Fishing Report: Cold Day in NOLA 12/26

I just got back from visiting family in New Orleans for the Christmas holiday. After seeing my grandmother, aunts, and cousins, my dad and I had the added bonus of fishing for redfish with our friend Rich Waldner. I thought that we were doing great by escaping from two feet of snow in Virginia until we hit the bayou at a "cozy" 40 degrees. 40 doesn't sound bad to most people in Va, but let me assure you, when the humidity is up and you are the tallest thing for 10 miles in a 15 mph wind, it's cold out there.

If you can't tell already, I am going to blame the weather for our lack luster day. We fished from 8 until 4 and caught one redfish on a spinner no less. Not only was the temperature an issue, we had zero sunlight which makes sight fishing for reds nearly impossible. I sighted about 25 reds and a few black drum and sheepshead throughout the day, but we could only see them within about 10 feet from the boat. At that range, our looming shadows spooked most of the fish and the few that I could put a fly in front of were just too sluggish to bite.

While I am a little disappointed that we didn't have a better weather day, I still had an awesome time sighting fish with Rich and my dad. I can't think of two better fishing partners (sorry, Cam). We had plenty of catching up to do and we had a great time chasing after fish in very challenging conditions. I am psyched for my next trip to NOLA after seeing all of those reds in the water and not being quite able to hook one on the fly. I've landed nice ones before and hopefully after boards I can get back down to see Rich about some more redfish.

Gear Review: Fishpond Double Haul Chest/Backpack

As central Va digs its way out of the blizzard of 2009 and prepares for Christmas, I thought I would tell you a bit about one of the latest additions to my gear. I bought the Fishpond Double Haul Chest/Backpack in late september, and it has made a huge improvement in the organization of my tackle. Overall, I've been impressed with the pack's size. It's not so big that I'm tempted to take my entire collection of flies and outerwear, but it will accommodate the essentials for a day's excursion. I can hold one or two fly boxes with extra leaders and tools in the chest pack, and the backpack has space for water, light raingear, and food. I even managed to pack a sweater in there with my rain jacket on one manic weather day.

Other features include a built in D-ring to attach a net, multiple daisy chains for accessory attachments, and the option to wear only the chest pack. I mentioned earlier that the chest pack has enough room for fly boxes, but if you are a true minimalist only fishing small dry flies and nymphs you could easily just use the built in zip-down platform fly box. This is definitely the coolest/most useful part about the Double Haul and it's the envy of everyone I fish with. The platform stays suspended by parachute cord attached to the inside of the pack when it is zipped down. It let's you peruse an assortment of approximately 50 flies hands-free while you tie one on. Also, the foam pad is attached with heavy duty velcro so it can be replaced when it eventually wears out. Great thinking, Fishpond!

The only downside to the pack that I have found is that it will tug a little bit on my shoulders when I attach my net. That makes for slightly sore shoulders at the end of the day, but I think the improved organization is worth just a little pain. The soreness might also be because I have to tighten the straps down all the way to fit my frame. Even when I crank the straps all the way down, the harness is still a little loose . I'm only 155 lbs. and with the amount of girth they allow in that harness it seems like this pack was designed for someone 190+.

I hate to add to the commercialization of Christmas, but if you are looking for an excellent gift for a fly fisher this year, this will do the trick. I hope that everyone out there is staying warm and safe out there right now. Let's hope the water comes down quickly after the run off so we can start fishing again!

Apparently we're not the ones obsessed with mayflies...

About a week ago, as I was making my morning browse through the popular fishing blogs over a cup of Shenandoah Joe, I practically shot coffee out my nose when I read Singlebarbed's post about the EPA's decision to ask companies that strip mine in southwestern Virginia to show how they're going to protect the mayfly from the effects of their mining before they can receive renewed permits.

Did I read that right?  The mayfly?  The innocent little mayfly?  The elegant and regal Ephemeroptera?  So not only does this tiny insect have the ability to make men spend hundreds of dollars on overpriced colored fuzz, genetically superior rooster hackles, spools of 6x tippet, bamboo rods and and 4 wheel drive SUVs but apparently it also has the ability to move mountains.... or rather, to keep mountains from moving?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fauxto_dkp/ / CC BY 2.0

Whether you agree with the EPA's decision or not, the notion that the EPA would go after the strip mining companies because of mayflies is pretty awesome. (FYI, I'm not trying to make any political statements here, we just care about whether you debarb hooks and practice catch and release... okay that was a joke. but seriously, catch and release...)

The question is, would the EPA have tried to protect the mayfly if it wasn't for fly fishing fanatics like ourselves?

There are quite a lot of us out there nowadays so maybe we did have a role in the matter. According to the Regional Boating & Fishing Foundation's recent report, 17.2% of the American population actively participate in some form of fishing.  Of course the percent that fly fish is much less, at 2.1% of the population, but that's still 5.9 million people!

This will be something that we'll be keeping an eye on.  We'll keep you updated if anything interesting arises.  Who knows, maybe that pollution could cause an evolutionary change in the mayflies creating super huge size 4 mayflies?  I'd be okay with that if it meant that our brook trout also grew substantially.

On a side note: Rich and I are almost done with exams and are almost 7/8 of the way done with the classroom portion of medical school.  Hopefully after we take our board examinations in April, we'll be back on the water on a more regular basis.  In the meantime, I fully expect Scott to make some reports out of Blacksburg seeing as he should have soooo much more time than us only being in his first year of school down there.

Also, look out for some new updates from another contributor, Dr. Strayer who has also had a lot of experience fly fishing in central Virginia.

And I'll leave you with a shot of the snowfall outside of the UVA health sciences library:

Fishing Report: Beaver Creek/Skidmore Fork (11/24) , Upper Rapidan (11/25), and Moormans North Fork (11/29)

It's been far too long since we've added anything to the blog, so this is a make-up post. We were fortunate enough to have the whole week off for Thanksgiving and I was able to get on the water quite a bit. Here are some reports from the four rivers I fished.

Dad and I woke up before the crack of dawn last Tuesday and headed out to Beaver Creek in Ottobine. He had just come off a lack-luster trip to Colorado fraught with horrible weather and sluggish trout, so we were excited to get a chance at our favorite spring creek. We had perfect weather: cool and cloudy with no wind. I expected the creek to be a torrent after all the rain we've seen recently, but to my surprise the flow was full and strong but still clear. The 'bows were actually fairly picky that day. They only took pheasant tails and completely snubbed our serendipities, red fox squirrel nymphs, and silver/gold kreelexes. I ended up getting blanked, but Dad caught three nice rainbows. I'll chalk it up to my first experience fishing with nymphs.

After a half day at Beaver, we consulted the Trow brothers at Mossy Creek Fly Fishing for any quick afternoon action we could hit. Colby sent us to Skidmore Fork, which is located on Route 33 just before the West Virginia border. We caught a couple of nice looking Brookies there in the hour we spent there using pheasant tails. I think it could be a good place to investigate further, especially because Colby told us that Skidmore Fork holds water much more consistently than neighboring Dry River.

Since I don't get the opportunity to fish multiple days a week much anymore, I had to check the Rapidan with my friend Pat the next day. Rapidan was much more affected by the rains last week than Beaver Creek and we actually had a fairly tough time wading in certain spots. Fortunately the water was still very clear and we were able to see fish darting after our nymphs from time to time. The fish were all hunkered down trying to weather the heavy flow so it took plenty of split shot to get our nymphs deep enough. We had much better luck fishing the slower pockets just off the riffles. Pheasant tails did the trick again, and we ended up catching a half dozen brookies between the two of us.

Remember how I told you that I love fishing the Moormans? Well I do, but I just might think twice before I decide to head out there again on a Sunday at 1 o'clock. The joint was completely packed this Sunday from the TJTU section up to the North Fork above Sugar Hollow Reservoir. I got absolutely no action throwing pheasant tails, red squirrel nymphs, or dry flies. I think the high water and all of the hikers playing in the river threw off my mojo a bit. It's probably a better idea to stay away on weekends except for the early morning.

Fishing Report: Upper/TJTU Moormans River 10/28/09

This first week of class has been awesome. I fished the Rapidan with my buddy John on Monday, and took the afternoon off today to fish a few sections of the Moormans. The drought has left the reservoir very low and as a result hardly any water is flowing over the dam to help the TJTU section. Even with the steady rain yesterday, things do not look like they have improved much. There are still some big fish from last year hunkered down in the deep pools, but it doesn't look like TU has been out to stock yet this fall.

Luckily, things were way better up above the reservoir. Yesterday's rain had a huge impact on the Upper Moormans increasing the water levels significantly. The brookies were aggressively attacking dry flies. I landed a bunch of little guys and one nice 6/7 incher on royal wulffs. I ended up missing two of the prettiest brookies I've ever seen. I watched each one rise slowly to sip my fly, but in my excitement I yanked it right out of their mouths; it broke my heart. Hopefully water levels will stay relatively high up there until the next rainfall.

Fishing Report: Rapidan Upper Section

After two weeks of exams and a quick three day roadtrip, I finally got to make it out on the water.  As we've been complaining about lately, the water levels have been low all across central Virginia.  Therefore, I wasn't expecting to make a trip out at all yesterday until I got on my computer and saw this:

Because of that wonderful spike in discharge levels, I knew there'd be a good chance I could see some flowing streams with hungry trout.  So I quickly brewed some more coffee, got on the road again, and headed up to the Rapidan.

I got there late in the afternoon but with enough light to get a solid two hours of fishing in.  Fortunately, it looked like the other fishermen were calling it quits so I had the river to myself.

Initially I fished like I always do, hitting up every nook and cranny of the Rapidan but soon found out that despite the brief change in water levels the trout, for the most part, remained in the larger pools.  So I fished quickly, hitting up all parts of the larger pools.  I fished parachute adams and snowshoe rabbit caddis size 16 but had the most success with adams.

Overall, I caught plenty of beautiful brookies all of which were pretty decently sized.  The newly flowing water caused somewhat of a feeding frenzy in which the larger trout didn't seem too concerned about going after a missed fly on the fourth or fifth attempt.  Unfortunately, however, I spooked two large brookies that were hiding at the tail end of deep pools.  Seriously, these guys were huge.  I'm talking like 12 inches.  I waited around to see if one of them would become "unspooked" but unfortunately it became clear he was way too smart for me.  So if you head out, look to the tail end of the pools for the big guys.

Looks like we'll be getting a little bit more rain Tuesday and Wednesday so hopefully fishing with be good this weekend as well!  Keep checking the USGS Water Levels.

Praying for rain and for VDOT to take a day off

Water levels are pretty low right now with the drought. Even so, I tried going fishing yesterday at Sugar Hollow Reservoir/Moormans River after finishing my last exam. It turned out to be the trip that never was, since VDOT was out working on the first bridge leading to the dam. I don't know how long construction will be going on, but as of yesterday Sugar Hollow and the TJTU section of the Moormans cannot be reached from Garth Road.

If I was worth my salt as a fisherman I would have enacted Plan B and headed over to Beaver Creek Reservoir for some bluegills and bass. Alas, I had my heart set on brookies and was disappointed... oh well.