Gunpowder Falls Fishing Guides and Conditions, Maryland

About the Gunpowder Falls

The Gunpowder is the East Coast’s proof that a small tailwater in a suburban county can hold a genuinely wild trout population. Cold bottom releases from Prettyboy Reservoir keep the upper seven or eight miles in the fifties through a Maryland summer, and the river carries wild brown trout at densities that biologists have measured in the thousands per mile. Gunpowder Falls State Park protects the corridor, so the whole thing is walk-in public water with a trail beside it.

This is a small stream and it fishes like one. The catch-and-release, artificials-only water from Prettyboy Dam down to Falls Road is the heart of it, tight casting between rhododendron and hemlock, with sulphurs in May and June, caddis through the summer and blue-winged olives in fall. Below Falls Road the river warms gradually, trout regulations change, and by Monkton and Glencoe it becomes a mixed trout and smallmouth fishery. Everything here is wading; there is no floating this river.

The Glencoe gauge sits down in the middle river and reads the release plus the tributaries. Typical readings of roughly 50 to 250 cfs mean comfortable wading up in the catch-and-release water. Reservoir management changes the release seasonally and drought years have produced very low flows and warm water in the lower reaches, so summer anglers should stay high in the system and watch temperatures.

Monkton, Hereford and Parkton are the access towns, all within forty minutes of Baltimore. The Northern Central Railroad Trail runs along the lower river and doubles as the parking and access network.

Access

Prettyboy Dam: the top of the tailwater, steep walk-in.
Masemore Road: the classic upper access with parking and a trail.
Falls Road and Bunker Hill: the middle of the catch-and-release water.
Bluemount Road and York Road: lower catch-and-release accesses.
Monkton Station: parking on the Northern Central Railroad Trail, mixed trout and smallmouth water.
Glencoe: access near the gauge on the lower river.
Everything here is wade fishing on foot from park trailheads.

Seasons

Year-round; the tailwater does not freeze off or warm out in the upper reaches.
March through June: sulphurs and caddis, the best hatch season on the river.
July and August: cold up top, warm down low; stay above Falls Road.
September through February: blue-winged olives, streamers and empty trails; winter fishing is genuinely good here.