Return of the Padwans 24-25 May 2021

'Return of the Jedis suggests mastery of our craft and after months chasin different species we each found delicate fly fishing skills are perishable...so Padwan learners we are and were ...thanks for asking.   

Fritz, Henry and I do dedicate ourselves to getting out more often to keep skills fresh.    This was our third adventure to Little Juniata and Spruce Creek about a dozen miles WNW from Huntingdon, PA.  

This trip was planned for last year but got virus'd.  Our trucks met at the Penn State public access lot on Spruce Creek and we geared-up as dark clouds bore down and pea-sized rain pelted us ...no worries, waders and gore-tex make fast moving storms no more than an inconvenience and Spruce was running low and looked like it could use a drink.  

For anyone who cares about such things Spruce Creek is a semi-famous brown trout stream that's questioned presidents' and angler luminaries' skills in its storied past.   The majority of Spruce is off limits to the public, but fortunately there's a beautiful stretch kept up by Penn State upstream of its confluence with the Little Juniata in the hamlet of (you guessed it) Spruce Creek.  Fritz and Hen drifted nymphs in the rain, but I can report I fooled a nice 9" brown with dry on a special fly rod that came to me by way of Bill Pfeiffer. 

She was treat of a catch on his rod and a great memory.  With no trout rising and slow action in the rain we left at 1300 and hit Spruce Creek Outfitters to support our local fly shop.  We each left with a pocket full of flies and a tantalizing report, that  Green Drakes had appeared recently in the evening!  Armed with excitement and a few green drake spinners in our vests,  we visited familiar waters at the quarry pool.  

The river was low but quickly added 80% cfs (recall that rain) which brought it up 4 inches and with it a bit of bank debris and bugs, bugs and more bugs!  The frothy surface layer was silly with insect activity in the current seems. 

these appeared late afternoon

Soon Yellow Sulphur mayflies were rising through the water/emerging and browns livened up ascending through the water like breaching submarines.  Excited by the inevitability of the spinner fall we waited as the sun dipped over a ridge and the bridge swallows swooped and darted feasting on the fat bellied sulphurs. Henry and Fritz put away their ESN rigs and with standard 5wts we brought a few to hand, but unfortunately the excitement of the hatch did not bring all the fish to hand we had expected.   Perhaps we needed to stay later?

our imitation

As we were about to leave the river we took one last look at the river and saw a mature brown rising 5 feet from the step-in 2 feet off the bank.  Feeling thwarted thus far we threw in a size 16 sulphur dry which was inhaled by the brown to end the day!

We found our way back to Huntingdon's lone modern hotel, A Fairlfield Inn and Suites, bedded down and the next morning, loaded with coffee and Gatorade, made our way to a riffle-pool-riffle section downstream of the Spruce Creek confluence, (join us next year to find out where :-) where we had an amazing day.  

 

sulphur nymph was a producer

We found we could pick up sporadic browns nymphing seams, but had better fortune targeting individual rising trout in deep cuts under overhanging tree boughs.  

Instream positioning was key to successful, often sidearm, casts looking to get 3-6 feet of dragless drift to the rising trout.   If you could solve the stream-positioning/casting/ drift riddle the browns played their part and we each all caught our share throughout the afternoon.         

Hen w a fat brown ...that log structure provided a natural buffet line for feeding browns

Browns-on ...Fritz and Hen double-up 

Fritz has enough of the world to himself 

Comradery was great throughout, but the catching improved on a steep curve from arrival at Spruce Day until we were forced to quit squinting in the ghostly light of the harvest moon.

Fishing beneath the harvest moon

The best hours of the day were clearly 1900-2115 and the river explored with activity from 2040-2105 as yellow-sulphur and green drake spinners fell to the water fueling a burst of activity.   We surely annoyed a nearby campground with exclamations of, "Fish on" or Hens', 'Fritz get down here its crazy/it's amazing mate!" Cause when you fish with brothers like these you always want to put your mate on the best bite 🐟🎣💪

This'll be an annual trip so let me know if you want in next May.

Fish on friends.

Hen w a colorfully spotted Brown

Fritz: Large brown on is watched by Hen

James River Recon

The water hasn't stopped coming down in the Mid-Atlantic for two months so when I found a bathtub in the River Level on the James river Fritz, Jacob, Paul and I jumped at it.

  The James is the major river draining central Virginia.   Its formed when two magnificent trout waters join, the Jackson and the Cowpasture in Far Western Virginia and runs its course ESE cleaving the Shenandoah Ridge-line before flattening and making its run to the ocean.   On its southern banks, the English  settled Jamestown and Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown. 

 Our Crew was relatively new to the James, Fritz and Paul had each fished a couple sections before and we decided on a popular whitewater stretch as our destination between Glascow where the Maury flowing from Lexington to Snowden, VA 5 miles downstream.   The river's white water features were named and the fishing was supposed to be superb.

After 3 hour drives from NOVA and pretty fair chow at the Pink Cadillac Diner. We bunked down at a local hotel and made it to the water by 0800 Saturday morning.  The river was running clear at a perfect 2.93 feet on the Buchanan river gauge and the overcast skies, dripping mist promised a great fishing day.   Floated by my kayak, Fritz' trusty Old Town Discovery and Paul's new float-fishing Pontoon we shot through a narrow slot and the Maury pushed us into the James.   

 In what I'd later view as odd but fortuitousness I caught 3 bass in the span of 20 minutes then the catching part of fishing got few and far between!

We caught a few in the 12-13 inch range but not the hundreds we'd expected

Fritz and Jacob question a rock strewn pool

This should by all rights have been exceedingly fishy, it had all the elements but over the course of 7 hours on the water we probably only caught 35 smallies between us.   Very Odd.

Paul spins caught in a back-eddy hydraulic of Balcony Falls

Fritz shows me the extent of his massive Raspberry -- youch!

The fishing wasn't great but the scenery and company was magnificent!

Thanks for looking

Big Hunting Creek

 The Catoctin Mountains opened in front of me and I couldn't suppress a deep smile as I jeeped north my stomach grumbling me onward to breakfast with Henry at the Kountry Kitchen in Thurmont.

We've caught trout on several presidential waters; the Rapidan and Spruce Creek and wanted to add Big Hunting Creek to our list of POTUS escapes.    It'd been a balmy 47 when I left Virginia and it was 41 when I pulled into Thurmont, a taste of the finger numbing cold to come.  I wasn't finished my first cup of coffee when Henry jostled in for a great breakfast and review of our plans.   Big Hunting Creek is the major watershed in this section of the Catoctin Mtns and draws water from both sides of Hwy 77 as it flows both into and out of Hunting Creek Lake. Above the Lake is Cunningham Falls where our adventure began.
 

After working around some construction we found hwy side access to the section above Cunningham Falls and the fall beauty took our breath away...ok sliding down the water worn rocks of the falls
took our breath away too. 

Armed with a 7' TFO BVK 3wt Henry got the first action of the day with a surface-roll to his top dropper in the plunge pool at the bottom of the cascade of falls but try as we might we couldn't get the trout to hook-up.  Trusting the metal crews in my boots (too much) I scampered up the smooth rocks and found a bathtub sized plunge pool 3/4 of the way to the top and dipped my dual dropper rig into a plate sized back eddy....WHAM, much to my surprise a 9-inch fall speckled brown nailed my offering.   I net netted him and hollered to Henry to check out my net when he scaled the cliff.  With a big smile on my face I sat among the Polar Cave-like boulders and didn't need to leave.

The Big Hunting Creek above Cunningham Falls quickly reaches the saddle in Catoctin ridge and loses the steep gradient which channelizes and gives it its character, we fished it for another 200m and walked back to our vehicles looking forward to checking out another portion before lunch.  We surveyed the feeder trip in the lower left hand corner of the map above and decided our better option was to fish the special regs tailwater section along Hwy 77. 

We noticed the nice flow and pocket water on our drive in and were soon questioning riffles and pools with dropper combos.   We both got a few stikes but Henry was the the only one able to land his quarry. 

With temperature dropping the the wind starting to whip up the river cut we decided to try our luck 15 Miles West at Beaver Creek.  After gas station sandwiches we found our way to Beaver Creek Fly Shop and must have met the owner on a bad day as he didn't seem appreciative of our support your local fly shop ethos and seemed put upon to offer advice...weird.    After I told him I wasn't interested in getting lectured about fall redds he broke out a map and gave us some advice (not sure if it was good or a false flag).

Beaver Creek is a classic spring-fed limestone creek.   I don't have alot of experience on them and in my view they are advanced degree fly fishing.   We tried a bit of everything (scuds, midges, nymphs, streamers) as we hunted likely flows, pools, undercuts, etc. w/o any hookups.    As the our line guides were freezing and the sun was dropping behind the trees to the West we finally found a lovely pool with good sized trout feeding subsurface and occasionally breaking the water.   Battling numb fingers, iced guides and the fading light we couldn't get these trout to come tight and left only when we weren't sure we could find out way back on the trail.


  

Shenandoah w the Pfeiffers

There comes a point each Spring when the allure of blue line brook trout gives way to wider water, the simplicity of stripping streamers through riffles and the promise of smallmouth bass, the gamest fighter around.  James wrangled a family trip to the South Fork this past Saturday and found the smallies turning on in their summer feeding stations, with that tease Fritz, Jacob and I decided to give our favorite section of the of the Shenandoah and early summer test.

The drive through the countryside to Newport just downstream from Luray was gorgeous.   Like turtles carrying their shells we met, we dropped a truck at the takeout and geared up for the adventure.    Fritz and Jacob slipped into their well-tested Old Town and I lowered myself into a new-to-me SOT kayak.

This is 4-7wt water depending on casting style, fly weight and tactics.   Heavier rods/flies fished deeper nicking tufts off the bottom simulating crayfish produce bigger but fewer bass.   I like the exciting feedback of a strike after strike after strike, so I went with a mid-weight set-up, an untested Orvis 6wt graphite rod that I’d eBay’d this winter and a dual dropper rig with a soft plastic followed by a small golden retriever – fish on on cast three at the Newport Put-in riffle – a great day lay ahead.

The water was warmer and the river fuller (2.36 on the Luray Gauge) than I expected, but its width allows for increased flow without degrading the fishable water.  Turning away from a nesting pair of bald eagles I glanced up-stream, Fritz and Jacob floating on green & blue, a Massanutten Mtn background and the priceless chatter of father and son fishing drifting on the riffles.  

A frequent vice, we spent too much time on the marginal upper lake portion but were rewarded with an 11” Crappie who rose from under a shaded log to sip a golden retriever.   Shaped like a giant sunfish if these guys fought like their sunfish cousins they’d be amazing, as they are they’re beautiful and made for the pan, I slipped this one back into the shady depths and moved along.

We enjoyed running the first rapid, executed fishhook turns and took familiar stations mid-run.  Fritz and I marveled at and heckled Jacob as he brought a bronzeback to hand every other cast.  These bass weren’t big but they’re aggressiveness gave us all the action we wanted.  Every so often I’d hear Fritz exclaiming (to everyone and no-one), “I love these fish” as a smallie tail-walked to hand. We followed the eagles down river and concentrated on the disaggregated water under the large cliff on the right.    The amazing structure in this area invites groups to fish side-by-side working the many lateral channels and outflows.  I associate these cliffs with my friend Paul who always cleans up in the shady runs along the cliff’s base as Fritz did this trip and love using the cliffs as a backdrop for pictures.

I often keep track of fish brought to hand, I didn’t this time, but after 4.5-hours I suspect we each caught 75-100 smallies.  It’s not often that I’ll leave a spot where there’s a strike every cast and a fish every third cast, but we decided to flow with this lovely river and get home at a reasonable hour. We enjoyed running the last .5 mile rapid and as we approached the take-out I came in behind a family playing in the river with a small dog.    The little beagle-type saw my kayak as an island, an opportunity for rest, and swam into the current to meet me.   I scooped up Dixie and after a few licks we were fast friends.

       

North Fork Shenandoah upstream from Covered Bridge -- Meems Bottom

This covered bridge on the North Fork reminded me of the bridge in Jackson, NH.

The put in under the bridge was lovely and opened to the nicest water we'd find on this recon.

Kayaks ready for company

Working upstream remembering old muscles.

Lovely stretch of river but not alot of holding structure.

Not only a dozen brought to hand today between the two of us but a good river recon early in the smallmouth season