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| James fished some fast high water |
Boy we wanted to get out on the South Fork and were not going to be dissuaded by some high water....and high it was. Optimal fishing here is below 1.75" on the Luray Gauge and we were actually happy to have it around 3" and stable. Paul, Henry, James and I slid into the greenish stew of what looked like a new river Sunday morning. Fishing was slow as we fought the surface current and tried to remember the hidden structure of our friend.
We coaxed some bass into action but our dreams of a 400 fish day melted away and we all adjusted our expectations and ended day 1 with maybe a hundred fish between the 4 of us.
James had to head home to work and Paul, Hen and I feasted on beer, salsa verde, sausage and chicken as rain again began to splatter on the tin roof of our cabin. The night ended w a great chat and Paul pouring rusty nails (scotch + Drambuie) for all.
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| Day two Team |
Day two the began with the river dramatically rising as you can see on the graph below.
We experienced this rise real time and it was interesting to see it happen. We couldn't really tell by rocks and shoals getting covered with water they were already well covered. What noticed was a browning out of the water and alot of flotsam; sticks, a few logs in the main flow.
Paul, Hen and I quickly made our way through the first mile of river and concentrated our attention where the river spread out under the large cliffs on the right.
Slow activity was the rule for the day and were thankfully interrupted by 3-4 fish here and there. At about 1400 Paul got ahead of us and stayed ahead of Hen and I for the rest of the day and Hen and I enjoyed more and more success. Hen lent me to a small popper which I fished on a 9'3" Orvis Graphite Spring Creek and had a blast. Seeing smallies slash-up from the bottom and nail the popper was exhilarating.
Paul ended the day with some pontoon challenges in the final rapids and out of respect for his wife's nerves I'll leave that as a story untold.
As the moon came up on our right and sun the sun fell below Massanutten Mtn the bass TURNED ON! Henry was having success fishing the outflow shoulder of a rock eddy and called up to me. I sat on my yak and floated down to him about 30' to his right about 50m above the beginning of the last rapid. I stood on my yak and looked to join in Hen's success...OMG I caught bass on 14 straight casts and then caught 32 before I left the spot on probably 50 casts....amazing. Hen caught a bunch as well but we theorized that perhaps I was presenting into a bass of bait fish the smallies were crashing. By the time I was done Hen had moved downriver and was also pulling them out of slack water behind one of the bigger rock formations. He fished till we couldn't see anymore as as he fought to the southern bank to get into his yak he disappeared in the dark! We met about half way down the rapid and at that point were thankful for the high water to spirit us over the rocks.
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| Red Dirt Rich |
Dinner night 2 was so good it may turn into a tradition the salad complimenting the seared cowboy ribeyes and washed down with beer...damn it was good.
Day three was challenging from the start and though we caught our share we planned to be off the river by 1530 so we didn't fish the dusk again.
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| When your on the river you are sharing the river |
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| Thanks for Reading |
