July 15, 2025. I set out for my first trip to Triadelphia Reservoir. The Reservoir is private WSSC managed property, but they do allow fishing in the summer if you purchase a permit. The permit is $6. I loaded up the kayak around 0600 and made the short trip up to the Greenbridge recreation area. There were a few trucks already in the lot, I was a bit late as the area opens 30 minutes before sunrise, but still plenty of parking and an overflow. Trailers are allowed. Howard County’s finest were there bright and early to make sure I had a WSSC use permit and fishing license so make sure you have those with you. Personally it's good to see some enforcement against poaching, our waters get enough pressure as it is and need everyone to pitch in their money to maintain and preserve.
It was already hot that morning, upper 80s and humidity that was close to opening an old gym bag that had been sitting in the sun all day. On the water, glass clam with lots of rising strikes for bugs on the surface that morning, if I was a fly fisherman I'd probably have a lot of luck this morning standing right off the side of the ramp. The reservoir drops down to 30 feet pretty fast and is mostly flat along the bottom with little to no structure to hold fish from what saw, it seems they clear cut the trees before they built the dam. Didn’t hang up any lures on stumps on the bottom, nor did I see any sign of them on the fish finder. This was my first time out with the fish finder, a Lowrance Hook Reveal 7. I thought it had water temp, but it was missing from my screen. I could spend time dicking with it, but it would cut into my fishing time. Decided to go without.
Research says the water holds the typical bass, panfish and pickerel that are common around here, I was fishing crawls and chatterbaits along the bottom for bass most of the morning without much luck. No luck with Texas rigs either. by 11am it was bright and hot and I moved to deeper water with the same lures, about 25 ft. I'd see some schools of smaller fish around 7-10 ft but that was about it.
I switched over to scout mode a little after noon and tied on a rattle trap and crankbait and trolled them off the back while mapping out the water at about 5 ft deep. This was my first time here and had no idea what the bottom was like. It's flat and featureless for the most part, a steady 25-30 feet across all the areas I paddled which were within a few miles of the ramp. I didn't get much further west but plan to next t
I did manage a few small white perch with the trolling method so it was not an entirely unproductive day, basically confirming what I saw on the fish finder with schools of s
mall fish around 7 feet down. Pulled the yak out mid afternoon, it was hot and I was out of water. A few anglers were hanging out at the ramp, one with a rod trying one last time to catch something. We collectively agreed the water was just too warm and the fish were just bedded down deep and none of us could find them. Really wish the water temp, be curious to see what the water temp was at the surface and again below 10ft where I saw the thermal-cline.
I wish I had some great pics to share of landing trophy sized fish for the first fishing report posted here, but that's just how fishing is sometimes. Even with the lack of action, I will be back. The lack of shore access and the requirement of the WSSC permit and its apparently strict enforcement keeps a lot of the poaching and away and pressure down. There were maybe 6 boats total on the water that day while I was there and no gas motors meant it was a nice day of floating around.
My advice so based on this trip for mid summer, go early or close out the day there. If you're there mid day, troll with some deep diving crank baits and rattle traps to cover more ground with low risk of hang ups.
