Fishing Report: Rapidan River

Looks like we're going to have some pretty high rivers here for the next week thanks to that monsoon that can through central Virginia yesterday.  The water levels in the upper portions of the Rapidan over the weekend definitely spiked, fortunately, however, it looks like we didn't quite hit flood levels.  Not sure how long we'll have to wait until we have conditions as good as they were last week. 

Speaking of last week, fishing was freaking fantastic.  Scott, the proverbial master of small stream fly fishing, was able to take some time off from studying for his Step 1 to grace Rich and me with his presence.  Of course, with the forecast calling for a sunny day and 80 degree weather last Sunday, we had to hit up the Rapidan. 

We headed up to the section around Rapidan Camp to ensure we wouldn't have any company.  Right from the start we could see brookies feeding on dry flies.  Not just a few either.  We split up and put on our respective favorites for the park, Scott with an elk hair caddis, Richie with something that probably was of the royal adams family (i'm guessing, correct me if i'm wrong), and me with a parachute adams.  They all seemed to work great.  Three hours later, we all were worn out and were plenty satisfied with the more than 50 fish we each caught.  Seriously, it was probably the best day on the Rapidan I've had in several years.  We got on the water right when two mayfly hatches, which looked like blue wing olives and something larger and brown like a quill gordon or march brown, were occurring.  I switched to a BWO spinner and definitely started getting more strikes.  These brookies were going absolutely nuts.  I think I only hit up about eight pools in three hours but was able to put out at least ten brook trout, all in the 8-10 inch range, from each.  By the end of our day (only around 4:00pm), the females were depositing their eggs and a decent number of spinners were on the water.  At that point, the brookies started feeding even more aggressively.  My last pool had about eight large trout in it who were all competing for the flies coming down the buffet line.  It was amazing seeing them go airborne and slamming into each other as they fought for the fly.  I had never seen such aggressiveness on the Rapidan.  I managed to get a videoclip of one of them going airborne:

From rapidan river 4.10.11

Hopefully, once these high water levels settle out, we'll be able to hit up the park again for some more brookies.  Let us know if you've had similar success!

Beaver 'Bows 4/4/2011

I showed up at Peds Cardiology clinic today only to find that we did not have any patients. After being cut loose early, I decided to call the Ottobine Store and see if there were any passes left for Beaver Creek. It turns out I got the last one.

By the time I pulled up to the store it was almost 1600 and it looked like one of the fishermen from the morning was just putting his gear away. I paid for my pass and headed upstream to start fishing in the field across from the elementary school. Two factors made fishing difficult this afternoon. For one thing, the wind was blowing between 20-30 mph the whole time I was there. That made for some interesting line tricks to keep my fly on target. Secondly, I had never fished Beaver in the evening, and the shadows proved to be pretty wicked in the stretch I fished.

I only fished for about 2.5 hours and landed all three fish I hooked up with. It's nice to see that Beaver still holds the big fat 'bows I've come to expect there. The first fish I caught was by far the nicest and jumped four times. I was casting nymphs with my 5 wt with a small white bobbing indicator. I saw one nice fish roll on a dry fly, but that was the only top water action of the day. All in all it was an unexpectedly awesome day.

Mossy Creek 3/13/2011

After seeing that we were looking an almost 70 degree day on Sunday, Kyle and I knew we had to stretch some line. I did the same post-call maneuver of scrambling to grab my gear after finishing rounds. We debated whether the park or the valley would have better water levels after the torrents we experienced the week before. After much hemming and hawing we decided to try Mossy.

I've had mostly a hate/hate relationship with Mossy over the years. It's a beautiful spot, but the challenges posed by wary trout, the prohibition of wading, and the foliage in the river have led to more than one skunked day for me. The saving grace was that I would be fishing with Kyle. He somehow knows exactly where to find the prehistoric browns for which Mossy is so famous.

As it turned out, the water levels were spectacular. The stream was slightly stained and the moss patties covered generously by water. This was a boon considering the bluebird sky we had and it kept us from hanging up too much fishing kreelex (copper/gold of course). We started fishing by the spillway downstream from the church. Kyle landed one on the second cast right under the car bridge. This piqued our interest for sure, but we were unable to turn any other heads in the channels along the spillway.

Things really picked up between 4:00 and 6:30. The browns turned on so much that any kreelex swung over the moss and into the channels made greedy fish give long, sustained chase. Many fish just nipped at our flies, but we were able to land 9 between the three of us. We even saw pairs of browns tailing along the undercuts and running upstream spawning. This is the most activity I've ever personally seen on the creek save last September when dad and I ran into a large group of browns steadily sipping bugs off the top. I'd say it was a very solid day for Mossy. My opinion might be veering more toward love than hate at this point.

Rose River SNP 3/5/2011

Kyle and I had been talking about hitting up some new brook trout water for a week, so by Saturday morning I was itching to get up to the park. He knew that I had to round with my team that morning, so it would be touch-and-go about what time we'd head out. After presenting my newly admitted patients from call the night before, my chief resident told me to take off around 1100. Luckily I got the nod when I did, because if I hadn't called Kyle and Cameron then they might not have turned around to come pick me up. Thanks guys, you're the best.

The plan was to briefly check out the Rose as a test run before tackling the road over the mountain to the upper Rapidan. After 20 minutes on the Rose the word "Rapidan" was wiped from our vocabulary for the day. We spooked about 25 brookies that day wading the absolutely gorgeous pools and surprisingly deep runs. Still being early in the season with temps teetering in the upper 50s/low 60s the bite really only turned on for about 45 minutes in the late afternoon and only in the deep pools on heavy nymphs. I'm sure that this place will be on fire in another month or so given the number of fish we saw on a lukewarm day.

A few things make the Rose really stand out in my mind. First, I like that the river is far from the trail. No Toykyo Drift style neon green Honda Civics with huge spoilers bumping along the streamside road a la the Rapidan. You need to do a fair amount of bushwhacking to get to the stream which keeps the mood much more serene. Also, the section we fished is fairly wide with great structure provided by larger rocks in the middle of the stream bed. Couple that with the deeper than average runs, and dry fly season should be huge with fish likely ambushing your fly from many angles. I can't wait to come back to this place.

Back on the Water/Fishing Report: Conway River, Rapidan River (lower section), and Staunton River

VAMFF took an unexpected break from updating the site there for while.  Trust me when I say it wasn't intended.  Third year of medical school turned out to be just as busy as we were told it would be.  Throw in some issues with leaky waders, a broken rod tip, and a non-functioning reel, and it made it even more difficult to be on the water.  It was as if the fishing gods wanted us to stop fishing for a while and actually tie surgeon's knots where they were originally intended to be.

All that being said, third year is quickly winding down, temperatures are rising, and hatches are happening so we have don't have any excuses not to fish.  On Feb 27th, Rich and I took our first trip of 2011 up to the mountain streams to scout out some new locations.



First stop was the Conway at the section below the confluence with Devil's Ditch.  Our initial impressions were that the river was beautiful, it had great pools, and it is far enough in on the fire roads that many weekend warriors will probably pass it up in favor of areas that have quicker access.  That being said, we may have gotten there too early in the morning for a brisk February day because we literally did not see a fish the entire morning.  Nothing hit on top or on bottom, not even a near miss or a flash.  The only other fisherman we saw out there that day had similar luck.  But given how nice the river is, this will definitely have to be a repeat location later on in the spring.

Conway River (Middle Section)

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Determined to not be blanked on our first day back fishing, we then headed to the lower section of the Rapidan near Graves Mill.  There we saw fish.  At first we saw some chubs in a beaver pond and we definitely felt the urge to throw a line in to ensure we at least caught something.  But we fought the urge and got to the confluence of the Staunton and the Rapidan and started there.

On the Rapidan, the water levels were great and we could see some brookies slowly exploring the deeper sections.  Eventually, around 2-3pm,  a small hatch of black caddis started to emerge and with the temperature getting into the low 60s, we started seeing fish rising.  Finally.  We ended up only catching a few before they stopped rising but it was enough to make the trip worthwhile.

Staunton River

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We did fish up the Staunton for a little while as well.  In fact, the Staunton was actually where I learned how to fly fish courtesy of Scott Rusteikas.  Plenty of fish but really, unless you have a 2-3 wt and don't mind sidearm casts and getting caught in trees, you may want to look elsewhere.

I apologize for the lapse in writing.  Hopefully we can pick things back up where we left off!

ps. Expect to see some renovations to the site in the coming months.

No Water, No Fish

We've had a slow month here at VMFF. I wish I could say it's because we've been too busy studying, but really, it's because water levels are so low that our favorite spots are either dried up or almost there. Don't believe me? Here's the USGS water level readings for the Rapidan:

Here's to hoping we get some much needed rain here in the near future. Otherwise, you probably won't be hearing much from us!

Martinsville AIM rotation and the Smith River

It's been a while since I've posted, but believe me when I say it's because I've been too busy fishing.

Upon hearing that I was placed in Martinsville for my Ambulatory Internal Medicine rotation, I quickly went to google to find out about fishing opportunities in the area.  I was dismayed when I saw no significant smallmouth waters in the area.  I tried to convince myself that no fishing was a good thing as I'd be able to actually get some studying done for the Medicine shelf exam.  I packed up and headed down, leaving my waders and fly tying kit at home.

Little did I know that Martinsville has a premier tailwater loaded with trout just 15 minutes away.

On my first day of clinic, I was fortunate enough to interview a patient who had a bass pro shop hat on, which meant I ended up spending most of the interview talking about good fishing locations (whoops!).  He told me about the Smith River and stories he's heard about people pulling monster browns out of the river in the special regulation section (always a good sign if there's a special regulation section).  He hadn't been up to the river in a while though and didn't want to promise me anything.

So after two days of researching the river I finally made a trip up.

Note: since it's a tailwater, the dam releases water for a certain amount of time each day which makes it unfishable.  The past month it was usually running from around 1pm to 6-7pm each day.  I'd recommend hitting up the water just when they turn off the generators.  It seems like the insect life plans their hatches for right as the water starts to level off which means you can prepare for top feeding trout starting about 20-30 minutes after generating ends.  To find out when they will be generating, call to hear the Army Corps of Engineer's recorded message at: (276) 629-2432.  Also know that since it's a tailwater, the water will be cold all the time making fishing for trout possible in the late summers while it also keeps the water unfrozen in the winters so if you want to fish a midge hatch in January, you can.

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I first set out to the special regulation section at 7pm to see what was going on.  Unfortunately, I almost died of shock when I got in the water without my left-at-home waders.  The waters in the section just above the bridge at rt. 666 were high still as it would take a while for the levels to subside.  So without even making any casts in the section, I shivered my way back to my car and headed up to Philpott Dam to see what was going on there.

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What I found was quite possibly the best half mile of water I've fished in Virginia.  Because of the difference in temperature between the humid air and the cold water, a thick 10 feet of fog sat over the water.  Through the fog I could just barely see rising trout.  And I could see them everywhere.  They were mainly in the seams feeding regularly on a decent hatch of tiny insects which I assumed were tricos.  Despite my lack of waders and a medical condition where I get paralyzed because of extremely cold temperatures, I wet waded in to try my luck.  I put on a a size 16 parachute and immediately started getting hits.  Most of the browns and rainbows were from 10-16 inches but I know I missed hooking on to at least two browns that were much bigger.  Unfortunately, because the generating schedule ends so late, it only leaves about 2 hours for decent fishing before it gets too hard to see with the lighting and the fog.  There are talks in the works though that will hopefully result in better scheduling.

I eventually made the trek home that weekend to retrieve the rest of my fly fishing equipment and spent about 2-3 days each week fishing the Philpott Dam section.  In the end, Martinsville was a complete surprise and a great place to fish.  I'd drive the 2 1/2 hour drive down from Charlottesville anytime to spend a weekend fishing the Smith.  It's just that good.