Furloughed on the Shenandoah

Fall fishing on the North Branch of the Shenandoah near Edinburg was like biting into a great apple, crisp, fresh and cleansing as I left the headaches of DC.

The water was clear and as low as I've ever experienced it on the North Branch. I parked in the usual spot and headed upstream past the cottages and stepped into the water by the bend in the road. I began sweeping a double-dropper tandem with my 5wt, but quickly found that the water was too low and the weight too much for the low flow. I switched to a blue size 6 popper trailed by a trusty size 8 green barrel-head nymph. This produced the first smallie of the day, but not before I left the riffles and got to the top of the deep hole/lake. This approach was not very exciting as there wasn't any top water action and the popper just served to suspend the nymph like a bobber.

Now that I was in the (always deeper than you think) lake I tied on my recently tied kreelex. I liked fishing the kreelex as it's very visible in the water but got no takers. I finally broke the code when I switched to a single size 8 chocolate beadhead bugger/leech. While I was getting a snack I watched it (unattended) bounce on the bottom drawing interest and light strikes. For the rest of the morning I focused on fishing a single beadhead in visible holes and setting the hook when I saw the bass breathe in the bugger. I probably caught 12-15 bass in this oddly effective fashion.

I also saw carp, catfish, and several monster smallies but they paid my bugger-nymph'ing no attention. I left at noon after 3.5 hours glorious hours on the river.