First VAMFF Trip to Rapidan River in '09

Sunday, Rich, Kyle, and I hit up the Rapidan for our first day up in the Shenandoah National Park of the season.  Thanks to the three days of warm weather and the slightly increased water levels, the conditions were perfect.  Central Virginia has been going through quite a drought lately.  If you check out the USGS data from the area, you'll see that the mean daily discharge is for a river like the Rapidan is at least 600 cfs, but lately we've been seeing discharges of about 200 cfs.  Regardless, the warm weather led to several hatches occurring while we were out on the river.

From what I could tell, I tried to take pictures of the flies to post on here, it looked like we had some black caddis and blue wing olive flies hatching Sunday.  Here's some great footage of this fly in all of its forms (I apologize for the absolutely terrible narration):

For more information about the caddis, be sure to check out Rich's post, The (mighty) Caddis, from a little while ago.  As for the BWOs, I only saw a few so it was by no means a heavy hatch.  Still we seemed to all have more luck throwing out BWO patterns, quill gordons, and Mr. Rapidan parachute adams than we did with elk hair caddis flies.  

Rich fishing a slow moving pool

I won't start spouting off numbers here, but we caught plenty of fish to make the day perfect (it would have been a great day even without the fish as any day out on the river is better than a day in the library studying).  Here's a couple more shots taken with my iphone of the trip.  I really need to get a good camera for these trips...

Largest brookie of the day, pretty long but not too fat, obviously was hungry

Kyle's first brookie ever from the Rapidan (who cares if it's small, he got it literally on his second cast out.  Either that's some great beginner's luck or the guy's got skills)

Check out the beautiful spots on this guy!

Again, this was still a really early trip into the Park.  I expect the fishing to heat up even more by mid-April.  If any other VAMFF members want to hit it up in the near future, let Rich and I know, as we'll gladly take y'all up there again.  

Mr. Rapidan Himself

Rich has successfully caused me to spend hours this week thinking about fly fishing instead of physiology and neurology. Okay, actually it's probably my fault.

More importantly, however, is that he keeps mentioning some great flies. First the Kreelex and now another favorite of mine, the Mr. Rapidan. And just how the Kreelex was designed by a local fly fishing star so was the Mr. Rapidan.

Harry Murray, owner of Murray's Fly Shop in Edinburg, Virginia has created several versions of this successful attractor pattern (meaning that it is a general pattern and doesn't necessarily match a specific hatch). Also, Harry's quite the expert on smallmouth bass fishing. In fact, I read his book, Fly Fishing for Smallmouth Bass, from cover to cover several times before I realized that he was also the creator of the Mr. Rapidan. The man has invented so many successful bass flies and trout flies that I'm pretty sure he's already reserved himself a spot up in fly fishing hall of fame next to Norman Maclean and Izaak Walton. So if you want to talk to a real expert (I've yet to meet him, though I plan to stop by his shop next week so I can ask him a couple questions about floating the Shenandoah for smallies) feel free to head over to his shop, check out his blog, or even some of his Youtube videos...

So why is the Mr. Rapidan such a popular fly for use up in the mountain streams of the Shenandoah National park? I think the reason is because it can cover several different types of hatches. The wild brookies in the park are, in my opinion (Rich may disagree), enterprising in their eating habits. I think this is mainly due to their living situations. With briskly moving water pushing through small pools, these fish don't get the luxury of being picky eaters (like those damn cats who eat fancy feast...god, I hate cats.) Granted, there is some selection going on. To be successful, your flies need to be at least the same size as the other flies that flow past these fish and ideally look vaguely like them (meaning they have all of the appropriate vital signs... a wing, hackle that imitates legs, tail, etc.). But everything other than that is pretty much fair game for these brookies.

Last year I even experimented with using differently colored wings and body dubbing (absurd colors like bright blue and pink) and was still able to catch fish. But still, in my opinion, I've been way more successful with the Mr. Rapidans and my number one favorite, the Elk Hair Caddis. So be sure to stock up on the successful dry flies that Rich mentioned in his post and also, in my opinion bring some Adams, Parachute Adams, and Royal Wulffs. And of course we'll be posting more details on these flies as we find time to.

Finally, for those of you who enjoy tying your own, get your hands on some yellow calf tail and check out these fairly straightforward instructions.

photo courtesy of Rob O'Reilly via Hipwader