Rainy morning on the Rapidan -- Better than rain anywhere else!

Standard Rapidan Brookie

It had been awhile since I had been on the river and after reading Scott's last post about the aggressive reptiles in Florida I was itching to get out and remind him of streams so cold they'll never know the slither of a moccasin or gator! James and I planned this trip last week and even though the forecast called for building an arc we were not to be dissuaded.  We arrived at the yellow SNP gate of the upper Rapidan at 0745 in a steady rain, it was 41 degrees and breezy, the kind of day when you hope the fish are biting to keep your mind off the hypothermia you're about to tempt.

James ~ Cold but happy with his catch

On the positive side; we were high enough in the mountains that the river was clear and the flow, while fully loaded, was still very fishable. James rigged up a 3wt with a #16 purple-bodied adams parachute followed by a #18 bead head prince dropper.  I fished a stiff 2wt and started with a #14 tan elk-hair caddis followed by a #18 pheasant tail.  We headed down to the river directly from the parking area and began to fish upstream leap frogging and scouting spots & casts for each other. 

so wet the trout might have been able to breathe out of the river

90% of the days action was subsurface on the droppers and both the pheasant tail and the prince nymphs produced nicely fished slowly in the back-eddys pockets just out of the current.  The relatively high flow of the river made the caddis the "dry" (nothing was dry) of choice as it added buoyancy and visibility greater than the adams.  We switched rods back and forth a few times and easily missed x3 the dozen or so fish we brought to hand between the two of us.  All the fish were in the standard 5-7 inch range and were beautifully colored.
         Two of the natives had that deep molted orange belly and white tail-end, the markings of more mature brookies.  After 3 hours I changed out flies and found that my fingers were not working real well so I asked James how he was fairing and could see that while still game he was shivering-wet too.  We climbed out after having fished about 400 yds of river and walked back down the trail to the Jeep.  Kudos to Chrysler, they make one heckeva heater which we thoroughly enjoyed.

Get off the couch and out fishing!