Connections: Medicine and Fly Fishing

I recently had the pleasure of talking with Richard Formato, one of the top fly fishermen in the country, the other day about his new project which coincidentally is just the kind of thing we're all about here at VMFF (ie. fly fishing and medicine).

In case you haven't watched the Outdoor, Versus, or ESPN Outdoors channels at all, you may not realize what fishing shows consist of.  Most of what you can find out there consists of close up shots of huge fish hauled in using the "newest and most technologically advanced" lure the world has ever seen.  In my opinion, fishing just hasn't translated to the big screen as well as other sports.  Televised golf, for instance, has been able to capture some of what golf is about: slow panning shots of a fairway, the hushed voice of a sports commentator describing how smooth a back swing is, the close in views of a golfer as he intensely examines the subtle curves of a green, the quiet applause of spectators acknowledging a job well done.  Fishing shows, on the other hand, have missed the point.  Case and point: Bill Dance


Fortunately for the fishing community, I think Richard Formato may have a way to help turn things around.  Richard has just recently begun putting together a show about what fishing is really about; trying to show how therapeutic it can be to be out on the river making long deliberate casts to captious trout.  For example, in the trailer for the show, The Healing Stream (watch it here), Richard helps an Iraq veteran learn how to use fly fishing as a way to help in the healing process.  They also pull in what looks to be like some pretty decent brookies.  (On that note, I'll have to figure out where they were filming so I can plan some future excursions.)

Screenshot from The Healing Stream's trailer

Hopefully in the near future, we'll get to watch more of Richard's work and see more about how fly fishing can be an effective form of therapy.  Keep on the look out for more about this and help spread the word!

Longnose Gar on the Fly: Rivanna River

Yet again the Rivanna proves how awesome it is. This past week I was fortunate enough to find a few huge longnose gar to throw flies at. I would equate it to flat fishing for reds (although I've yet to actually catch a red, thanks Rich for continuing to rub it in). I had several successful casts which put my flies right in front of these prehistoric fish but was unable to elicit and serious bites. A green CK baitfish allowed me my first bite but the fish didn't commit. Finally, after sifting through my whole bass fly box, I turned to a white streamer I made to mimic Harry Murray's streamer, the Murray Marauder. Turns out that white flies with tons of action do the trick. I had several follows and hits before finally getting a solid hook set. It was a big guy.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40626436@N00/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

Five minutes later, after a fight that reminded me of my trip to the Delaware river, I carefully landed the gar. Unfortunately, as luck would have it, I was camera-less this trip out so I'll have to make do with exaggerations about how big it was. The gar must have been about 30 inches. Perhaps longer. Unfortunately, that snout really makes it tough to estimate the fish's size accurately so I may be way off. Regardless, it was an awesome fight and a great fish to pull in with a flyrod. I highly recommend it.

Late Night TV Host Conan O'Brian's Attempt at Brownlining

As I was fervently avoiding studying for the Pathology final, I tuned in to Conan last night and was delighted to see that he and his buddy, Andy Richter, decided to take a trip to the Los Angeles River. As you will see in the clip below, they attempted (a very generous use of the word) to fly fish.

Not one of his best gigs, but I enjoyed the fact that they even thought to include a second or two of them trying to throw lines.

Reminded me that I also saw some Hollywood fly fishing a while ago on the new show, Kings. Never actually see the actor throw out a cast but whatever river he's "fishing" looks phenomenal.

Rapidan Camp

Last week I decided to spend two days out on the Rapidan in the upper portions just past the Rapidan Camp. The Rapidan Camp was where the senior members of Hoover's staff stayed while Hoover and his family resided in the main cabin during summer trips. Today, the Rapidan Camp is a cooperative campground while Hoover's main cabin is a tourist attraction in the park.

Back in the day, I was researching the history of Rapidan Camp and came across some awesome footage of President Hoover fishing the Rapidan. He allowed a bunch of reporters to come and videotape him. Impressingly, he was still able to catch fish. Of course, I wouldn't say his one-handed technique is the best i've ever seen.

Pretty amazing footage. This video comes courtesy of C-SPAN's Presidential Libraries. To check out more videos of him fishing and hanging out around Camp Rapidan, check out the C-SPAN site.

Now on to the fishing report. Temperatures were high. During the afternoon, the air temperatures soared to around 95 degrees. This really pushed the brookies deep. But once the heat broke in the late afternoon, fishing really picked up. Each hole started producing 4-5 brookies of average size with a couple 10 inchers feeding in the back eddys. By the end of the first day, I'd probably pulled in over 30 fish.

The next morning, due to poor sleeping conditions (it was too hot for a sleeping bag) I woke up and started fishing around 6 a.m. I now intend on getting out to the river that early on my future trips as the fishing was on fire. The upper portions of the river above Rapidan Camp held many more fish than the lower sections in my opinion. The fish were all about 7-9 inches but I didn't see any of the lunkers (a relative term) like the ones you can find in the lower sections. They were all actively feeding on top and quickly took to my improved parachute adams (I started using a two-toned parapost on my parachute adams to help make then even more visible).

The particular highlight of the morning was one pool where I remained sitting on a boulder at the back end of the pool and from there I pulled in 5 9" brookies quickly from each of the feeding lanes that were present.

Great trip overall. I highly recommend you camp in the upper regions in order to get an early start on the fishing.

Of course, for now, the Rapidan is highly unfishable. All of this rain we've been getting (and will continue to get the rest of this week) have pushed the water levels dangerously high for fishing. Check out this USGS map of Virginia:

As you can see (the purple, blue, and light blue represent high, 90th percentile, and over 75th percentile respectively) the water levels in much of the state are extremely high. The Rapidan is running around 350 CFS, which is way over the 80th percentile.

So it's time to hold off on the fishing for a while. Perhaps studying pathology and pharmacology would be more worthwhile.

Rivanna/Shad Run/Rapidan Update

I'm going to try and make this as short as possible but a lot has happened in the past two weeks.

Two Mondays ago, after a productive day of studying at Shenandoah Joe (best coffee ever, if you haven't gone... go and get the Smoky Mountain Roast) the perfect weather forced me to go out and fish for a little while. I headed down to the Rivanna to see if the smallies were out feeding yet (had no luck), but I did happen to find out that with the muddy water being a little higher than normal... it gets hard to see where you're wading. Basically, I stepped into a huge pool and started getting pulled downriver with water seeping into my waders. I pulled my iphone out of my pocket quickly, fast enough to keep it from getting waterlogged, and found my way to the far shore. Pretty terrifying experience as anyone who has felt their waders filling up knows.

Drenched, mad, and fishless I starting trying to figure out how I was going to get back to the car, and with no clear path on the side of the river, I decided to hike up to railroad track and see where to go from there. On the tracks, I had two choices, I could 1. cross the bridge to get back to the path I had taken to get section of the river or 2. not be an idiot and go the other direction which may take longer but wouldn't cause me to play chicken with a train. (Below is were I was when this all happened, you can see the river, the train tracks and the bridge which I was considering crossing)

View Larger Map

Of course, thank god I chose the direction I did because just as I was stepping off the tracks towards the sketchy broken-down graffitti-laden C&O building, a coal train cruised by. The train scene from Stand By Me kept coming to mind...

I then spent the next week trying to get my Iphone fixed. It was pretty much functional. It just wouldn't recognize my SIM card. Basically, after heading to richmond, the ATT store in Cville, and having the "smart people" at IresQ.com tell me that they couldn't fix it for less than $438, I was able to fix it myself... for free. Apparently none of these geniuses thought to try a different SIM card holder.

The only good thing that came out of this whole phone fiasco was that I got to talk to the guys at the Richmond Orvis store about the shad run. Every year during the months of April and May, the hickory and american shad run up the James River to spawn. This allows fishermen to, if they get there when the conditions are best, to catch tons of fish. (I've added the location of the public access boat ramp in Richmond to our google map, if you're interested in going on your own.)

Unfortunately, my first attempt that next weekend at catching shad didn't turn out so well.

Problem 1: The water levels were still up from all the storms we've been having lately which made it feel more like being out on the bay than out on the river.

Problem 2: My fly line is a floating line. This made it extremely tough to get my flies down deep enough to reach the shad which tend to hold about 10 feet down. Practically no amount of line mending could get my fly to where they were.

Since I couldn't find a store that had the shooting heads or sink tips for a 5 wt. rod (shooting heads are heavy sinking lines that help in situations such as these and sink tips are cheaper weighted line that you can add to your existing line, Orvis makes some for a pretty good price... Check this out), I decided to make my own version of a sink tip. With some 12 lb monofilament and flytying lead wire, I constructed a fairly sturdy, heavy, and yet flexible section of line in hopes that it would do the trick.

Unfortunately, while it did work somewhat well considering how ridiculous it looked, it still didn't get my fly down deep enough and it had some trouble turning over my fly on the really long casts (which are harder in a kayak).

I did end up catching one hickory shad on a orange colored mr. twister curly tail grub. That's right, when I couldn't catch them fly fishing, I resorted to spincasting. The guys next to me had some deep diving green and orange tackle (which I saw and therefore was trying to copy with my set up) which brought in about 8 shad for them. Not many others out there had any luck though. I definitely need to go back another day when water levels are lower and with a sinking line.

Since I didn't have a camera with me (or a working Iphone), here's what a hickory shad looks like:

And here's a video that our local store owner, Gordon from Albemarle Angler, put up from his trip to the James (notice how calm the water was... I wish it was like that when I went)

Finally, this past Thursday as I was preparing to head to the library, my friend Lena just had to mention how perfect the weather was outside. This caused me to completely change plans and instinctively head out to the Rapidan.

It was a perfect day for fishing. There were several hatches going on. From what I could tell, there were still BWOs coming off the water, some midges, and Hendricksons. Best of all, the fish were sipping flies off the surface all over the place. Since there were so many different types of flies hatching, I had a difficult time figuring out what I was going to throw at them. My new darkdun and tan snowshoe caddis patterns caught a few fish each. Parachute adams did as well. But I had the most luck with some red-bellied humpies. This was mainly because the water levels were just a little higher than normal and the section I was fishing had particularly rough water (which apparently hid a greater number of large fish). For those of you who don't know, humpies are extremely good at floating and will do a better job of staying on the surface than practically any other dry fly.

In water levels like this, it's definitely harder to fish with dry flies. In retrospect, I should have stuck to nymphs, but hell, it's springtime and it's hard not to want to see a fish soar out of the depths to attack your size 18 fly.

One of my most exciting hook ups occurred as I was standing above a deep pool trying to mend my line over a small waterfall. On my second drift, as the fly got near the waterfall, I saw the big guy attack my fly but missed, most likely because of the rough water conditions. Excited I tried several more times, but with no take. On my last attempt, I started raising my line up and literally had my fly a couple inches above the water when I saw the brookie take flight after my humpy. I had never experienced something like that before. I set the hook and for a second feared that I had mishooked him in the side or something during his acrobatic show of hunger and determination. Fortunately, once I pulled him in, I found my fly set in his mouth (and pretty deep in there as well... I had to use my hemostats to get it unhooked). All in all, probably one of the coolest experiences I've had fly fishing.

Here's the brookie before I returned him back into his pool:

Overall, it's been an interesting two weeks. I'm definitely looking forward to the second spring break session after finals. VAMFFers, look forward to a couple trips during the earlier part of the week before I head to the Delaware River on the 29th.

Finally a Connection Between Medicine and Fish

I'm pretty sure we raised a couple eyebrows at the Mulholland Society meeting in which the fate of our proposed medical fly fishing club was to be determined. I can just imagine the issues brought up... "What does this have to do with medicine?" "How will this help them get into competitive residencies?" "Who has time to fish when the USMLE 1 is only a year away?"

Thankfully they approved us, either out of pity or confused intrigue. But now, it appears we finally have some solid connections between medicine and flyfishing.

According to Scientific American, a recent study by the EPA and Baylor University researchers has found the presence of 7 pharmaceutical drugs in fish taken from rivers in Phoenix, Dallas, Chicago, West Chester, and Orlando. The drugs include norfluoxetine, diltiazem, and carbamazepine. So if you're feeling depressed, having seizures, and have high blood pressure... and you can't afford to hit up the pharmacy, why not go fishing?

I, on the other hand, am feeling pretty healthy so I'll just stick to the catch-and-release with barbless hooks. Unless it's crappie. For some reason, I have no qualms catching and keeping crappie. Perhaps it's the name.

Pic courtesy of UpNorth Memories - Donald Harrison

Epic Week of Fishing

Instead of spending exorbitant amounts of money on a trip to some exotic island or college spring break hot spot, Rich and I decided to spend our spring breaks fishing.  Tuesday we hit up the Moorman again only to find that a majority of the fly fishing section was iced over.  That, however, did not prevent us from having a great day out on the river.  We had a couple 'bows take to our size 20 comparaduns which was good to see.  The fish looked remarkably healthy as well; they were finally feeding on midges, and were no longer the fat and lazy farm raised fish we'd been throwing egg patterns at in the past couple weeks.  

We also got the opportunity to meet some of the guys involved in Project Healing Waters as they were hitting up the Moorman that day as well.  It looked like they too had a great day out on the river despite the ice.  

Wednesday, Rich and I set out on a tour of the northwestern part of Virginia.  We first met up with Harry Murray at his shop in Edinburg, VA.  He hooked us up with some fly tying supplies and crucial advice on float trips and fly fishing for smallies.  The man knows everything there is to know about Virginia fly fishing.  If you ever have any questions, ask him.  He'll know the answer.

Rich's tight casts below the overhanging tree were getting disrupted by an unexpected visitor...

We then met up with the Trow Brothers at their Mossy Creek store in Harrisonburg and purchased some kreinex for making kreelexs and just talked about how to best fish Mossy.  Great guys and also obviously know a lot about fly fishing.  It was really interesting to see the differences between the older generation of flyfisherman (Harry) and the newest generation (the Trows).  I wonder who would win in a fish-off between the two generations?

After that we hit up Mossy Creek with Richie's dad but we left empty handed.  I blame it on the dozens of muskrats, otters, and other wildlife that were active on the water that day.  It couldn't have been our fishing technique...

Thursday I then departed for southwest Virginia...Radford to be exact.  Friday, I spent the day out on Big Stony Creek and Little Stony Creek but with the torrential downpour and the cold weather, the trout were not too excited to chase the nymphs I was throwing past their heads.  Despite the lack of fish, it was great to finally check out these two rivers.  Hopefully when it warms up and the hatches start in April, I'll get a chance to return to them.  (And hopefully I'll have waders that actually prevent water from leaking into them)

I then set out with a fishing expert buddy of mine, Andrew; his wonderful dog, Taylor; and his three friends, Drew, Mike, and Danny, on a two day float trip down the New River.  It rained/snowed the whole time.  But thankfully, that meant it was perfect weather for muskies.  Overall, after all of the dip, whiskey, fish, wildlife, rapids, and campfire smoke, it was quite possibly the best all-american day i've ever had.  To top it all off, I caught my first muskie (not on a flyrod thank god).  

Me and my first muskie

When it was all said and done, it was quite the eventful week of fishing.  Good memories, good experiences, and a great chance to relax before the second half of the semester starts up.  

I don't know about you, but I'm definitely looking forward to the warmer weather and the caddis hatches in the Park.

Tight lines.

Check Out Our Google Map!

So we've embedded our map of our favorite fly fishing hot spots.  Currently, it's still pretty rough and we'll be adding more to it in the coming weeks.  But for now, try it out and get directions to some of the best places to put in at the local Virginia rivers.  

Credit goes solely to Rich who had the technical genius (aka computer nerd skills) to figure out how to put it together.  

In upcoming posts, we'll also add more information about each of these rivers, where exactly they are, how to get to them, what to fish with, etc.  Hopefully, we'll be able to link each place to those blog posts (figure out how Rich). 

Enjoy.

Information About Kreelex Flies

Rich knows that I talk a lot about Kreelex flies.  Personally, I love fishing any of the flies invented by one of our very own Charlottesville locals, Chuck Kraft.  

If you try to find any information about Chuck online, you'll only come up with a few articles about him getting in some legal trouble because of some selfish landowners were trying to use obsolete British crown grants to prevent people from fishing on "their land" without paying fees.  But you'll also come up with several articles attesting to the fish-catching abilities of his flies (such as this one about his C.K. nymph).  Obviously, the man knows how to tie a mean fly.

I have yet to get my hands on a C.K. nymph or a C.K. baitfish.  But I have definitely seen the ability of his Kreelex flies and Claw-dads to catch fish.  In my opinion, the Kreelex and the Claw-dad are great for catching monster trout and bass.  When all else fails, a Kreelex will catch 'em.  Locally, the stores sell out of Kreelexs extremely quickly.  So if you head to the Albemarle Angler or Mossy Creek and they're available, load up on 'em while you can.  Or you can go ahead and hit up his website and purchase them online.  

If however, you are into fly tying like myself, you may want to try and throw together a Kreelex on your own.  The Trow brothers were kind enough to put together a Youtube video with great instructions... (just be sure to use Kreinex flash and not your typical flashabou... the Kreinex seems to have much better strength and looks a lot more lively in the water.)

As for how to fish a Kreelex, you can practically use any kind of streamer retrieve with them.  Personally, I'll fish it downstream and across with either a slow retrieve or a fast jerky retrieve to mimic a minnow trying to evade a predator.  Just from this past weekend, I was having more luck with the 'bows at the Moorman with a slow retrieve until I was able to catch a fish's attention, at which point I started to speed up my retrieve to entice them to bite.  It really is amazing to watch a predatory trout just go nuts over an escaping streamer. 

Welcome to the Virginia Medical Fly Fishing Site

I probably shouldn't start another blog for fear of wasting even more time but I feel like there is a definite need for better information about fly fishing in Virginia.  Don't get me wrong, there are some great sites like that of the Trow brothers over at the Mossy Creek fly fishing store and the Albemarle Angler has started doing a better job updating their posts to their website.  But there are several things that I thought were missing.  How does one get to the Rapidan's upper reaches by car?  Where should I go that is near to Charlottesville so that I can throw a line out during my lunch break?  What techniques work the best at each river and when?  

Thus, my co-founder, Richie, and I started the Virginia Medical Fly Fishing Club (yes we're med students).  And to help with information organization, I've decided that this would be a helpful site to make.  So I thought I'd start by explaining how I got to this point.  (Hopefully if Rich is down with blogging, he'll explain how he got here too)

A good size brookie pulled out of the Rapidan River

First, let me say that I'm not an expert in the field of fly fishing.  I'm constantly learning and I think that the best thing about fly fishing is that you have to be constantly learning.  If you're not learning, you're just catching fish, not fishing.  So anyway, here's some background on my experience thus far...

I started fly fishing about two years ago when a good friend of mine convinced me to tag along with him to the lower reaches of the Rapidan River.  I'm sort of a leech for information and therefore I love to start new things/hobbies/passions due to what I pick up from others.  (My poor parents have had to see me through several changes in musical pursuits throughout the years... not an inexpensive habit)  But I digress.  After watching my friend, Scottie, deftly hook about 20 brookies in the first two hours out there, I decided I wanted to be as proficient as he was.  

So after that, I started researching fly fishing.  I went to local stores and asked stupid naive questions until I was able to figure out how to tie on tippet to a leader and distinguish some of the most famous dry flies patterns.  I went out to the rivers in the area (with a cheap pair of rubber hip waders I got from Dick's Sporting Goods and a 5 wt. my dad lent me).  In those first months, I think I caught at least one hundred tree branches and zero fish.  But that made me want to fish even more.  I can't stand not being good at something.  Finally, after about 6 months, I started catching brookies at the Rapidan.  I thought I had mastered fly fishing because I was able to catch fish consistently on one of Virginia's most famous rivers... Boy, was I wrong.

That's enough for today, I'll finish explaining in my next post.  Again welcome to the site.