Shad arrive at the Rappahanock Fall-Line

The slot size on this run was really nice, the colors were amazing

Fritz and I had a combined 7 recon-trips to the Falmouth Fall line on the Rappahanock waiting for the Spring Shad run to begin.  We knew one of these days we'd find shad in numbers and today was the day...the poor man's tarpon had arrived.  Its easy to see why once folks thought there was an inexhaustible supply of these silver swimmers and there was no way to even estimate the pulses of them as they finned past our feet.  They weren't quite as aggressive as we've seen in past years, perhaps that will change later in the run.  Fritz, James and I had to work for our fish.  The best way to bring them to hand today was dead drifting (nymphing really) small, weighted red and silver shad flies on a sinking leader and then just waiting for the line to tighten.  If you're fly is above these aqua-athletes its just casting practice.  If you want to hit Shad with us in the next 20 days give me a holler.  With Osprey, and Eagles watching we kept remarking what a perfect day it was.

Fritz pulled many from this upper-island pool

Fritz caught this Large American Shad, deeper but less athletic from than today's hickory shad

Fritz and James work the top of the island pool at the Falmouth Fall-line

Love these guys! 

B&B Family -- All Over the Water

What a wonderful time of the year for the Brookies and Bronzeback Team.   Last week Fritz and brother Paul nailed bull, redfish, amberjack and speckled trout in LA where the Mississippi runs into gulf! Two days ago Henry worked the Gallatin River in near Big Sky bringing to hand a grand slam or browns, bows, cutts and white fish and now the shad are here in force here in Northern Virginia.

Paul and Fritz and AmberJack

Hen and Family w a new snowy brown on the Gallatin

I hadn't been back to the Piney River in years, my last trip there was with Scott before he headed to Florida.    It's a place with nice memories.    Its hard to access with only a single bridge-side parking spot then a climb over a forbidding fence to reach the public SNP right of way.   A .3 mile brings you past the private cottages and to the SNP trail pillar.  Another 5 Min upstream brings you to a river gauge station.    Use this water gauge as a catching feature and force yourself to walk another 15-min past beautiful water before you drop in.  The further you walk the greater the fish density.

This beauty was caught by James on his last  cast of the day!

Spring has Sprung

Things are looking up to include this spec

Every Spring my soul anticipates the start of trout season.  There's a sense of longing that's only quenched with a spring brookie in hand.  In mountain streams catch and release waters the start isn't marked on a calendar, it's
when the water pushes 41-42 degrees, usually in the first week of March. With forsythia blooming and red-budded branch trips ready to burst their winter shackles I decided to hit my home waters of the Rapidan.

The water above the second bridge is amazing

As I jeeped around a familiar bend in Criglersville I glimpsed a full pool on the Rose, but I knew my destination waters would be a fishably lower a thousand feet up the Shenandoah Ridgeline.   I love the process of getting to the river and sipped coffee as James and I crept up the deeply-rutted Rapidan Fire Road noting new trees chain sawed across the road and rock slides.  Normal cars don't make this trip.  People would be normal(er) if they did.  Descending the switchbacks we found three trucks at Junction Pool, a gang of grey-haired children gearing up.   

My destination waters were above the second bridge.  Scott taught me that the steep terrain there keeps less hearty anglers from questioning its narrow walls and the river sees less pressure.  The holes are to die for.  Fly-fishing in this stretch is alot about rock scrambling and unlocking the beautiful mysteries of the next pool.

We geared up with 2 and 3 wts and high hopes.   The cold water soothed deep knee bends and we found small black stoneflies creeping on rocks and brook trout stirring from their winter lethargy.   As the sun peeked down over the high ridge line surface strikes increased, but the majority of the takes were on size 18/20 BH droppers suspended under dries. 



This wasn't a day for long casts, but more for micro swings and placement into quiet water giving the dropper an opportunity to fall to depth rather than being trailed through the froth and current.   "Watch you drag", "rod tip up",  "line off the water" and "that's a fish" were our refrains.  

View from below the 'log-pool' ref below, the trout hit about 4' in front of me

We lunched on PB&Js and pretzels in a setting I wouldn't have traded and leapfrog-fished all the way up to the Rapidan Cabins.   I thought I'd caught my last trout and wasn't planning on taking another cast when James scooted ahead determined to catch one more.  I chased him and found a newly created log-pool stretching the
width of the river creating a 3 foot waterfall along its length.   I LOVE standing below a waterfall and fishing chest-level into the pool.  With cold silvery water finding a hole in my waders (I was deep) I lower my sight line
just a few inches above the pool and watched my dry in profile.   When the small trout lifted 2" out of the water to snatch my dry I gave a whelp of joy and hustled him in, only to find another larger trout on my dropper!  A
double on my last cast.   With that great memory we called it a day and made our way back to the muddy jeep.