The north and south forks of the Shenandoah join around Strasburg,
VA and form the Shenandoah river which flows 55 miles then lends its
strength to the mighty Potomac in Harpers Ferry.
Shenandoah Ford West of Ashby Gap
The North and South
Forks themselves are prime smallmouth waters, but today I decided to
fish the main branch just north of Rt 50 west of Ashby Gap in the
heart of Virginia's Horse Country. I've been reading about Bill Donovan
of OSS fame and it turns out that he had a home just north of here in
Berryville, VA and Gen. Patton had a home just east of here in
Middleburg. I left the Pentagon at 1300, braved 66 West, turned
north through gorgeous wine-country in Delaplane and then left/west on
Rt 50 in The Hamlet of Paris.
1st bronzeback of the day on a green-sparkle bugger
I was on the water at 1430. I rigged my 5wt Access with a size 8 blue popper and grabbed a few buggers in
case I needed to play under the water. Harry Murray's VA Smallmouth
fishing report (a great resource) indicated the bronzebacks were hitting
early and late on blue and white poppers so I stepped into the 100m
wide Shenandoah with high hopes.
View from the bottom of the island looking north (oddly) downstream
This is also ground zero for Civil War aficionados and as stepped into he water I remembered that the shallow
expanse in front of me was where General Jackson crossed his Brigade
in the summer of 1861, boarded a train in DelaPlane and closed with the
Gen Pope's union forces at the Battle of First Manassas. the water was clear and at optimal flow, I only found pan fish as I moved down to the island fishing the western bank.
Looking upstream island on right
I had forgotten how stiff my tip flex 6 wt is and it really needed to have 20 or more feet of line out (for the weight if the line) to begin to load the rod. For long casts this rod is great, but it lacks finesse for shorter and mid-length casts. I'll try a 6wt line on it next time. I picked up my first small smallie 1/2 way down the west channel of the island. The water was cool, clear and beautiful, but for some reason I don't have much luck on this western bank.
typical small smallie
I rounded the bottom of the island, walked through the shimmering grass and riffles and arrived at the wide section where you can cast 90 degrees into the shaded bank in 3-5 feet of water. The fish were holding in the shade along the bank and 50% of the casts (watch out for those guardian branches) into the shaded bank with a mend or two produced an aggressive strike. Every third fish was smallie and hand-size lunker sunfish hit both the popper and black bead-head bugger too. I had sorta forgotten how fun these summer smallies are until a 12" gave me an acrobatic display as I stripped him in.
Musta jumped 4-5 times! I'll take a river smallie any day over a largemouth. The bite slowed as the afternoon lengthened. My hot eastern bank was less and less shaded as the sun knelt to cast its last rays into its nooks. I suspect if I had stayed until the evening this stretch would have been red hot. See you on the water.
Looking upstream ...eastern bank (on left) was most productive...Mountain in the distance...beautiful
Popper and dropper -- the most productive tandem of the day
I've been waiting for the fishing on Pohick Creek to heat up like it was last July and August and while its not red hot the largemouth action is certainly heating up.
Clear but barren on upper Pohick Creek
The Orvis crew had fished the lower portion of creek as it transitioned into Pohick Bay earlier in the week and reported that the bite was on. Fritz and I slid our canoe into the upper Pohick at 0640 determined to fish downstream quickly until we found bass. A minnow-fish kill last month has left the upper Pohick pretty barren so we needed to head downstream until the effects of the kill dissipated.
White flecks are dead minnows (picture taken a month ago)
We found that the creek returned to life in the "lake-pool' section 1/4 mile above the Tamarack Stable camp-site. Scott will remember right where the snake attacked out canoe. We could see the bass on on the right hand side cut and as our popper offerings only drew panfish attention we switched to dark bead-head, buggers and began to pick up bass.
Typical Pohick Largemouth
From this point down the fish were on their normal stations and their diversity and abundance was amazing; yellow perch, shad, panfish, catfish, bass and carp....could be that we saw a gar too! For the last hour of our adventure we took turns paddle-guiding the canoe while one of us stood in the front of the canoe and sight-casted for the bass. This team fishing is about the most fun ever!
We didn't end up catching any monsters but hooked into a dozen 11-14" inchers between us. In several spots (notably on the bluff at the Tamarack camp) the sunfish were so thick the bass didn't have time for their slower takes. The density of the fish lessened when the creek opened up into the hydrilla-filled bay and we paddled back to the Regional Park to conclude our day. The park was alive with activity and three horses joined us at the canoe takeout, walked right into the water thighs deep and started splashing around...quite a sight after a great morning fishing.
I had asked Bryan whether he wanted to go bassin or stalk mountain
brookies, wasted words, as he's a trout addict...I should have known.
Our last trout trip together was a wash-out in central PA and
with Catholics around here building arks we decided to head to the
headwaters of the upper Rapidan to see if we could climb out of
the locally high waters.
Standard Rapidan Brookie
Bryan had heard me worship the upper Rapidan
before but had never been before so I was happy to take him on one of my
favorite pilgrimages. We met in Manassas and worked our way up
well-rutted Quaker Run Road until we hit the SNP gate above the
Marine Cabins.
The road is getting worse so if you try this route
without a high clearance 4x4 plan on leaving parts of your ride on the
road. The drive up was wet but the river had shrugged off the storms
and was running clear at optimum/low pool. We didn't see anyone else
fishing on our way in, always great news.
On a mossy rock ...careful...slippery when wet
We geared up, Bryan with a
trusty 6' rod that his dad may have made and myself with a full flex 3wt
7'6". We hit the water at 0900 with an overcast sky. I didn't take
the water temp, but it was probably in the low 60's, refreshing to me,
but more importantly still cold and oxygenated enough to keep the
brookies happy. Bryan and I tried everything that floated and settled on
a 14 or 16 adams parachute as the fly of the day. I worked a dropper
for a few stretches, but the action was excitingly on the top water.
We
caught and returned trout in the first 5-minutes and knew it would be a
good day. We worked our way up the stream leap-frogging and hitting
likely spots. The action picked up mid-day, say 1000-1300, with hungry
brookies eagerly slurp-slapping well crated presentations. The fish
seemed to be concentrated in the deeper runs and tight to the riffles
probably taking advantage of the higher oxygen content of both areas.
There was a consistent stonefly hatch on the water through much of the
morning and the marine layer over the stream was full of food.
This is a near trophy on the Upper Rapidan
We lost
each other on the upper half of the Rap as we took different sides of an
island and I thought that he was in front of me when I got to the
upstream tip of the island. Turns out that fishing was so good on his
side (note to Scot...the left side I usually take) that he was slow and
enjoying himself.
Simple glory
I fished up the Hoover retreat by myself catching my
largest trout in the first pool where you can look up and see the top of
the Brown House. I waited for 20 minutes in a fine mist and
headed downstream to find Bryan slowed by good fishing even after I had
walked through this same water already! We fought our way out of the
stream and walked up the retreat as Bryan had never seen it and on our
way out we stopped on the bridge at the Brown house and Bryan pulled a
presidential brookie from the hole underneath the bridge.
Bryan with his trout in the shadow of the Brown House Bridge
The Brown House -- President Hoovers Trout retreat
Rapidan perfection
On the walk
back to the jeep I showed Bryan the little mountain spring pool at the
intersection and told him to approach it carefully as it holds brookies
all year. I'll be darned as the little brookies were rising to a
hatch on the surface of that little pool. Bryan flicked his dry
straight down into the pool and in 2 seconds was rewarded when one of
the small broookies slapped his fly on the surface. Scott and I have
always marveled at these trout in their tiny pool and to catch and
Note more mature structure of this more underwater brookie
return one was quite a treat. We ended the day walking...ok... limping
back to the jeep after a long rewarding day on my favorite stream. We
didn't count but probably brought 50 to hand and missed at least twice
as many of these aggressive fellas.
Adams Parachute was the fly of the day
“In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly
fishing. We lived at the junction of great trout rivers in western
Montana, and our father was a Presbyterian minister and a fly fisherman
who tied his own flies and taught others. He told us about Christ's
disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume, as my brother and
I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly
fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.”
―
Norman Maclean,
A River Runs Through It and Other Stories
I come from a fly fishing family. I have buckets of memories of my dad taking me fishing up to his favorite destinations like Dan Hole Pond, Connor Pond, Loon Lake and Duncan Lake. He was always chasing trout... lakers, rainbows and brookies. In 1966, he caught New Hampshire's 2nd largest Lake Trout on record with a 21+ pounder. The fish was bigger than me at the time. We (dad, my brother Marc and I) have caught some nice trout over the years too and this year we got together for a pic with our personal best Brook Trout -- Marc's 3.75, my 3.25 and dad's 5.5 pounder. Marc & I caught ours on Prince Nymphs and dad landed his on a Mickey Finn. But let's get back to some real fishing.....
Marc and I headed to northern Maine's Rangely Lakes Region with hopes of wild Landlocked Salmon and Brook Trout. Our target was the famous Rapid River, regarded as one of America's top trophy wild brook trout rivers. Well, we spent two days and never found it! Mainers (aka. Mainiacs) are a strange lot. You would think a renowned trout river would be fairly easy to find for travelers to this upcountry land. But not in Maine. No one could tell us how to get there and all maps were sketchy as unrecorded logging roads complicated all off road exploration. After much reflection, I do not believe the Rapid River exists.
Since we were up there for a few days, we hit the Magalloway River first. This stretch of water was wide, fairly deep and had a pretty constant current that made me wishing I had my wading staff.
We swung streamers and drifted nymphs through likely holes and caught a few rainbow trout and landlocked salmon (any yellow perch!).
I found one really productive run and caught 4 rainbows and one really feisty landlocked salmon that put on an aerial show of more than 10 acrobatic leaps downstream before I was able to safely land, photograph then release.
Salmon with an attitude!
Before the day was out, we tried one other short stretch of the Magalloway River just below the dam. This was was fast, really, really fast. I mean ripping fast. We fished pockets along the shoreline, and found some wild brookies. Now this was some kind of fly fishing.
We also fished the Rangely River before heading out of Maine. The current in this river was hopping too as Marc went for an impromptu float of about 30 yards downstream. Thumbs up equipment review for Orvis' Silver Sonic Convertible Waders as his iPhone remained completely dry in the waterproof pocket. The video below shows the river conditions.
The next day we headed back to New Hampshire with our
sites set on the Connecticut River trophy trout section below the First
Connecticut Lake. On our way over I saw a beautiful little river on the
side of the road called the Mohawk River and we dropped in to see what
it may hold. The gin clear slow moving water provided a welcome respite
from the knee-buckling currents of some of Maine's trout waters. What
we discovered was native brookies hungry for dry flies. Yes. In about an
hour we landed two dozen 5-7 inch colorful brook trout and could easily
have caught dozens more.
Reluctantly we headed for the Connecticut River, and are we glad we did.
We hit the trophy trout section, and again found the river ripping
fast, but you could see the pockets where the fish might be holding. We
switched tactics to high stick nymphing and were rewarded with a
fishing bonanza that was memorable for both quality and quantity of
trout and salmon. Check out the pics and the compilation video below.
Marc with a nice landlocked salmon that was fooled by a copper john nymph.
Scott with a rainbow caught in the fast water below the dam.
Marc landed two aggressive rainbows in this one hole
The best fish of the trip was this 15 inch brook trout caught in the very tail end of a pocket.
Nothing beats the amazing colors of wild brookies.
In only a couple of hours we landed well over a dozen trout and salmon. We also had a fair number of breakoffs as these fish are smart and made for downstream fast currents that often earned them their freedom... this time.
This is an incredible stretch of water. Even though it's heavily fished, quality fish can be caught with the right techniques and strategies on the river. I can't wait to revisit here again with my brother or any of my other fishing buddies.
I'm going back to full time employment... ask me in a year if it was the right call.
Tight lines! ~scott
