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.

Furloughed....but on the Rapidan

Trout were holding just below the oxygenated water atop the pool

With all my fishing partners working I headed to the Rapidan by myself to make the most of my furlough fishing opportunity.  I headed into SNP and didn't see another car all day!  I parked just upstream of the second bridge and fished upstream. The water was cooler than I expected, gin clear and low. 

Colorful brookie

I decided to fish this section as the flow was so low I knew it would have been even lower another mile upstream.  I began fishing w my 2-wt with a 14 adams and an 18 prince dropper.  I switched to several other dry/dropper

Attractor pattern was best fly of the day

combinations and all I could stir for the first 45-minutes were the fingerlings. I decided to study the water in a pool where I knew there were fish.  As I was studying the water the trout appeared beneath me after a few minutes.  

Camoflaged in the falling leaves

While I was waiting I tied on a longer 6X tippet and cut off some butt section of my leader that had developed memory curls that harmed my presentation.  I decided to try a drift dry presentation with a #14 attractor pattern and that along with a much more stealthy approach allowed me to start picking up bigger brookies (all relative) almost exclusively at top of the pool-riffles or within a foot of the riffles bubbles.  I fished for 4.5 hours and in addition to a half dozen 2-inchers, ended the day with 12 smallish colorful brookies.  I left the stream just upstream of campsite 10 and walked back to the truck.  This section filled with endless small punges and pools is, I think, my favorite stretch of the river. 

Blue Springs Creek -- Small Water-Big Trout

Let me just start with this picture and you get the idea.  I mean... seriously - a 7 lb rainbow! Damn amazing I tell you.

I've been wanting to take my father-in-law Hans fly fishing for some time now and this past Monday and Tuesday we blocked our schedules and headed west (out I-66) then south (I-81),,, five hours later we found Blue Springs Creek.  I had guided for Hans on a Project Healing Waters (he's an Air Force vet) trip to West Virginia last winter and we released the trout caught on that trip.  Hans was looking for a few for the cooler on this trip, and though I haven't kept a trout in about 30 years, in the spirit of keeping good relations in the family, I agreed,,, and even had the pleasure of cleaning them!


Blue Springs Creek is a pay per fishery like many other prime trout waters in the state.  It seems King George's landowner rights from the 1700s have turned many farmers into trout fishing entrepreneurs in the 21st Century.  The country landscape of SW Virginia is magnificent and this little gem of a creek wove its way thru a little valley (they call them hollows out there) with the Blue Ridge mountains all around.

  The water was low,,, as many trout waters in the state are experiencing similar conditions, but the water temp was refreshingly cold from the numerous natural springs in the area.  The creek wove thru a scenic field and the trout holes were fairly easy to discover. Though the low water conditions made it fairly easy to find the fish, finding what they would eat took work - lots of it sifting thru multiple fly boxes.

After drifting all the usual suspects in the nymph category -- Prince, Copper John, Zebra Midge, Pheasant Tail, Black Stonefly, Hare's Ear -- it was clear they were not interested.
Out next came the streamer boxes, and after much trial and error, we struck on a combination of flies that produced the best results.  Those flies were my hand-tied Kreelex streamer and Golden Retriever.


The fish caught were big, strong, feisty and hard chargers.  For proof, there are several trout swimming in that creek today with flies in the corner of their mouths with broken 4X tippet.
Here are a few who didn't break off.

Not to be left out, there were a couple of Brookies in the mix, like this 15+ inch beauty.

We did have one double hook up during the trip.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A return trip to this little gem of a creek will be in the 2014 trip plans.

 

 

A successful day fly fishing

Vintage Rose River Trout Fishing

We all like to catch trout. Matt and I are no different.  Sometimes we catch lots of trout. Sometimes we catch big trout.  And every once in a while we catch lots of big trout.  Such was our trip to Rose River on Wednesday.  My brother Marc and his son Jason traveled down from New Hampshire hoping to take in the best of Virginia trout fishing, and the four of us found ourselves in Madison County on one of the state's premier trout streams.

 Though the water was a bit low, we found fish holding in all the likely haunts -- undercut banks, faster rifles, deeper holes.... the usual suspects.

After spending the first couple of hours experimenting with the right fly combination and with only a few fish landed, we seemed to have cracked the code for the river for this day.  A #10 white woolly bugger and/or a #10 Golden Retriever proved to be the top producing flies.

 As Matt and I have prior experience on the river from past trips through Project Healing Waters and Orvis, we helped Marc & Jason initially in seeking out the best holes and runs.  As the day progressed, they were successfully fending for themselves, taking off downstream and finding and landing lots of 14-17 inch beautiful rainbow and brook trout.

All told, each of us landed and released more than a dozen trout apiece.  An awesome day!

But instead of writing about it, check out the pics below.

Matt with a nice rainbow.

 Jason fighting a rainbow.

Marc with another beautiful rainbow before releasing it back to the river.

A classic Rose River rainbow.

Scott joining the trout catching festivity.

 The New Hampshire boys will be taking some terrific memories back to the Granite State.

"Live Free or Die

These are not the same fish!

Not many streams in New England offer this kind of fly fishing!

Fish on!

Fish on... again!

Rose River at the base of the Shenandoah Mountains

Rainbows on Beaver Creek

With bass season winding down and the Shenandoah National Park not producing bigger brookies (at least not yet), I headed up (or down) the I-81 corridor this morning and headed over to Beaver Creek.
In the past Beaver has provided both lights out fast-action fishing and some frustratingly slow action.... I was anxious to see what today would bring.

     

I arrived at the store about 6:10 a.m. --   first one there -- so far so good.  I headed to the creek and sat in my truck and drank some coffee into the morning twilight.  I rigged up while it was still dark and tossed on a big heavy #6 Kreelex I tied a couple weeks ago thinking the fish will be aggressive while it's still dark out.  They were.  A hard strike on the second cast and "fish on" with the third cast.  Nice start to the morning... and the sun was not yet on the horizon.


That fish thrashed up and down the hole and I figured the hole was spooked so I ventured upstream and put on a nymph rig with a San Juan Worm trailed by a Copper John.  It wasn't long before I had another nice hookup and another beautiful rainbow brought to hand.

The bite slowed after that.  I picked up a couple of fallfish and a smallmouth bass, but no more trout until I got to the upstream end of the creek where it passes under the road.  I changed up my fly combo and tied a size 20 RS2 as the trailer.  Probably the best hookset of the day and one more rainbow landed after a spirited battle.

 I fish my way back downstream again. The water was off color today.... not a chocolate blown out look but more of a milky, chalky look -- not sure what the cause, but the creek had a different feel.

Finally I ended back where I started. I had fished about 4 hours and was ready to call it a morning but I wanted to try and hook one more fish.  Luckily I found a local guide who put me on to my last fish.

 He followed me the entire length of the creek and several times I heard him yelp -- I'm sure from busting thru his electric fence barrier!  I'll need to bring some dog treats next time I revisit.

Last fish of the day.

All in all a good morning.

0 for 17 Hole on the Rapidan

Father Time has a way of creeping up on us sometimes when we don't even realize it.  The Rapidan today showed that Father Time is knocking on the door. 
I had the opportunity to fish with my friend Paul today. For some time we talked about getting together and finally our schedules aligned and the Rapidan was our mutual first choice as neither of us had been there since last spring.





The weather was fine, the water cool and a bit low but certainly fishable water.  Paul and I both started with our go-to flies --- a hand tied beetle for Paul and a dry-dropper combo of a Purple Parachute and Hare's Ear nymph for me.  On Paul's second cast he hooked a Rapidan beauty, and for a moment we thought this might be one of those lights out days...... but the brookies had other plans.

We had steady hits on our flies all morning, but the hooksets proved more challenging than either of had had encountered previously.  Which brings us to the 0-17 Hole!  Midway up the section of stream we were working, we found a nice looking run that provided just enough room for the both of us to alternate casts into the gin clear water.  The action went something like this.... "damn, missed him.... hmmm missed that one.... no way...... not again..... you've got to be kidding me" and so on until we had a combined 17 strikes,,, and not one fish to show for it! 
Two former college athletes (with what once was ,but clearly is not now) quick reflexes and yet these wily trout were too fast, too quick, and dare I say too smart for us today.  That said, we had a blast.  Though the fish landed were 10-15 apiece, the action and interest was steady.  Paul's beetle proved to be the top fly today. I took more subsurface on Hare's Ears and Princes with the Purple Parachute yielding only a few to fish to hand.
If you ever get a chance, hit the Rapidan River -- what a scenic beautiful little mountain stream.

Cold but beautiful on the Shenandoah

Bryan works the Trico in the pool just below the low-water damn

Bryan and I had been looking to sneak a fish in for awhile so on Saturday morning we met in Haymarket and headed out to the North Fork of the Shenandoah east of Edinburg.  It was beautiful as we hit the water at 0815 but a cold snap had hit the night before and the air was significantly colder than the water.  Bryan joked that he was so chilly he put his hands in the water to warm up.  We fished down stream casting across the river to the deep bank and were constantly reminded that the water here is so clear its MUCH deeper than it looks. 

It doesn't get much prettier than this

We were both fishing 5 wts casting streamers.  It was apparent to me that this wasn't going to be another 100 fish outing on this great stretch of river but we still had a great time.  I tried every streamer combo I could think of and ultimately had the most success with a double black-bugger tandem.  Bryan quickly moved from my double streamer recommendation to a single streamer setup and had more catching success than I did using a #6 or 8 Trico streamer. 

Here's the nicest fish caught for the day by Bryan on that Trico.  After we reached the low water damn we fished just below the small island and walked back up the jeep path the truck.