A great hike on Staunton Run

James and I were looking forward to chasing some trout, so after my scout of the Conway found it inaccessible we set our sights on Staunton Run high up in SNP.  We started from NOVA and soon found ourselves at the Graves Mill confluence of Kinsey Run and the Rapidan.

James at Conway River 662/667 Campsite

I still wanted to show James the Conway so we decided to see if the access road was still inaccessible.  Five minutes and one ridge line later we found that what had been snowed in recently was now passable with Clifford in 4-wheel drive.  We took it slowly and after another ridge-line the gurgling Conway emerged on our left.  We passed the Devils Ditch access and made our way up to the campsite at the top of the 662/667 intersection.  We walked down to the river to give James a feel for it.

Clifford has never let me down yet atop the Conway Campsite access trail

Though the day was gorgeous the Conway at this point still drains a large watershed.It was running clear, but fully loaded and fast. It was just fish-able if needed, but not optimal and with that in mind we decided to stay on our original plan and headed back towards Graves Mill and Staunton Run.
          Clifford rolled us slowly back to the Rapidan/Stanton SNP gate above Graves Mill and I was very surprised to see the cul-de-sac filled vehicles.  I surveyed their backseats and to my joy found that they were hikers not fisherman and throughout the day we met

Geared up and ready

pleasant hiker after pleasant hiker, all curious to see us fishing. As we geared-up we had one group of 8 from Fredericksburg snap this pic of us as we prepared to head up the trail.
We walked up the trail with the tempting middle-rapidan on our right for 10-minutes until we hit the spur trail to our left which follows the southerly bank of Staunton Run just south of Fork Mountain into McDaniel Hollow. We began just below the gauge pool, James with a 3wt caddis/ followed by hares-ear nymph and me w a 2wt, parachute adams followed by a small dark green zebra midge.

Middle Rapidan on the walk to Staunton Run

James takes in The Gauge Pool, the first large pool on Staunton Run

 I was sure we'd run into the same action I'd found here recently and was very surprised that we couldn't raise a strike all day. The weather had been consistently nice, the water was 42 degrees (I know...still pretty cold), the stream was nicely loaded and very fish-able.  I wonder if one of those "hikers" might actually have been a fisherman and if we might have been unknowingly fishing behind him for the 3.5 hours we spent on the river.  In any event we had a great time fishing this little run. It definitely holds enough water to fish it in drier times and I was pleased to see a hiking path on the left side of the run which looks like it continued up quite far. 

James had a great presentation in the backside eddy ...but no fish!

The high gradient provides nice plunge pools consistently

The path certainly made the return trip easier but didn't seem to bring in much pressure as I suspect that most fisherman would rather hit the more popular and accessible Rapidan or Conway.  I'll be back on another day.

Staunton Run Scout

Speckled Native

The winter has been wearing on me and I was looking forward to getting out on the water after a long absence.  I spoke with my neighbor George on my early morning dog-walk and asked if him if he wanted to go along for an adventure.  He was game to get out of the house so we set out at 0700 for the longish drive to the Conway River West of Madison.

You're not alone out here!

My goal was to scout the river prior to a trip this Saturday with my neighbor James.  The rivers looked high, brown and bloated on the drive out 29 so I tempered my expectations.  As I turned left at Grave Mill on 662 there was still alot of snow on the ground and when the pavement ran out at the Rapidan WMA things got dicey.   The dirt road had not been plowed and looked sketchy, I creeped along in Clifford for about 200 yards until the very real prospect of getting stuck got the better of me.  We backed down to the pavement, turned around and headed back to Graves Mill. 

looking downstream: south slope no snow / north facing slope snow remains

We turned left at the B&B and followed the Rapidan upstream until the road ended at a SNP gate.   We parked, met a duck dynasty wannabe who'd slept in his truckbed, geared-up and walked .5 miles to where the Staunton entered the Rapidan from the left.  The streamside path was snow covered and slick and from the tracks there looked like there had been only one other human there recently.

I began with a #16 Parachute Adams followed by an #18 bead-head hares ear fishing the pools and runs.  The Staunton at this point is about the size of the Rapidan just below Camp Hoover, beautifully sized.   I had passed up gorgeous pools on the Rapidan during the .5 mile walk to the Staunton so I was very happy to slip into the water

Gauge Station Pool: only fingerlings here

This was George's first mountain fishing adventure so he was happy to take in the scenery and shoot some pics of the snowy stream.  The fishing was very slow for the first 15 minutes and I attributed that to the still very cold water.   It was about 47 outside but the sun was having a hard time penetrating the hollow and the snow melt was trickling 33 degree melt into the water, fortunately it was running clear. About 150 yds upstream of the confluence with the Rapidan was a newish stream gauge sitting in a gorgeous plunge pool.  I kept have fingerlings strike my dry but couldn't hook the little guys for the life of me.

Last of the catch from this plunge pool

I moved upstream from the gauge pool and changed out my dropper to a #20 green zebra midge and almost immediately started getting strikes just out of the riffles in the deeper pools. I caught four 5-8 inchers in the last pool I fished and was happy to show George the speckled beauty of these natives. Not wanting to wear out the good nature of my adventurous partner we headed back to the snowy trail which parallels the southern side of the river. On the way back to Clifford I fished a few inviting pools on the Rapidan without a strike. I'll come back here with James on Saturday and I target the bigger pools during the warm hours with midges.  What a great little river and once again the key seems to be out walking the pressure to pristine water.

 

Dry River -- It's fishing not catching

Conor at a fishable section

Conor and I set out Dec 27th for a mid-day excursion to Dry River with high hopes.  The weather was clear and the temps were forecast to rise into the early 40s.  We left at 0800 and after coffee along the way started paralleling Dry River at Rawley Springs at 1030.  I immediately noticed that the Dry was running significantly higher than I had seen it before, swelling its banks when in the past it had run in the center of its rock strewn channel. The next thing I noticed once the road straightened was  hunters in all the pullouts.  In my normal parking spot there were 6 pickups! I drove to the turnoff for Skidmore Fork then headed back to find a parking spot on

pretty ice formations is about all we found

the river side of the road. We geared up with 2 and 3wt rods and marched into the big pool just upstream of the footbridge without seeing any hunters :-)  While the river was not blown out, it was flowing at max load substantially changing the nature of the river.
The big pool was fishable as it can disperse a large volume, but when we didn't have any strikes and headed upstream the channelized flow (white water) became unfishable.  As we hadn't had any rain to speak of the best I can tell is

Conor at the big pool where we started

that the powers that be must have been lowering the reservoir increasing the tailwater flow in anticipation of rain in the next few days. We scouted around for a few fishable pools and made sure we didn't take a dip into the icy water for another 30-minutes then decided that we'd find some lunch in Harrisonburg and live to fish another day.

Trout-Scout Devils Ditch and Conway River

Ford across Conway where I started and ended my day

I had been wanting to scout new water on the eastern slope of the Shenandoah so I set my sights on the Conway River two ridges SW of the Rapidan River but still in the Rapidan Wildlife Management Area (RWMA). I found a post by Steve Moore that helped me understand this rather remote area.  The area is accessed by taking 230 off 29 towards Wolftown, in Wolftown bear right on 662 towards Graves Mill (Rapidan River flows on your right). At Graves Mill bear left on 615.  After several miles you'll pass a RWMA kiosk on the right, the road will turn to dirt, ascend the ridge, descend the hairpins and the Conway River is on your right. 

Upper Devils Ditch looking upstream

You'll see a sign that reads, "Hunter Access to Devils Ditch Path".   You can descend the STEEP path and you'll come to the confluence of Devils Ditch and the Conway and be able to access Devils Ditch from that point.  I moved upstream .85 miles and pulled Clifford into a river side camping spot where the old road (615 "Bluff Mountain Road") fords the Conway and heads downstream (Rt 667 on maps), but you can also stay on the main road (now named Conway River Trail) as the stream narrows ascending towards Skyline Drive.  Next time here I plan to park in the same spot and fish upstream...it looked great.

Conway River Brookie

I rigged up w a 3wt in the moderate rain and was pleased to see that the river was still clear even though it had been raining overnight. I caught my first native on my second cast into the fording pool and on that fun note walked down the old road (667) for 13 minutes until I came to Devils Ditch crossing my path.  Devils Ditch is a nice stream in its own about the size of the upper Rapidan by Camp Hoover.  I fished up the "ditch"for two hours, noting that both the air and water temps were an even 50 degrees.  I started with a #16 parachute adams and a #18 pheasant tail, but after the first four trout hit the dry I snipped off my dropper. 

Conway looks just like the Rapidan

By this time the rain was pouring down and I was having a very hard time distinguishing my "dry" from the from the exploding water drops.  I'm sure I missed many fish as I just couldn't track my dry 50% of the time.  Several times I huddled under logs and ledges to keep out of the worst downpours.  The rain moderated and the water looked great ahead, but being a long way away from Clifford and soaked, I walked down a trail down-ridge of Devils Ditch back to the Conway.

D Ditch (left)  - Conway (right) confluence

When I hit the Conway I was 200 yards downstream of the Devils Ditch-Conway confluence and the augmented Conway was about the size of the Rapidan by the Junction pool but wider and not so channelized by boulders....just beautiful.  Throughout this period I changed flies for fun and returned to a parachute Adams as (again) the most productive fly. At this point I was about 1 mile (by trail) downstream of Clifford and decided to try to fish back up.  I fished upstream for a hour with steady but not lights-out action.

These fish were VERY spookable and the more tired I got the harder it was to be sneaky.  The hard rain started again, I was having a hard time tracking my adams so I tied on a dropper (again) and my luck picked up with bigger trout.  Up till now the majority of the trout had been brilliant, but small,  from here on up the fish were noticeably larger and hitting both the dry and dropper alike.  By 1445 I was tired and soaked so I hopped the bank and walked the final 400m to Clifford's camp-spot. 
Wanting to finish the day with a fish on the last cast I re-fished the first pool I had hit 5 hours ago and caught a gorgeous 7inch brookie on my final cast. So...my fishing friends this is a spot to revisit when we have a full day to creep back into this remote

Caught by flash underwater!

 

 

 

 

 

area.

Gorgeous spots!

Dry River to Skidmore Fork

Start Pool for this fish, caught 4 trout along right side

There may be a more perfect brook trout stream in Virginia than Dry River and if there is I’d like to find it as I’m not sure I’d come back (ok: I’d come back once a week).   Scott and I fished the Dry last week and promised to come back soon to fish upstream from last week’s upper limit.  Upstream did not disappoint. To begin with some housekeeping, the ‘Dry’ is the major tributary of the North River (by Rawley Springs) according to some pleasant local hunters and is primarily (75%) fed by Skidmore Fork which is a tailwater of a nearby reservoir.

First Brookie of the day

 I parked on the right hand side of Rt 33 opposite the gated-entrance to Dry Run Road (Scott will remember this as the road we walked out on last trip). It was 35 and warming as I rigged up my Cabelas mid-flex 3 wt with a Sz 16 parachute adams and a Sz 20 pheasant tail nymph dropper on 6X.  I walked down the fire road and came to the pool which was the furthest advance of our last trek and noted the beautiful fall leaves encased in a thin layer of ice in protected nooks.

Icy water in the still shallows

 To my delight the sun had begun to warm the surface and a small hatch was luring trout to the surface to feed, dimples on the surface every few seconds.  I stayed in this lower pool for a few minutes, had a nerve-slamming surface strike on my second cast and a slippery-cold brookie to hand on my fourth. The river was beautiful (yes Tim: gin clear) as I moved upstream and struck me as being bigger, less technical water than the downstream ½ mile we’d explored last week.  It had long deep (rather still) pools along the base of rocky cliffs and fewer heavily forested riffle-runs.

Seat of solitude...the perfect perch..see the high cliff ledge defining the hole

 I targeted the tails of the pools and the feeder runs with hook-ups in the likely spots.  12 out of the 18 fish to hand were surface strikes on the adams, it was fun to see the fish on the surface in the cold weather. I fished for 2½ hrs for about a ½ mile until Skidmore fork joined the dry from the left, a mountain stream climbing toward the reservoir.  The right hand fork of the Dry (smaller) looked like it continued to roughly parallel 33 but had only barely fishable flow.

Good sized mature brookie in full colors

I could hear 33 to my right so I walked out and found myself only about 150 yards from the road.  I emerged by a red gate on the right-hand side of the road, so next time I’ll walk in from here and explore the next upstream section (Skidmore Fork) as it ascends towards the damn.  I love this river.

One the fewer riffled sections of the upper Dry...doesn't much prettier than this

Skidmore Fork is on the left Dry River ebbs off to the right behind the log on right

Anything but a Dry River

Brookie au natural @ Dry River

Scott had explored Dry River several times, so on our way to West Virginia we decided to hit it together for a few hours.  Dry River is located a stretch west of Harrisonburg alongside Rt 33 in the George Washington National Forest before it ascends the first mountain ridge into West Virginia.  Where we fished it it’s actually a tail-water providing a baseline cold flow year-round. We fished a ½ mile in an upper section but there was at least another mile upstream of where we exited (towards the dam) and our suspicion is that that area (owing to its relative inaccessibility) must be great fishing.  We parked at one of the many cutouts off 33, Scott rigged his Orvis Superfine 7'6" 1 wt and I rigged my 2 wt rod and we trekked 100 yards through the woods to a marshy section.  Even though the surrounding forest was soggy, the stream was well defined and downed trees and heavy cover made for small pools and protected runs requiring planned approaches and delicate casts. 
We had fish on within the first 5 minutes.

The Dry at this point is not a Shenandoah style plunge-pool stream, but a heavily forested, gentle gradient stream 10-15 feet wide and 6-18 inches deep.   Throwing small dries and tiny droppers we began to pick up small, gorgeous, hungry native Brook Trout immediately. 

After experimenting, the best set-up was a size 16 Purple Parachute Adams with a  trailer 18 inches behind of a size 20 pheasant tail nymph.  Most of these water-color beautiful brookies were in the 3-5 inch range, but as we leapfroged upstream scouting for each other we  found larger brookies waiting in ambush. At one point as we stealthfully cast from bent knee I caught a 3-inch brook which was ambushed by a 12-13 inch brookie who materialized 5 feet in front of  me.  Scott and I both witnessed the splashing melee and will remember it as a treat worth the drive!  Throughout our 3 hours on the Dry we had multiple doubles and marveled at each turn as yet another pool or run awaited our flies.  Not sure when – but we’ll be sure to come back.

Without overstating the fact, the Dry River is one of Virginia's top native brook trout waters.

Knapp Creek 2013 ~ Awesome

Trusty Matt-tied Golden Retriever

Scott met Mark Mitchell in the store 2 years ago and last year Mark invited Scott to his home in Marlinton, WV for two days of fishing. Scott, being the good soul that he is (or maybe he just tolerates me ‘as a carry me out of the river insurance policy’) asked if I could tag along and so began the blessing which is Mark Mitchell and the gem of a stream (Knapp Creek) that flows beside his family home in Marlinton. Mark invited Scott (and I) again this past week and we jumped at the opportunity, you see, Mark stocks his limited access section of creek with rainbows whose purpose in life seems to be putting a permanent smile on all those lucky enough to fish there.

Scott and I had began the day in NOVA, then hit Dry River then made our way up and over another 4 ridge lines west into West Virginia and hit Knapp Creek at 1530. Being familiar with the creek from last year’s adventure we waded the horseshoe ending up at Mark’s home racing the darkening shadows that chased us as the sun disappeared over the ridge and the cool November air turned cold. The river cobble & slate-slab creek was gin clear and 6-8 inches lower than we remembered it channelizing the rainbows in identifiable pools and runs. We began picking up 13-14 inch rainbows in the first pool and darkness settled before the bite stopped in an awesome late afternoon of fishing.

I used a recently tied golden retriever on a size 12/ 3x streamer hook for all the fish I caught. Scott had equal enjoyment using an old Orvis family heirloom bamboo fly rod his dad won in a New Hampshire fishing tournament in 1964. Its full flex action gave him some casting exercise and required a Paul Bunyan sized hook set, but he didn’t seem to care as he brought in the trout... old school fishing tackle.

4 pools above Mark’s house at the upper honey hole on the straightaway I hooked into a 21” 5 lb rainbow that has etched a permanent grin on my face. Thanks Mark! He was so big that I couldn’t hold him with two hands and had to press him against my breadbasket to restrain him for the obligatory trophy picture. After the sun set we ate at a local diner (Dorries …have the hot roast beef sandwich) and retired to Mark’s for MNF a warm fire and a few beverages. Tuesday morning began with coffee and another run of the horseshoe. Scott’s luck, good on the first day, was even better the second and using a familiar Orvis Access 4wt and a white wolly bugger began an

epic 5 hour stretch of rainbow success. I switched later to white buggers when it was apparent that they were the ticket but the big fish and numbers on day two belonged to Scott. By my count he had 2 +18 inch trout and another one that was every bit as big as my monster (20"+) a day earlier. Funny – I tried to net two of his fish and my net was too small -- even curved/folded over the net wouldn’t hold these monsters! True to form (when we’re lucky) we both caught a fish on our final casts and scaled the river at Mark’s house concluding an unforgettable two day span of fishing.

Scott's river monster ~ Jeremy would be proud!