A great hike on Staunton Run

James and I were looking forward to chasing some trout, so after my scout of the Conway found it inaccessible we set our sights on Staunton Run high up in SNP.  We started from NOVA and soon found ourselves at the Graves Mill confluence of Kinsey Run and the Rapidan.

James at Conway River 662/667 Campsite

I still wanted to show James the Conway so we decided to see if the access road was still inaccessible.  Five minutes and one ridge line later we found that what had been snowed in recently was now passable with Clifford in 4-wheel drive.  We took it slowly and after another ridge-line the gurgling Conway emerged on our left.  We passed the Devils Ditch access and made our way up to the campsite at the top of the 662/667 intersection.  We walked down to the river to give James a feel for it.

Clifford has never let me down yet atop the Conway Campsite access trail

Though the day was gorgeous the Conway at this point still drains a large watershed.It was running clear, but fully loaded and fast. It was just fish-able if needed, but not optimal and with that in mind we decided to stay on our original plan and headed back towards Graves Mill and Staunton Run.
          Clifford rolled us slowly back to the Rapidan/Stanton SNP gate above Graves Mill and I was very surprised to see the cul-de-sac filled vehicles.  I surveyed their backseats and to my joy found that they were hikers not fisherman and throughout the day we met

Geared up and ready

pleasant hiker after pleasant hiker, all curious to see us fishing. As we geared-up we had one group of 8 from Fredericksburg snap this pic of us as we prepared to head up the trail.
We walked up the trail with the tempting middle-rapidan on our right for 10-minutes until we hit the spur trail to our left which follows the southerly bank of Staunton Run just south of Fork Mountain into McDaniel Hollow. We began just below the gauge pool, James with a 3wt caddis/ followed by hares-ear nymph and me w a 2wt, parachute adams followed by a small dark green zebra midge.

Middle Rapidan on the walk to Staunton Run

James takes in The Gauge Pool, the first large pool on Staunton Run

 I was sure we'd run into the same action I'd found here recently and was very surprised that we couldn't raise a strike all day. The weather had been consistently nice, the water was 42 degrees (I know...still pretty cold), the stream was nicely loaded and very fish-able.  I wonder if one of those "hikers" might actually have been a fisherman and if we might have been unknowingly fishing behind him for the 3.5 hours we spent on the river.  In any event we had a great time fishing this little run. It definitely holds enough water to fish it in drier times and I was pleased to see a hiking path on the left side of the run which looks like it continued up quite far. 

James had a great presentation in the backside eddy ...but no fish!

The high gradient provides nice plunge pools consistently

The path certainly made the return trip easier but didn't seem to bring in much pressure as I suspect that most fisherman would rather hit the more popular and accessible Rapidan or Conway.  I'll be back on another day.

Staunton Run Scout

Speckled Native

The winter has been wearing on me and I was looking forward to getting out on the water after a long absence.  I spoke with my neighbor George on my early morning dog-walk and asked if him if he wanted to go along for an adventure.  He was game to get out of the house so we set out at 0700 for the longish drive to the Conway River West of Madison.

You're not alone out here!

My goal was to scout the river prior to a trip this Saturday with my neighbor James.  The rivers looked high, brown and bloated on the drive out 29 so I tempered my expectations.  As I turned left at Grave Mill on 662 there was still alot of snow on the ground and when the pavement ran out at the Rapidan WMA things got dicey.   The dirt road had not been plowed and looked sketchy, I creeped along in Clifford for about 200 yards until the very real prospect of getting stuck got the better of me.  We backed down to the pavement, turned around and headed back to Graves Mill. 

looking downstream: south slope no snow / north facing slope snow remains

We turned left at the B&B and followed the Rapidan upstream until the road ended at a SNP gate.   We parked, met a duck dynasty wannabe who'd slept in his truckbed, geared-up and walked .5 miles to where the Staunton entered the Rapidan from the left.  The streamside path was snow covered and slick and from the tracks there looked like there had been only one other human there recently.

I began with a #16 Parachute Adams followed by an #18 bead-head hares ear fishing the pools and runs.  The Staunton at this point is about the size of the Rapidan just below Camp Hoover, beautifully sized.   I had passed up gorgeous pools on the Rapidan during the .5 mile walk to the Staunton so I was very happy to slip into the water

Gauge Station Pool: only fingerlings here

This was George's first mountain fishing adventure so he was happy to take in the scenery and shoot some pics of the snowy stream.  The fishing was very slow for the first 15 minutes and I attributed that to the still very cold water.   It was about 47 outside but the sun was having a hard time penetrating the hollow and the snow melt was trickling 33 degree melt into the water, fortunately it was running clear. About 150 yds upstream of the confluence with the Rapidan was a newish stream gauge sitting in a gorgeous plunge pool.  I kept have fingerlings strike my dry but couldn't hook the little guys for the life of me.

Last of the catch from this plunge pool

I moved upstream from the gauge pool and changed out my dropper to a #20 green zebra midge and almost immediately started getting strikes just out of the riffles in the deeper pools. I caught four 5-8 inchers in the last pool I fished and was happy to show George the speckled beauty of these natives. Not wanting to wear out the good nature of my adventurous partner we headed back to the snowy trail which parallels the southern side of the river. On the way back to Clifford I fished a few inviting pools on the Rapidan without a strike. I'll come back here with James on Saturday and I target the bigger pools during the warm hours with midges.  What a great little river and once again the key seems to be out walking the pressure to pristine water.