Published: October 11, 2008 09:20 pm         

Fishery blueprint needed

Although a lot of details are not yet known, the stark reality appears to be that the Savage River Reservoir will have to be drained so that repairs can be made to gates on the dam.

Draining, of course, will have massive environmental impacts on the downstream fishery.

The river below the dam runs about four miles before it reaches the North Branch of the Potomac River and is managed as a trophy trout area. What this means is that the browns and the brookies (and even some rainbows) that live there may be angled for with artificial lures and flied in one section and with only artificial flies in another section. Brookies of at least 12 inches and browns of at least 18 inches may be kept within the daily limit. Rainbows of any size may be kept.

The lower Savage River is one of the more difficult waters in which I have angled. I have only moderate success there. What makes this river tough is the getting-around part. Wading around in the Savage is like trying to walk on a floor covered with the tops of slimy bowling balls. It’s a workout.

The only thing I can compare it to is hunting pheasants in Idaho in a snow-covered sugar beet field. The tops of the large sugar beets stick up just enough above the ground to present an ambulatory challenge.

Alan Klotz, Maryland fishery biologist, knows as well as anybody what lives in the water of the lower Savage River.

The lower river is divided into three sections and surveyed annually. When Klotz looks at the entire lower river, however, he finds that there are 891 adult trout per mile (24 percent brookies, 73 percent browns, 3 percent rainbows).

In 2007, the average size of 215 adult brown trout was checked. The average size was 11.4 inches. The average size of 73 brook trout was 8.1 inches. The average size of nine rainbow trout was 12. 8 inches.

Repair of the dam’s gates and likely draining of the reservoir will take place between now and 2011 as dictated by the Maryland Department of Environment.

If the lower river loses flow and/or experiences a drastic increase in water temperature, it will not longer provide suitable habitat for the trout that live there.

The state’s biologists (hopefully with the input from anglers) will have to decide what to do with those fish. Simply leaving them to flop and die would not seem reasonable.

Perhaps some combination of relocation and angler harvest can be worked out to either put those trout in other waters or fishermen’s frying pans.

In any event, it seems as if the trout population of the lower Savage will be facing a makeover once dam repairs are made and it will be interesting to watch how it recovers over time.

The lower Savage River is one of those places that takes you away from whatever it is that might be bothering you. Even on hot July afternoons a cool breeze often blows in the steep canyon lost in a sea of laurel and rhododendron green. My hope is that the nuts and bolts folks who will make necessary repairs to the dam will keep the importance of the lower Savage and its trout in mind.

Do we want a safe dam? Of course. As long as a river runs through it.

Contact Outdoor Editor Mike Sawyers at msawyers@times-news.com.