Raining Fish on the North Fork of the Shenandoah

Let me begin by saying to Fritz, Bryan and Conor... you were missed.  Scott and I headed to the North Fork of the Shenandoah at 0600 this morning to stalk smallies but ready to divert to Mossy Creek or SNP if the river had been blown out.  The drive to our favorite section south of Edinburg took 90 minutes. We happily found the water clear and moderately-low even with the recent rains...it looked perfect. We parked in our normal dead-end, suited up and the rain met us sheeting down as soon as we left the jeep.  Fortunately the fish didn't seem to mind as we worked the far bank, Scott with his 6wt Access and me with my 5 wt. 

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                                                     We began to pick-up fish immediately having the most success on beadhead buggers in green and black.  Unfortunately the other thing that picked up was the rain storm that stalled over us.  Even with waders we were soaked to the bone in minutes, wondering quietly about hypothermia but pretty sure that the lighting might get us before the cold really kicked in. Borrowing a classic from CaddyShack Scott yelled, " I don't think the heavy stuff is coming for quite some time." 
   
   As heavy as the rain was the fish didn't seem to mind as we had each caught 20+ fish (50% smallies) in the first hour.  We fished downstream leaving the wide and deep lake, the fishing slowed down alittle, but the fish were still nearly constant.  We both had multiple doubles on the tandem dropper rigs.  Interestingly the fallfish (river shiners) were also extremely active and it seemed the largest ones were turned on today.  They fought like smallies and we thought each one was a largish bass until we brought them to hand.

   

   Scott in the downpour ...it didn't bother the fishing!

   By 1100 we were still catching fish, but were turning blueish and soaked.  We trudged back to the jeep and drove to Edinburg in search of a laundromat. We blissfully found one, tossed our soaked clothes in the dryer...never have 3 quarters been so well spent.  While we were waiting for our clothes we visited Murray's Fly Shop, met Murray and bought some flies.  He's a real character and was happy to have us in the store and swap stories.                           While we were in the store a spry older gent came into the shop to pick up a rod he'd been having repaired.  He exchanged pleasantries and as he left he said that he looked forward to getting out a few more times.  When the door closed the clerk told us that he was 101 hears old!  He reminded me of Pappy Reilly.  Murray recommended several new spots, we gladly took in the scoop and headed back out loaded with dry gear, new flies and new places to hit.  We tried two places but by this point it had been raining for 6 hours and the river was rising quickly and clouding up.  We caught a few more smallies and then made our way back to NOVA.  All said and done it was a +100 day between the two of us.  A great Day.

   

   Storm-mist lifting over the Shenandoah River valley

Birthday Fish

Conor turned 19 today and we got the day off to a good start with 90-minutes of large-mouth fishing on our local creek  The fishing was slow in comparison with our most active days and again they were not interested in anything top water. 
Conor used an ultralight with a 1/8 oz white beetle-spin and I used a mid-flex 4wt.  I tried various combinations and found the most success fishing slowly with a weighted, black crawfish pattern trailed 24 inches by a size 4 cone-head white streamer pattern (tail made from 2-inches of white leather).  You can see the fly in the bass' jaw.  

Conor had more success than I as the blade on the beetle-spin drew the fish's attention and then, just before we were set to leave, we saw a large bass patrolling the shallows in a large open pool.  I cast down-stream/pool of him, he passed the crawfish pattern then side slammed the white streamer.  He was very interesting as his head was far darker black than the rest of him.  He fought like a champ on the 4wt then gave in and let us unhook and enjoy him. 

Misty Morning on the Shenandoah

Conor, Scott and I headed to the Rt 50 Bridge over the Shenandoah River this morning for a smallmouth excursion.  We arrived at 0715, the sun breaking over the rolling river valley, mist wafting off the water and smallies rising under the bridge...gorgeous. 

Morning on The Shenandoah

We fished the left bank for 250 yds in a train of three in knee-thigh cool, clear water, the conditions seemed perfect, but the smallies were not active.  We picked up the occasional sunfish in the likely haunts, but the smallies were scarce and only Conor picked up a few small ones with a beetle-spin fished on a 4-lb ultralight spinning rod. 

Full sized fighter

When we hit the island we expected the bite to pick up in the swift water of the left channel.  The river deepened and quickened to waist-chest depth, but the smallies didn't turn-on despite the seemingly ideal conditions.  We rounded the island and came back upstream on the eastern/DC side of the river hitting the deep slower water along the back. 

1st bass the Access

We fished the next 150 yds inline all casting towards banks-structure and shuffling upstream.  The fishing turned-on in this unlikely area.  I caught my first bronzeback on my new Access 5 wt and Scott began to pick up smallies too.  Conor laid into the largest smallie of the day who broke the line just as we were lining him up

Shenandoah Bronzeback -- our Target

for a picture. Damn he was nice. We probably caught 10 smallies between us in this section.  It seemed like we could have kept up this pace as the structure remained constant and the bite continued, but we needed to cross the deepening river and get back to the van so we crossed to the Winchester side to end the day.  A great morning on a beautiful river with great company. Fish well my friends and remember Paul Pfeiffers' first rule, "Be There".

Looking upstream (island on left) Conor and Scott

River Monsters ...Who needs Jeremy?

Monster Mouth Bass -- Scott tied that Kreelex fly

Not wanting to invest an entire day fishing (ok, we wanted to, but we value our marriages) Scott and I headed to our neighborhood bass-creek Saturday morning.  We didn't bring the canoe and planned on wading upstream then downstream then fishing back to our entry-point to complete the outing.  The water was low, gin-clear, pleasantly cool on our old knees, the sky was overcast...perfect.  We thought that the lower water would cause the largemouth to congregate in deeper pools, but there were still many of them that were chasing minnow schools through the shallows.

Note the white-wanker (aka, Shannon Streamer) fly..it was a killer

 At one point (always wary of the ever possible snake) I wheeled around to a noise and saw a bass (ala a striper or blue fish) drive a  school of minnows against the bank and actually flip 2-3 minnows 6 inches up the muddy bank!  They flipped over a couple of times and landed back in the water. Amazing.  At closer inspection I found that the bass doing the herding was only 7-8 inches long.  We both enjoyed using the underwater camera and took some great shots.

River Monster

The most fun was team fishing, on one occasion I caught a sunfish and it's thrashing-runs against my retrieve caused other nearby bass and sunfish to sympathetically LOSE THEIR MINDS. I called Scott over and he cast into the fray and hooked one of the nicest bass of the day.  Scott out-fished me today, especially on bigger bass where he made a KILLING on a friend-tied 3-inch, white-wanker, weighted-fly (also known as the Shannon Streamer) that bounced off the bottom and got the larger bass' attention.  Scott's biggest bass, one we've seen before but never caught, albeit Conor hooked him last trip, was a real trophy, and, as is our practice, we returned them all to their holes, treasures to be hooked again another day.

Well...at least I take good Photos!

Orvis Access Large largemeouth

Largemouth Quick Hit

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While the rest of the family slept, I snuck away for an hour or two of fishing this morning.  The water was down on my new favorite bass-creek and the weather had been stable so I was pretty sure the bite would be on -- I was right.  I didn't immediately see fish in the first hole, but as the light changed and I moved upstream I could see them lurking in pools and marauding across the rocky bottom.  I used several popper-dropper combos but was most successful with a size 6 white popper and a leach pattern tied a full 30 inches behind the popper in an effort to get it lower in the water column.