Henry and I were looking at going to Gunpowder but after checking water levels we found that the better water might be on the South Branch of the North Fork of the Potomac at Harmons on in WV....boy were we right. Originally we planned this trip as an out and back but with the long drive we decided to meet in the afternoon and get a late afternoon in day 1 and a full day on day on day 2.
Hen arrived, checked into cabin 8, got our passes and was already on fish when I was still miles away! I arrived as the sun set in the deep gorge and was able to catch a trout from the riffle above the bridge before low light closed us out.
Dinner in honor of past feasts was monster ribeyes seared in cast iron, baguette and salad washed down by beer and wine to settle our excited nerves. Day two started with breakfast in Petersburg as the family restaurant Scott will remember .75 miles north on 220 along the river had closed down.
Henry and I were trying to pull off a local-look but I was betrayed by my work shoes from the previous day (damn...I was so close w my old Camo). After breakfast the stream beckoned and 1.5" of fresh snow gave it a magical feel.
Hen started w his standard weighted-fly ESN set-up and began lighting them up immediately in the large pool above the upstream most cabins. I started out w a 2x fly under an indicator rig but it was quickly apparent that Hen's approach was the winner for the day and I switched over, but not before Hen had landed 5-6 beauties.
A great day continued as we headed up the river to there uppermost hole and then back down. As we approached our money hole we saw activity below us....turns out the Harmons was hosting PHW the next day and they were stocking 1100 lbs of trout!
Damn...some 11-13 inters but MANY breeders...wow, these fish were dazed upon entry to their new haunts and wouldn't bite but it was fun to see some huge trout. The Hottest fly of the day turned out to be a size 14 tungsten weighted blow torch, but you had to be tight and attentive to your fly to discern the subtle takes in the 42 degree water. Hen ended up staying another night and fished for a few hour before the PHW crew took over and caught more than any two men deserve😁. what a treat.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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 Fallsand 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.
Our annual fishing trip to Salmon River is a highlight of the year, as much for the camaraderie as the fish, but some years when the salmon run cooperates its simply amazing...this was one of those years.
Paul and Jacob were not able to join us this year so the our fishing fire-team was Bill, Fritz, Henry and yours truly. After beating traffic out of DC well before the crack of dawn I met Fritz lounging against his bumper at our favorite parking pull-out at the top of the Upper Fly Section East of Altmar and just down stream from Salmon River Reservoir. Fritz and Bill had been fishing and visiting for several days and Fritz had the relaxed satisfaction of already having fought, landed and released some monsters. Some years we count success as a single fish brought to hand...this year we didn't even count. As we walked through the woods our senses caught the rush of the river punctuated by splashes from the jumping salmon and cries of 'Fish-on' from the resident anglers at the upper hole. At the upper hole hooking up and landing is a matter of location and drift. Fritz went about 5 minutes before his 8wt Recon bent with the weight and fight of a handsome Chinook (king) salmon, brought to hand on a salmon river flea a local fly tied the night before.
After 90 minutes Henry rustled through the woods behind us his hearty fishing smile letting us know he was happy to see us and to be off the long miles on I-81. We fished till sundown with many hook ups some foul but most fair until we couldn't see to tie on a fresh fly. Here's Henry in the darkness that smile as large as the hump on the king's back!
The next morning found Henry and I at the prime spots at Meadow Run. We hadn't started particularly early and were surprised that there was but one other angler there upon our arrival. As we watched our watches expectantly we finally made our first casts at whaat we guessed was 30 minutes before sunrise, the start of the fishing day on the DSR and then on my second cast with Salmon running right in front of my knees a King lit me up in the predawn light purple. He fought for a good 15 minutes and I was super happy to bring him to hand. As the day wore on we made the acquaintance of the other early morning angler and he was fascinating. He was (well he still is) an engineer from Quebec who fished for steelhead -- he catches some salmon but kind of considers them a necessary evil as they pave the gravel with eggs beckoning the Steelhead will to a meal. This fella more than ties his own flies but makes his own hooks out of stout chemically hardened piano wire! I might have called BS on the story until he showed us one of his many fly boxes...here's a picture of his art.
Henry soon brought a king to hand and with fish in the book and smiles on our faces we enjoyed the morning. Bill and Fritz arrived and for an hour or three we all enjoyed fishing meadow run.
Salmon River Flea -- Salmon Slayer
Henry Took the picture but is in the photo in spirit
The rest of the trip was spent visiting, eating and hooking into salmon after salmon, you'd bring some to hand, lose other good hooks and break off foul hooks. We split our time between the familiar haunts of the DSR and the upper fly fishing section 10 miles upstream. In the future we may forgo DSR passes and just stick with upper section if the salmon are in greater numbers further up. Several flies seemed to work really well, green and black zonker streamers were lights out as was the Salmon River flea a local creation discovered and retied by Fritz to all of our benefit.
Flush with catching all the Salmon we needed to we also enjoyed exploring more of the river in the lower estuary area and found dissagregated water, almost trout stream water holding monster salmon...what a treat!
This smaller salmon and Henry's monster below came from skinny water!
This Epic Photo will travel back to NZ to the Epic shop Henry visited and the Epic Owner
Watch out for your fingers!
We also really enjoyed the upper fly where Fritz in particular made a killing. Here he is working his drift to a tight seam in an otherwise stiff current.
Fritz surveys the run
works his drift along the rock bank to find holding water
enjoys the salmon of his labors
We had other great ties along the way incluoding seeing Henry fall (twice) in slow motion into a fast pool whole hooked into a big salmon -- yes he could have steadied himself and not dunked but that would have lost tension on the chinook so he dunked and skidded alongt the bottom with his right arm raised above the current keeping tension on that fish! Well played by fiend well played.
A large bow (not quite a steelhead) who came to play
Dead Kings were everywhere, note the birds had pecked out the soft eye tissue!
Henry -- salmon on -- the scenery was gorgeous
My stick an 8wt 11'6' ECHO switch w a 9/10 wt TFO prism reel pared with 540 grain shooting head
Sunset over Meadow Run
Salmon Drag marks lead the way home during a night time walk to the Jeep
Sunset at the DSR lot
Thanks for reading about this adventure -- for videos please see:
