Scott and I took a day off to hunt Bronzebacks on the North Fork of the Shenandoah River just east of Edinburg, Va. Scott had fished the North Fork before, but this was a new spot for both of us. We think we hit the river where Murray's Fly shop takes their anglers for 'bass school'. If Murray doesn't he should! We geared up and headed down stream. The water was cooler than we suspected and running at 2.1 feet on the Strasberg gauge. I would guess in the high 70s and the runs were deeper than the crystal water suggested. We immediately started picking up smallies and the action didn't end all day till we quit. Scott fished a new Orvis 6wt 9ft popping a small white popper trailed by a
hornberg. This seemed to be a great rig. Scott actively popped the popper and skittered it atop the water. I used my 4/5wt 8.6 and threw a variety of combos, my most successful was a yellow-jacket #8 popper and a #8 green wholly bugger. I caught some on the popper but 90% on the dropper. We lunched back at the truck then walked upstream a 1/2 mile and fished back to the truck to end the day. As we entered the water we walked thru some "fire-weed" which is still burning my calves as I write this post! Warning it looks like strawberry vines and stings like a jellyfish! Damn. There was so much action on this trip down to the truck that we grew tired of catching smallies. Together me caught more that a hundred smallies. At one point we pulled in an unheard of Quad...both of us caught two fish as the same time...popper & dropper! Unbelievable. Our only complaint is that they were almost universally small with only a few pushing 11 inches.
Scott and I took a day off to hunt Bronzebacks on the North Fork of the Shenandoah River just east of Edinburg, Va. Scott had fished the North Fork before, but this was a new spot for both of us. We think we hit the river where Murray's Fly shop takes their anglers for 'bass school'. If Murray doesn't he should! We geared up and headed down stream. The water was cooler than we suspected and running at 2.1 feet on the Strasberg gauge. I would guess in the high 70s and the runs were deeper than the crystal water suggested. We immediately started picking up smallies and the action didn't end all day till we quit. Scott fished a new Orvis 6wt 9ft popping a small white popper trailed by a hornberg. This seemed to be a great rig. Scott actively popped the popper and skittered it atop the water. I used my 4/5wt 8.6 and threw a variety of combos, my most successful was a yellow-jacket #8 popper and a #8 green wholly bugger. I caught some on the popper but 90% on the dropper. We lunched back at the truck then walked upstream a 1/2 mile and fished back to the truck to end the day. As we entered the water we walked thru some "fire-weed" which is still burning my calves as I write this post! Warning it looks like strawberry vines and stings like a jellyfish! Damn. There was so much action on this trip down to the truck that we grew tired of catching smallies. Together me caught more that a hundred smallies. At one point we pulled in an unheard of Quad...both of us caught two fish as the same time...popper & dropper! Unbelievable. Our only complaint is that they were almost universally small with only a few pushing 11 inches.
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