Cold but beautiful on the Shenandoah

Bryan works the Trico in the pool just below the low-water damn

Bryan and I had been looking to sneak a fish in for awhile so on Saturday morning we met in Haymarket and headed out to the North Fork of the Shenandoah east of Edinburg.  It was beautiful as we hit the water at 0815 but a cold snap had hit the night before and the air was significantly colder than the water.  Bryan joked that he was so chilly he put his hands in the water to warm up.  We fished down stream casting across the river to the deep bank and were constantly reminded that the water here is so clear its MUCH deeper than it looks. 

It doesn't get much prettier than this

We were both fishing 5 wts casting streamers.  It was apparent to me that this wasn't going to be another 100 fish outing on this great stretch of river but we still had a great time.  I tried every streamer combo I could think of and ultimately had the most success with a double black-bugger tandem.  Bryan quickly moved from my double streamer recommendation to a single streamer setup and had more catching success than I did using a #6 or 8 Trico streamer. 

Here's the nicest fish caught for the day by Bryan on that Trico.  After we reached the low water damn we fished just below the small island and walked back up the jeep path the truck.