Paul has been tempting me with the promise of a float tube fishing adventure all summer and we finally found a chance Friday afternoon as the weather cleared and humidly dropped -- a gorgeous day. Paul's normal float is just downstream from the Hwy 340 bridge (see area) along the main stem of the Potomac just south of Harpers Ferry, but after our recent successful adventure on the South Fork we've been looking for floatable stretches and opportunities to work the South Fork in float tubes.
The Team at Put in
After an appointment at Bethesda/Walter Reed for me (Note: if you ever need to keep life in perspective take a trip to W Reed and see the injured and recovering Soldiers and Marines...amazingly, though missing a limb is pretty common, almost all have smiles on their faces, they're happy to be alive & back in the country so many complain about)...and a week in North Carolina for Paul we put in at Indian Hollow Bridge just off Rt 684 in Bentonville just south of Front Royal intending to float downstream (no kidding right?) to our takeout at the Karo Boat Ramp.
Standard sized Smallie for this water
The water here is big and owing to its width and depth seems slower
than upstream where the river bottom makes the water a bit more
exciting. The deluge that parked itself over Northern VA must have been
east of the Mtns and only raised the water level on the Front Royal
This is the section we tubed
River Gauge from 1.24 to a very manageable 1.3. I didn't have my companion canoe/rod locker so I only had a single 6wt as I donned borrowed flippers and followed Paul's lead into the warm summer water. This part of the Shenandoah is known as a numbers fishery and I was looking forward to targeting deeper submerged structure in the hopes of finding bigger smallies.
I began with a #5 long shanked (hook) golden-retriever weighted with 15 turns of .20 lead behind 10' of full sink line directly above my terminal leader with hopes that this pseudo anchor line would sink my streamer to the depths. I found some challenges with line management and casting in the float tube and with the river relatively low found myself bumping my bottom on the bottom more than I expected!
Spinning rod is tailor made for tube fishing
Paul, a more accustomed float tuber, handled the river very well and without the line management issues of a fly rod began to catch smallies at a very high rate. "Fish-on", "Got-one", "There we go" punctuated the float every minute or three! I probably caught 12-15, Paul I'm sure was in the 50-60+ category!
Paul w 20"+ catfish
The smallies here were decent sized, bigger than the North Fork and similar, maybe a little bigger than upstream on the South Fork. The smallies were dispersed throughout the river but in heaviest concentration in the normal gathering points in the deeper water at the outflows of runs and riffles. Paul seemed to have equal luck with both a gold rapalla and a pumpkinseed tube bait.
I think both smallie and Paul are smiling
There were many casts where Paul was fish on no more than a second after his offering splashed. As the afternoon wore on we knew that we'd misjudged the time and distance to the Karo Boat ramp and started looking for opportunities to shorten the trip.
Panorama of the beautiful river
We finally decided for me to walk from Shenandoah Park Campground downstream to the van as Paul fished and stayed with our tubes. Fortunately I hailed a fellow in a car and he drove me to my van as it would have been about a 5 mile walk (whew---lucky).
"The man who coined the phrase "Money can't buy happiness", never bought himself a good fly rod!" Reg Baird
Fritz, Jacob, James, Paul and I met at the Alma Boat Ramp (Alma, VA) to explore new water on the South Fork of the Shenandoah River Saturday. The South Fork, the broader sibling of the North Fork (subject of many posts) flows for 97 miles hemmed in by the Blue-Ridge Mountains to the East and the Massanutten Ridge to the west. The South Fork begins at the confluence of North and South Rivers in rural Augusta county and flows northerly until it joins the North Fork in Front Royal to form the main stem of the Shenandoah.
Jacob Fish on!
The South Fork is a low-gradient, center-channel river with sloping banks and the 3-mile section we fished today was littered with near continuous ledges, class 1 riffles, runs, and pools. This is a well-known float fishing run with named sections like; Pyramid Rocks, Columbian Falls and Silver Falls (although "falls" leads one to assume more drop & turbulence than you'll find). Looking at this section on GOOGLE Maps satellite view it looks like smallmouth Valhalla....AND IT IS.
Remnants of the cool night's fog clung to the river as the low sun worked it away. The sky was cloudy and it was a pleasant 68 degrees when we put in at 0830 at the Newport Boat Ramp (Newport, VA) after Fritz and I dropped his trusty Ranger at the Alma Bridge River Access.
Paul caught the first smallie of the day at the "h" in Shenandoah
This isn't Potomac sized water but it is BIG WATER and it was running at 2.4 feet on the Luray river gauge. We rigged up with 5-weights and streamers just before we slid into the warm summer water. Paul was the first one in with his float tube and he had 4 bronzebacks before I even hit the water ....a sure mark of a great day to come. There's a reason why generations of Virginian's are so passionate about their Shenandoah Valley and river(s) -- their natural beauty cleanses and forges powerful emotional ties. The Mid-Atlantic received a heavy dose of rain Thurs-Friday but the river seemed to tolerate the load and the flow seemed healthier and higher than what I would have expected of a normal low-pool August flow.
Paul tales his first fish of the day....many more to come
We began swinging streamers immediately in the riffle below the Newport Boat Ramp put in. I started with newly tied golden retrievers tandem-rigged and it wasn't long before the feisty bronze bass the river is famous for welcomed us with adrenalin producing strikes. Bronzebacks are not native to these waters. They were introduced in the mid-1800s, but thrive here in the cobble-bottomed clear river, they seem to love it here. We returned their love and fish after fish etched smiles on our faces as they went on runs and exploded on the surface.
James shows off a nice catch
I caught salmon, brook, brown and rainbow trout last weekend, I love them foremost, but agree with the consensus that inch for inch and pound for pound the smallmouth bass is the gamiest fish that swims. As a point of interest, the all-tackle smallmouth record is a 11lb, 15oz behemoth caught just southwest of here in Tennessee. The smallies we caught were far smaller but no less spunky.
The first 200 yards below the put in is prime smallmouth water and with a herd of cows moo-monitoring our progress from the east bank we all caught fish in this first stretch. The end of this first prime stretch is marked by 100 foot cliffs on the left or West side of the river.
Many fish with the cows looking on
We fished the next section, a lake section with nice ledges and lord knows caught may fish, but in retrospect we should have moved down to even better, faster water. I didn't count fish today but I know that Paul, rigged with a rappalla and tube bait caught 37 Bass before the car disappeared behind the first bend! Lord this place is filthy with fish.
Look at the size of the rear flipper!
Then the fishing actually picked up! Fritz was paddling Jacob was was slaying them with both 3 and 6 wts along the left bank and more and more in the runs at the ends of riffles.
Fritz and Jacob worked that bank hard picking up a dozen+ smallies
Jacob probably still has a smile on his face now from all the fish he caught. Fritz and I both caught our shares (OK maybe a few peoples shares) but both enjoyed the jubilant smiles from Paul, Jacob and James. NO kidding there were many points when 3 out of five of us were 'fish-on' at the same time and once when 4 of 5 had fish on. As Paul rang the bell for his 70th (or so) James had a special moment catching his first double. Fritz and I both witnessed it so its verified in the books!
Darn that's a good photographer! ...James slays another
This was/is the prettiest smallmouth water I've ever seen. Prettier than the North Fork (which has a permanent place in my heart) and fish for fish the smallies are and inch or two bigger on the South Fork. After that first lake the river is continuously near perfect. I hope to get back out on it after some motrin and sleep.
"Fishing is much more than fish....It is the great occasion when we may return to the fine simplicity of our forefathers."
A Rainbow falls for a Prince nymph on the Upper Ct River
and so I hear that...a river runs through it
Inspired by Scott and Marc's yearly reports of great fishing on the Upper Connecticut River I decided to leverage a trip to NH for my brother Tim's birthday to steal a day on the river. Scott and I chatted about it and I was soon on the phone with his brother Marc working out the details. I arrived in Manchester Thursday evening and Friday morning I found Marc at the Buck Rub Pub a few miles north of Pittsburg, NH.
As a boy I'd been as far north as Colebrook hunting rabbits with my friend Phil Bruce, but I'd never been this far north in my home state...you're really up there, 30% of the radio stations are in French and you pass a sign for the 45 parallel on the way north.
LopStick Outfitters (with a small Orvis Fly Shop) has a really nice map of the trophy section of the upper Ct (as you can see here) with all the pools and runs named. For later reference we fished the spillway down to 'Pockets' pool.
Upper Ct River flowing beside Daniel Webster Hwy at Sunrise
The Connecticut River is one of our nation's great river systems, it's rich in history and fish, lies west of the Merrimack River and for much of its course is the border between NH and Vermont as it carves a beautiful river valley. It's a mighty warm-water fishery as it enters Long Island Sound and a far smaller tail-water as it gains volume spilling between the 4 Connecticut Lakes in Northern New Hampshire.
Looking up at 1st Ct Lake Spillway from trail terminus
The Connecticut used to have Atlantic sea run salmon and other anadromous species running up it in spawning-swarms, but over our countries' earliest years progress happened and damming the river killed off the great fish runs. In 1866 Atlantic salmon were brought to the Connecticut Lakes from the St. Croix River and have reproduced naturally re-developing a mature salmon fishery in these northern waters. These are the same species as Atlantic sea-run salmon, the ancestors of these salmon were trapped in fresh water lakes at the end of the last glacial period.
Brown trout from Pool behind me. This was as far up as we could venture
Along with the landlocked salmon, the Upper Ct, like its famous eastern neighbor the Rapid River, has a healthy population of feisty brook trout. While this may seem curious, recall that that "brook trout" are actually in the char family, the same as Salmon, and are not genetically trout (like a rainbow or a brown) "brook trout" is just a naming convention. The Upper Ct also harbors a resident population of rainbow and brown trout that will bend your rod.
Turbulence evident as I kept this little brown in the water
Marc and I had a nice breakfast and made our way to the spillway access road below the 1st Ct Lake and rigged up. Scott recommended that I fish with a 4wt, but having loaned my best 4wt to a friend for a trip to the Yellow Breeches I began the day with a newish medium-fast ROSS 9' 5wt, a proven smallmouth slayer, but had yet to bring a trout to hand. I rigged with a 9' 4x Leader with a strike indicator, #16 beadhead pheasant tail nymph, dropper-tippet, split shot and then a #16 copper john. Marc rigged similarly with a 5wt Access.
River was loaded with these fiesty little browns
I was anxious and ready a few beats before Marc so I made my way down the path and headed toward the spillway. The water was lower than Scott and Marc had fished it last and immediately fishable. I had two roll-rises but no hook ups in the first 'slow-water' pool as my rig drifted from left to right. I knew it would be a good day. In the second pool I was reminded of the importance of line-maintenance and discipline when casting a tandem rig with indicator and split shot as I had to re-rig quickly to get rid of a tight nest of knots. While I was re-tying Marc approached from below and quickly hooked a good sized fish that he enjoyed for two minutes before it spit his fly and returned to the deep, turbulent run. We each caught a small fish or two, browns and brookies as we made our way toward the spillway as far as the cliff would allow. I was rewarded by a nice brown trout in uppermost pool and after a quick pic we retreated back happy with the brown and equally happy not to have taken a dunk in the fast cold water.
River in Vicinity of pockets pool where we jumped back in
We walked back to the truck and then two wooded hills downstream and made our way back into the water in the vicinity of Pockets Pool. Mark took up station below me and we were soon stalking runs and pools hollering at each other with each new hook-up.
Marc, 'Fish-on' in vicinity of Pockets Pool
Marc noticed trout rising to his indicator and switched to a large stimulator pattern and caught 4-5 beauties and missed as many in a run-pool formed by a large log jutting out into the river.
Marc smartly changed to a large dry and slammed several including this nice rainbow
After a fish of three he called me down and put me on my largest brookie of the day in the same run.
Marc put me on this large brookie and put a smile on both our faces
Fish on with Marc looking on
We fished upstream together and fished the heck-outta Judge's Jury Box Pool, Marc from bank-side casting upstream me from the left side casting up and across and sweeping down from left to right. We took salmon and trout from the pool until after 5 fish the pool needed a rest.
By this time a guide returned upstream of us with 2 novice anglers and with upstream having been walked through/fished through we headed back to the truck to re-group.
Above the dam looking at the 2nd Ct Lake
Path to river below 2nd Ct...we took the path for 200 yards
Marc suggested that we hit the river just under the 2nd Ct Lake for and see if we could raise some trout in this skinnier water.
skinnier water
The river here is 50% smaller but channelized and still fast as it cuts its way through a gorge enroute to the 1st Ct Lake, for the first 30-minutes we (Marc) only brought one small trout to hand.
We resolved to move more quickly toward the spillway and were rewarded by more trout in lovely pools and runs. We each caught several as we approached the spillway. Sore but with big smiles, ready to catch more but knowing we each had long drives ahead we fist bumped and called it a great day on the upper Ct river. A grand-slam of brookies, browns, rainbows and salmon behind me, I can see why Scott and Marc each love this river.
We ended the day where we began at the Buck Rub Pub with brown ale and pizza before the long slog back to southern NH.
