Basswife would never have let me eat if she had been present and supervising, I had plenty of energy to burn.
I drove past the first lot for Wallman that I discussed in the other post, and continued down the rutted road to the larger and more formal parking lot. The road actually continues up the hill beyond the lot, but it gets narrow. I followed it up for a bit just to see if it would go to the end of the marked road on the map, but chickened out. I was concerned that there would not be a place to turn around and I did not want to back out.
After getting back to the real lot, I parked the car and headed out. The trail to the river is clearly marked by the passage of generations of fishermen. It's only a short walk to the train tracks where you can turn north or south depending on your whim. Since I was spinfishing, I wanted to work upstream so I turned south, walked up about a 1/4 mile to put some space between the parking and myself. Once up the road, I crawled down into the river at the first good spot and was immediately impressed.
This section continues the good, rugged and roily, boulder strewn vista that the Wallman North area led me to hope would be here. As you can see from the map, the terrain tightens up as it turns north and loses some elevation. The result of this is a series of pools that are separated by short sections of rocky straightaways. The pools are deep and full of features.
This section of the river is easy to walk. The banks are wider (granted, I was here on a low water day as you can see from the guage graphs in the other post). The boulders along the shore are smaller and easier to traverse. There are several slick sections of flat, eroded rock that demand caution - be sure you step with your cleated boot in cracks and validate firm footing before moving.
The water was a 61 degrees when I was here in early September yet the trout action was light even though this temperature is well within the metabolic range that should have them active. My luck could have been because it was the end of the delayed harvest season and this section was cleaned out - or - it could have been that they were not interested in spinners. I did catch plenty of smallies, who continued to attack anything with flash thrown into the eddies and calmer areas of the stream. Given the speed of the water through the narrow channels, I put a small weight on the line about 18 inches up from the spinner to take it to the bottom faster. My luck improved after I did this and I enjoyed a great morning of bassin'.
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Steyer, MD gage reading
I tried a lure called the "trout magnet" but was shut out using it. It's pretty light and hard to manipulate; even with ultra-light spin gear. I'll give it another shot when I can get some advice on how best to deploy it. On this day, I was anxious to go over and check out Laurel Run, so I left this pretty stretch after a few hours.
Switchfisher's bottom line: This is really pretty water. It will hold trout when they are there. This place is on my list.
Getting There: It's a bit confusing.
For detailed directions, please purchase either the North Branch Map Book for $4.95 or the full 190 page Fishing guide to the North Branch for $9.95. After checkout, you can download the books instantly.
The fishing guide is also available in hardcopy - click here
Both books include detailed directions overlaid on topo maps with pictures for the confusing places to get you to the river. The key difference is that the full book walks you up the river from Westernport to Wilson using over 140 pictures with a detailed discussion of what to expect beyond the parking lot.
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