Powells Creek Bass Scout

I had always looked with interest at Powells Creek as it passed beneath Route 1 and headed by the Wawa on its way to the Potomac so when James and I were looking at a quick fish this nearby creek was the answer.

First Pool at the Wawa Parking Lot

I was interested in seeing how similar it would be to Pohick Creek 7 miles north.  I found that it was very similar less the additional water in Pohick from the treatment plant.  James and I rigged up in the heat of the day in the Wawa parking lot and made a path through the grass to the small creek.  The creek was alive with small schooling bait fish and in the first pool we noticed a lunker-bucketmouth patrolling a 30-inch deep pool.  With the prospect of hooking this lunker we headed upstream away from him to take a few practice casts and square away our gear.  I spotted for James who was using a 8.5" 5wt Classic

Downstream Pool with under cut bank across the stream

Fenwick glass rod and a size 4 black and white popper. We didn't catch anything in the pool and ended up pushing the bass downstream.  James followed, noticed the lunker, cast for him a few times and finally got him to hit the popper!  The bass thrashed violently heading for structure, James turned him back upstream and I ran down to take alittle video.  James played the bass for about a minute until he took a violent side-thrash and broke the tippet.  Big smiles for all.  We fished for another 45 minutes, encountered several small water snakes a snakehead and all the pan fish we cared to catch.  I'll continue to explore this nearby fishery and hopefully catch my own bucket mouth, but the afternoon's great fish belonged to James.  

Conway, Staunton, Conor and Pizza

I was meeting Conor to fish at 1330 so I took advantage of the morning and hit the upper Conway from the 667 ford upstream.

even the water can't hide those spots

Be careful if you fish the Conway as a high clearance vehicle is now required after the rains have washed deep gullies in the narrow mountain road. 


I began the day with a dry-dropper combo but quickly moved to just dry presentations as all my takes today were on the surface. The bite was slow and steady. The water was optimal (low) and the trout easily spooked.

#16 stimulator pattern was the fly of the day

No fish were in the shallower tails of the pools (I spooked many out of the tails with my approach) and the majority hit in the standard backeddys at the upper riffles. I didn't catch any browns and think that the brown population decreases the further upstream one fishes. I tried all sorts of dry flies in an attempt to boost my strike rate and though I caught trout on all the dries a #16 parachute stimulator worked best.

Conway Brookie in her element

Interestingly the trout brought to hand got bigger the further upstream I fished with the largest (9") coming on the last cast of the morning. At noon I made my way back to the jeep and found that fishing slowly I had spent 3 hours covering only 300 yards of river. I drove back down through Graves Mill to Wolf Run Mercantile Store and waited for Conor. We shared a sub from the ladyfolk at the store and headed back towards Graves mill for the Staunton River.

Conor on the Staunton

We rigged up and headed up the access trail with the shimmering Rapidan River inviting us to linger on our right. We stayed true to our plan and found the Staunton after a 10 minute walk. The Staunton was low but as it's spring fed at its headwater it holds a decent volume year round. I was planning on great success but the bite was off and as the Staunton is very skinny and technical we found the tree limbs more often than we'd care to admit.

meaty brookie

Even so Conor and I had a great time. I looked back at him carefully crawly over some boulders and urged him on to which he responded, "hey shorty, when you fall from up here it's a long way down."  We ended up catching a few brookies and turned around as an afternoon thunder banger closed in on us. We ended the day with a delicious pizza at a hole in the wall called 'Pie in the Sky' in Madison. All in all a great day.

does it get much prettier?

Dappled light on the Staunton

Snakeheads...OK no snakeheads

 

 Fritz, Jacob and I couldn't hook a snake but the three of us were fishing together on a lovely day so 90% of the day was perfect,  We had targeted the upper Occoquan at the Fall line as we'd seen snakes, caught, shot and snagged there.

Just above where we fished

The day was beautiful and the water was just low enough in this tricky area to be fishable.  We didn't have any luck right out of the gate but as the sun came up the fish started biting.  Catfish! This area has AMAZING diversity and in the pool we were fishing we've seen or caught, largemouth, shad, panfish, stripers, carp, snakehead and American eels. Our new find today was gar.  Huge gar, every-bit of 3-4 feet long and rising right in front of us, they appeared to be eating small bait fish that wandered into their elongated toothy grins.

FatCat!

We fished for 4 hours and Jacob easily outfished Fritz and I.  Together  we caught 15+ catfish ranging in size from 12-20 inches.  The highlight of the day was Jacobs catch of a 24" eel.   Thanks for taking that one off Fritz.

Excitable Eel