The Savage River was at high water levels all Spring, and angling pressure has been extremely light during my previous trips. The Savage was dropping from the 400 Cfs range during the last week of June, so I made the trip for a few days fishing. The Savage River was impressive at a steady 330 Cfs and the roar was deafening. At first glance the river looked unwadeable, possibly unfishable, but both were possible in the right spots. A variety of insects were hatching in the rough flows including March Browns, Blue Quills, Olives, Caddis, Light Cahills and Sulphurs. The fishing and wading were challenging, but the water temps were at optimal levels in the 56-58 degree range. The hatches were the heaviest I’ve seen all year, but there was a limited number of calm areas to watch for risers. Every evening the trout were active on Sulphur and March Brown Spinners in the few pools calm enough to see them feeding.

High sticking large dries in the pockets and soft seams during the day proved as productive as always, despite such high levels. I landed ten to twelve trout a day, missing or losing quite a few fish too. The majority of fish were wild browns in the eight to thirteen inch range, which in these flows pulled line off the reel. The fish were very active on dries all day, the hardest part was covering water, scrambling over rocks along the shoreline and fighting through the bankside Rhododendron. The biggest brown landed on this trip measured out at seventeen inches; ate a dry fly practically under my rod tip, and forced me to scramble over boulders and give chase 80 feet down river. 

Leaders from 11 to 13 feet tapering to 5x or 6x, and mayfly patterns sized 12-14 in olive, rusty spinner and tan worked best. The placement and drift was critical, but not limited to drag free drifts. In some cases placing the fly in a pocket and skating the fly by twitching the rod got aggressive strikes. I spent the last day hiking up a brookie stream pictured above, which was at a great level. The scenery was as good as the fishing, and the endless plunge pools held some large brook trout. Flows have since come down to normal levels on the Savage, but the video shows the power of the river in these higher flows, so turn the volume way up for the full experience.