 |
| Steelhead...finally! |
 |
| Bill midway down Meadow Run |
I left the Pentagon Thursday at 1000 and drove to Bill's house in Clayville, NY to hit the DSR on the Salmon Run. We left Bill's at 0400 grabbed a much needed cup of coffee & we were surprised when we arrived that there were relatively few cars at the DSR lot. We readied and we started to walk at 0615. It was cold, windy and rainy, we took the walk slowly so we wouldn't slip on the muddy trail or sweat-out our clothes during the 30 minute walk. When we got to meadow run there was one guide (Lou) there with two 30ish men from NH. They had staked out the prime spots at the top of the run. We picked the next two positions in our normal area. The river was running low @ 285 cfs and clear, leaves were in the water, but only fouling flies every 6 or 7 casts -- not a problem. Bill rigged up a #8 bead-head black bugger on his 11' 8/9 wt swich rod, I started with a standard orange egg pattern below 8wtwf line with 6' of sink tip followed by 6 feet of leader then 11 lb tippet on a 10.5" 6/7 swich. Bill hooked a salmon on his second cast and we knew we were in for a good day. Things were initially slow for me as I wasn't in the productive slot 20 feet upstream and wasn't effectively swinging my fly with respect to depth. Lots of fish were being caught and 50% of them were steelhead. I ultimately changed to a short tippett 12-14 inches with two split shots at the leader/tippet knot and an orange beadhead on a yellow egg sack pattern. I suspect that this put my fly about 6 inches off the bottom during the swing. Once I figured it out, I began to hookup as quickly as anyone. I hit many Salmon, but invariably, in my excitement would horse them putting too much tension on my tippet and they would break off. I brought two to the shore, but we couldn't get our hands on them. Next year we bring a landing net! Bill continued to be productive through the morning and we landed several of his kings and a steelhead as well. Mid morning I walked down to the school bus hole, but there was so little water on that (north) side of the island that fish couldn't come up the side channel. Returning to Meadow run I fished the bottom of the pool hooked and fought 2 salmon and one steel head but could not land them. I regained my position one spot up run from Bill and began to have action pretty consistently. I FINALLY relaxed, let the rod and reel handle the fish and landed a gorgeous steelhead with Bills help. She was probably 24 inches, silvery, solid and strong, a great fighter. We ended the day exhausted but happy! On the way home we stopped at the Altmar Salmon Hatchery...very interesting watching the mature fish climb the ladders en-route to their home stream (hatchery) to be farmed for their eggs and milt. We stopped and had a great Italian dinner on the way home in Oneida. We missed Fritz and hope that he Paul and Jacob might be around next year to fish the run.
Scott and I hit the Rapidan from below the first bridge up to the bridge today and had a slow day. The water was low but clear and cold, the stream was beautiful, the fish that were there this Spring were simply no-where to be found. We primarily used a dry-dropper combos and tried everything to not avail. Scott probably caught 8 small natives and I caught 4-5. The largest brookie is pictured below. We met another gent "Gary" who indicated that Fall fishing here is much slower than spring fishing...boy was he right.
Sammy and I fished downstream of the Rt 50/17 Bride over the Shenandoah for a couple hours this afternoon. I made a gear mistake and fished the afternoon with my 6/7 switch and 6wt wf line. I could sure throw my popper dropper combo a mile or so, but my presentation was poor. I fished downstream around the island complex Scott described and back to the Jeep under the overpass. The conditions were gorgeous but I only caught 3.
Scott and I took a day off to hunt Bronzebacks on the North Fork of the Shenandoah River just east of Edinburg, Va. Scott had fished the North Fork before, but this was a new spot for both of us. We think we hit the river where Murray's Fly shop takes their anglers for 'bass school'. If Murray doesn't he should! We geared up and headed down stream. The water was cooler than we suspected and running at 2.1 feet on the Strasberg gauge. I would guess in the high 70s and the runs were deeper than the crystal water suggested. We immediately started picking up smallies and the action didn't end all day till we quit. Scott fished a new Orvis 6wt 9ft popping a small white popper trailed by a hornberg. This seemed to be a great rig. Scott actively popped the popper and skittered it atop the water. I used my 4/5wt 8.6 and threw a variety of combos, my most successful was a yellow-jacket #8 popper and a #8 green wholly bugger. I caught some on the popper but 90% on the dropper. We lunched back at the truck then walked upstream a 1/2 mile and fished back to the truck to end the day. As we entered the water we walked thru some "fire-weed" which is still burning my calves as I write this post! Warning it looks like strawberry vines and stings like a jellyfish! Damn. There was so much action on this trip down to the truck that we grew tired of catching smallies. Together me caught more that a hundred smallies. At one point we pulled in an unheard of Quad...both of us caught two fish as the same time...popper & dropper! Unbelievable. Our only complaint is that they were almost universally small with only a few pushing 11 inches.
