Last Lick on the North Fork

Lovely weather greeted James and I at the North Fork today, the fish were not active the weather having turned and the water cooling rapidly, but we still had a great relaxing 4.5 hours on one of our favorite rivers.   Enjoy this photo tour...

Thanks for photo fishing with us

Get some mud on your tires :-)

Salt Water Recon

When you fish blue lines it's usually definable, the upper Rapidan, Devils Ditch, etc.  so I was abit overwhelmed when Fritz, Jacob and I arrived to fish, "the lower Chesapeake" there's so much water in that descriptor that it would take a lifetime to fish it all so what we bit off was a survey of several definable fisheries.   Fritz with some time on his hands!!! dove into fishing blogs and found Lynnhaven Inlet located just south and east of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel (CBBT) in Virginia Beach.

Lynnhaven Inlet Broadly brodered by 225, 264 & 279

After a long slog from NOVA we slid our two canoes into Lynhaven at 0930 under piercing blue skies and an outgoing tide.  Lynnhaven provides temporary shelter for many ocean species but is know as a nursery for puppy drum and to a lesser degree, speckled trout, stripers and flounder.  We came armed with medium-spinning gear and all manner of soft plastics rigged with jig heads + 8wt fly rods hoping to find fish with our spinning rigs and catch a few on long rods. This is lovely water but again there's so much of it it was hard for us to target and after 5 unfruitful hours we only had a 12" blue fish to our name, caught on a spinner bait.   We learned to bring a cast net and to be prepared to fish cut bait on circle hooks just off the grass beds if we wanted puppy drum and that besides a resident population of small trout the trout season here warms up in October.

Stymied and sun/water burned we headed back across the 64 bridge/tunnel to beat the tide of traffic and try our luck just over the Rt 17 bridge northeast of Gloucester, VA at Browns Bay.   The always amazing site of big deck carriers in port at Norfolk was over our left hand shoulder as we crossed the bridge.

Browns bay feels about as far away as you can get from NOVA and civilization, this is the land that time forgot and I suspect that 45 did pretty well in this rural area.    The water was just beautiful as we paddled out from the boat launch you can see at 8:30 in the map below, but despite a few exciting top water attacks we couldn't put a fish in the boat.

After retiring back to Williamsburg we 'watered' down at Buffalo Wild Wings and settled into our quickly scheduled fantasy draft...who knows, maybe less research will lead me to victory....it frequently seems to work for brother Tim! Friday morning found us again crossing the Rt 17 Bridge  Yorktown to Gloucester and heading even further into remote Virginia.   A new fishing friend had sent us a link to a kayaking adventure where the boaters commented that their were fishing jumping out of the water -- not today as the winds raised serious whitecaps on the water and we were relegated to small canal/inlets to avoid the wind.   We did find some predator fish slashing prey fish but we couldn't get themk to bite (boy did we try).

All in all this was a great recon where we learned some lessons and reinforced how much there is that we don't know and how much water is in the lower Chesapeake watershed...amazing diversity.   Next time I plan to invest in a guide as much for the education as for the fish.

Savage

Seven ridge lines west the Savage River Reservoir is tucked into the mountains just west of South Savage Mountain and just East of Deep Creek MD and  the upper reaches of the Youghiougheny River.   It's a strong MD holdout of pristine water and native brook trout.   Below the reservoir there's trophy trout water but above the feeding into the reservoir are 92 miles of gloriously unimpeded trout streams allowing trout to enjoy both the safety of the reservoir and the cooler tributaries in the summer.   I called Savage River Outfitters before I came and co-owner Paul answered from the base of the Wind River Range in WY.   He said that if I liked the SNP Blue lines I'd be right at home on the tribs leading into the reservoir.   He wasn't wrong.

It's a 3+hr drive from NOVA and I arrived at the damn at 0930, the trophy tailwater will have to wait for another day but it struck me as a freestone tailwater that would require care and planning as the water would be rushing through a very rocky riverbed. As you look at the trib-hollows in the map above the each one deserves attention less Dry Run which while not dry is just too skinny to be very fishy.   I slid in to the first trib, the Cranberry which joins the reservoir at 7:00 with a 2wt dry-dropper setup and high expectations. After meaty brookies slapped my dry I took off the pheasant tail dropper and caught 6 handsome brookies in 20 minutes.   The rest of the day was spent survey fishing each trib, I won't give away all the knowledge I gained here , but I'd be happy to show you.

Of Mayfly and Snake

It's true that you never find the same river and the river never bathes the same long rodder.   Paul, James, Henry and I slid into the warm lick of the South Fork in what seemed like ideal conditions then struggled to match our
catch-rate from previous adventures in these fine waters.   Our history of extraordinary success on this slice of the river makes 'normal' days seem like lean times.  This trip was highlighted by Henry's broad smile as he
tested the standing/stability of his new JK Mayfly kayak.  We all hoped he'd have a learning curve and take a YouTube-worthy fall, but the mayfly was stable and combined with Henry's agility we were robbed of any yard sale
memories.   I picked up smallies on my H Fork 5wt with both golden retrievers and small tubes presented with a 1/32oz jig head, but the strike rate was low.   In retrospect my streamer, stripping and swinging, tactics
didn't allow my offerings to get deep enough in the water column as the fish were laying deep below the 80 degree current layer.   As Paul, James and I were eating lunch and lamenting our low catches Henry arrived from upstream
beaming..."Hey mates how're ya doing? I just had the most amazing time!" He'd adapted and introduced heavily weighted offerings on long leaders to cut/sink through the current and meet the bass in the deeper holes and runs
and had been hooking good sized bass every other cast.    We all more or less adopted his tactics and when we got to the next section that offered deeper waters we met with increased success.

  

At the end, life is but a collection of memories, find your river and make some.

North Fork Deluge

I won't get back on a river 'til August 5th so I jumped at Paul's invitation to hit the river Saturday. I wanted to get home to see my Jenny so we only spent 6 on the water and we had a great time.   We slid in at the low water bridge off Rt 609 and tubed and yak'd through the first two hundred yards where before we wet a line and immediately began to pick up feisty smallies.   As compared with the South Fork we decided on 'more intimate' as the best way to describe the North Fork.  This 2.5 mile horseshoe is loaded and provides some all kinds of opportunities.  I love swinging streamers through the riffles and caught more than my share, but the deeper, cooler pools were stacked with swarms of smallies and it was hard to leave them.

As my 4 hr time limit came and went I started pushing toward the takeout and we got a taste of what Noah must have known ... driving, heavy rain the kind you just laugh at and enjoy, what else is there to do?  We packed up in the driving rain, the jeep did not care and I headed home.   Paul on the other hand had the whole day so waked back up the river and caught another bushel or two for another 6 hours!  He caught two 12-inchers and hooked into a 18/19" only to have it break his line....what a great place. 

It's less about catching numbers of fish 

and more about journeying to the point 

where you get the strike.