October 2025 Savage River Campout
Where: Savage River, Maryland, at the Monroe Pavilion in Big Run State Park.
When: Friday October 10 to Monday the 13th, 2025.
Participants: Pete Anderson, Peter Banwell, Dennis Covert, Randy Dwyer, Lou Reichel, Greg Sholly, Joe Taylor, and Ron Kerrick.
We had a great weekend for the outing. Most of us arrived at various times on Friday. It was a beautiful, crisp, partially sunny, fall day, with the leaves developing their traditional seasonal colors. Unfortunately, western Maryland hasn’t had much rain this fall, and the water levels were low on the upper Savage and all of the feeder streams. In fact, the feeder streams were reduced to just a trickle of water, so no small stream brook trout fishing this year. On the lower Savage River, the water level was a little low but fine, courtesy of the reservoir. About half of the group arrived early Friday afternoon, set up camp and then went fishing on the Lower Savage River. I caught a 13” Brown Trout at the tail of the PHD pool on an October Caddis nymph that I tied the day before the outing. That night we all got together at the pavilion for dinner and conversation around the campfire. Later Friday night it got a little cold and overnight the temperature dropped to 34 degrees.
Saturday morning after hot coffee and breakfast, Pete Anderson and Peter Banwell fished the lower Savage at the metal bridge and caught one Rainbow. Lou Reichel, Dennis Covert, Joe Taylor and I drove over to the North Branch of the Potomac at Barnum to fish for the day, but we didn’t have any luck. The afternoon temperature was in the low 60’s and the sky was sunny. At the end of the day, as usual, we got together again for dinner at the pavilion. Later that night, we got some rain, but having set up our tents under the Monroe Pavilion shelter, we all remained dry. The temperature that night was warmer, in the low 50’s. Thankfully the rain stopped Sunday morning, right after breakfast.
On Sunday, Pete Anderson and Pete Banwell fished for the morning and then left for home. Lou Reichel drove over to the Casselman River to check it out, because it had been recently stocked. Randy Dwyer arrived on Sunday and caught a fish upstream of the metal bridge. The rest of us fished at various spots on the Savage River but fishing was tough and most of us came up empty handed. That night at dinner, Lou reported that the water level at the Casselman was very low, but he did see a group of about 40 to 50 good sized fish at Farmer’s Lane. So based on Lou’s report, Randy, Lou, and I decided to hit the Casselman before leaving for home on Monday.
On Monday morning the three of us went over to the Casselman. Lou’s report turned out to be great! The three of us took turns and shared the pool at Farmer’s Lane. After about 1 ½ hours, I left for home and at that time, we each had caught 10 rainbows using mostly dry flies. The fish were chunky and averaged between 12 to 14 inches. I want to thank Randy for generously giving me several dry flies to use at Farmer’s Lane. Randy and Lou fished longer, with Randy reporting 16+ fish caught.
All in all, it was a great Outing. The fishing was a little tough at times, but I think that everyone had some action.
Ron Kerrick
