April 2026 Casselman River
When: Saturday April 25, 9:00 AM to Sunday April 26, 5:00 PM.
Where: Casselman River, Near Grantsville, MD.
Participants: Jouky Chang, Tim Davis, Bob O’Donnell, Lou Reichel, Karan Singh, and Ron Kerrick.
The restoration work on the historic stone bridge is still going on and according to the Park Ranger that I talked to on the phone before the trip, construction will continue for at least another year, maybe two. Despite a cold front hitting this weekend, I think everyone had a great outing. About half of us went up a day before the outing officially started. The weather on Friday was great, but the water level was low and fishing was tough. I caught one rainbow and about 15 - 18 “fall fish” (I lost count). Tried a Caddis nymph but no luck, caught everything on a Blowtorch. Didn’t see any rises. Bob and Lou fished the Savage River Friday. They did have some luck, but fishing was also slow there.
We didn’t see a real hatch over the weekend, just a few scattered Caddis, Mayflies, and maybe BWO’s coming off the water. One of the guys told me that he was talking to another fisherman who said that the Caddis hatch occurred about 2 weeks ago. I will have to schedule the Casselman outing a little earlier in the month next year.
Saturday was the official start of the outing and most of us met at the Penn Alps Lot at 9AM. Karan arrived a little later and Jouky came up for Sunday only. We had steady rain almost all day on Saturday. There were a couple of short dry periods and one brief period of heavy rain. In spite of that or maybe because of that, I had my best outing day regarding the number of trout caught. I had nine in the net, a couple of LDR’s and a half dozen more “fall fish”. I did see a rise or two. Caught one on a Caddis dry fly and the rest on a tan Mop Fly. Bob was living dangerously and caught 4 trout under the historic bridge (don’t tell the Park Rangers) and Lou caught a couple at Farmer’s Lane, his favorite place. We decided to have dinner a little early because of the weather and met at the Casselman Inn at 6:00. Tim reported losing a fly box, so before he came to dinner, Karan searched the last area that Tim fished, but no luck finding it.
Sunday morning everyone met at 8:00 for breakfast at IHOP. Then we all headed out to fish the Casselman again. Things were looking up. Tim found his fly box in his car, it wasn’t raining, the water level was up but still clear and later the sun came out. I landed another trout on the mop fly and was so excited rushing to the next spot that I fell in. That was a first for me, must remember to slow down. I caught 2 more trout, one on a squirmy worm and one on a brown caddis nymph. I saw more rises but had no luck with dry flies. Bob did catch 2 using dry flies and Jouky caught 5 using a perdigon nymph. My legs were tired from fishing the two previous days, so I called it quits a little after 2:00 and headed home. Most everyone left by 3:00 except for Karan, he’s a fishing machine. Karan had at least 3 on Sunday, maybe more.
I have to include a text from Tim. “I finally got one on a dry fly on the last cast of the day – literally: I'd given up on a rising rainbow under the bridge and was walking to the bank when I heard a plop. He'd hooked himself on the caddis I was dragging behind me. Takes a lot of skill to catch a fish with your back turned! Got another good sized one there on a soft hackle”. I added Karan's photos to this report.
All in all, it was another great outing despite one day of rain. A lot of different fly patterns worked, and everyone caught fish and had a great time. Our next outing is to Spring Creek, PA on May 15th, hope to see you there.
Ron Kerrick
