On My Own

{Editors note: post & adventure from James Odasso}

First Lovely Pool on the Hughes River

It was 0530 on a Wednesday morning.  However, instead of going to work, I'm going fishing!  Today was an exciting trip for several reasons including; I'm going to a river that I have only visited once before, it has been raining the past couple of days so the water could be high, and it is the first time fishing for brook trout on my own.  The target river was the Hughes (SNP) which I last visited exactly one year ago under the careful guidance of Matt, my fishing mentor. I felt that I had learn quite a bit from Matt over the past year and saw the trip as a bit of a test.  

section of the Hughes I fished along Nicholson Hollow

I set out to first find the Old Rag trailhead which went much smoother than expected. I rigged up my 3 wt with a dry-dropper combo (Parachute Adams with a small bead head Prince Nymph dropper) and turned to the river.  At this point, I was feeling pretty good and then noticed that the lot was quickly filling with people who planned to head up the same trail as me.  However, I was the only one with a fly rod so on I went up the trail.  I felt a rush of excitement as I turned to the right on to the trail less traveled and crossed the river for the first time.  I noticed that the water was higher than during my first visit and knew it would be more difficult to fish this time.  I figured that walking up stream for at least 30 minutes would see a reduction in flow (or so I hoped). The hike was great! A truly beautiful day and it was awesome to be away from the crowds and hassles of DC. The trail was very wet from a couple days of heavy rain and in several spot it was more a stream than a trail.  But as I walked higher up the mountain the river flow slowly reduced. After about 40 minutes of walking, I figured it was time to give fishing a try since it is the purpose of the trip.  The first pool was stunning, as so many are, and the water flowed through a shoot dropping about four feet into the pool and the far bank had a very strong flow as well.  So, I picked a spot and placed my fly about a foot away from the shoot closest to me and it moved to the right and into the slack water.  I had a rush of excitement because I am seeing my fly do exactly what I had wanted it to do (which doesn‘t happen very often) and was confident that a strike would happen at any second.  But it didn’t and as my fly drifted towards me, I pulled it up and placed another cast to the top of the pool, then another, then another, crap. So, I could here Matt’s voice saying, “make three casts into the pool and move on”.  So I did. The move-cast-repeat process continued through several pools and I noticed that the white froth from the water spilling into the pools was making it hard to see my dry fly so I decided to try a Mr. Rapidan to give me color contrast as a strike indicator aid.  To make the change, I let my fly float past me while standing in the middle of the pool and started to pull out my fly box. Then bam! My first brook trout! It was like reaching the top of a mountain. I finally caught a brook trout on my own. 

1st Brookie!

Sure I had caught lots of fish over the past couple of years, even on flies that I had tied myself, but catching that little 6 inch fish in high water using what I had learned even if a little luck was involved was awesome. I was so excited that I forgot to take a picture of it as proof and as he swam away I thought what if I don’t catch another and was hit with a moment of panic.  That motivated me to work hard move from pool to pool, looking for the slack water pockets, casting into the back of the pool first, then working up closer to the rocks. Before long, fish on! Another nice brookie came to visit me. I took his picture and with positive momentum and proof in my pocket, I had no choice but to continue forward.  The day continued in the same pattern walk, climb over rocks, cast (often more than once), duck under tree branches, remove fly from tree branches, re-rig flies, etc.  I even tried a double dropper combo with a prince nymph and a black copper john under a strike indicator that produced at least one fish.  In total, I fished for about 5 hours caught 6 fish, stayed dry and had a really fun day.  I left the river and started my walk back to the car thinking about how I was going to tell this story.

Amazing colors speckle this last brookie of the day

 Could I claim that my first fish was caught on the first cast? Could the 6 inch fish become a 16 inch fish? Could I say that the river poured down the mountain with a power that Zeus himself would have struggled against! But, in the end, the truth is best and gives me tremendous joy and satisfaction for achieving a personal milestone of using what I’ve learned from my friend to catch beautiful brookies all on my own.

 smile born of a great day on the river

  

Rapidan Homecoming

This little fella never came out of the water

I've been away from the Rapidan for too long and even though the water was close to unfishably high bouncing down the rutted ridge-road toward Junction Hole felt like a homecoming.

keeping low James works the left edge of this run

 In my quest to experience as many little blue lines as I can I've worn out my DeLorme and spent time on some great Va water since my last visit to the Rap, notably the Hazel, Big Run and Laurel Fork but the Rapidan just feels right to me.

Adams still in his jaw he awaits release

The road hasn't improved, fortunately it serves to weed out some of the 4x4-less, but we still found one truck parked ahead of us as James and I pulled up to the SNP Gate above the Rapidan Co-oP cabins. I couldn't tell if the truck brought an angler or hiker, prayed for the latter and headed down to the water geared up against the cold and ready with my 1-wt.

We'd tried to out elevate the rain swollen flow but it was running high, clear and cold it looked like blue liquid steel as we made our first cautious casts into tiny boulder protected pockets. This is normally a very productive stretch with fishable pools runs and edys every step. The beautiful but cold quick flow reduced the fishable areas by 2/3s.

Handsome brookie for James

reaching for the sky these trees were spectacular against the blue sky

We began picking up specks at a slow rate and I missed at least half of my strikes. The good news was that where we found fishable water and had some dry fly dwell time the trout were there and ready to play.

high sticking a pool

 We leap frogged fished past some of my favorite memories;  there's where Scott pulled one out from the long axis of the log on the right, there's where Fritz knelt and snuck a dry behind that boulder, there's where Bryan climbed the boulder to make a long upstream cast.  It occurs to me that this is my my favorite river not just because its filthy with brookies, but because of all the great-memories.  James and I made more today, climbing over huge downed trees, casting into tight swirls of water and celebrating each others' 6-inch trophies.

fallen logs frame James as he addresses this pool

this handsome speck took a BH Pheasant tail just below the Brown House

Knees aching but a smile on James' face

It's best to fish with someone else, because it takes shared experience to really understand the effort-earned joy of  catching a native trout while mountain climbing up a river. 

The upper Rapidan pushing the boundaries of its normal banks

A water level view taken from below the falls

two natives came out of the right side of this pool

We were both tired when James spied the roof-line of President Hoover's Brown House.  I fished right up to the foundation and lipped a nice brookie with a parachute adams in Mill Prong in the the pool under the foot bridge.  Feet elevated and happy to have stayed dry for the trek up we shared a few nips of Wasermanns Single Malt on Hoovers Porch as we reminisced about the days adventure.  James caught his share and I ended the day with 28 brought to hand.

in his element shadows and swirls mask this brookie

Come fish with me its easy

James enjoys a satisfying sip