After the Rain...Some Shad Fishin'

We've had an extremely rainy April here in the Old Dominion and it has put a bit of a damper on the fishing. Of course this means that things should be better, for longer into the summer, but I'm more of a here and now kind of person. Is it too much to ask for the rain to come only during the week, and be spread out enough to not blow out the streams, while still keeping the aquifers charged up? I don't think so.

Last Saturday, the western part of the state received over 5 inches and every little creek was a swollen, angry mess. A lot of that extra water eventually made it's way into the James River and then on down to Richmond. The river crested this past Monday at almost 70,000 cubic feet per second, which is just slightly above the average for this time of year of about 7,000 cfs.

Mother nature gave us a break over the next several days and the streams dropped back down to fishable, but still full, levels for the weekend. Since Marty and I had been out to the mountains on Saturday, and my legs needed a break, I decided to stay in town and try for some shad on Easter Sunday.



One family was out for a little Easter stroll as I walked down to my spot.



When the shad are here in good numbers, the fishing can be almost perverted, with hookups on just about every cast. Today wasn't quite like that, but not bad either. After trying a few different flies, the fish finally let me know that pink and white was the color they wanted, and I started to hook up on a fairly regular basis.





For their size, these fish are some of the best fighters I've ever caught on a fly rod. They slam the fly with authority and usually go airborne 2 or 3 times. They have an amazing ability to spit the hook if you're not careful, and I probably lost as many fish as I landed.





Midway through the morning I hooked something that was substantially larger than anything I'd tangled with up to that point. I fought the fish for several minutes and then the hook pulled free. I never even got to see the fish but I want to think that it was probably a striped bass - a fish that follows the shad up the river and one that I've never tackled with a fly rod. Upon relaying the story to Marty he promptly informed me that it was probably an "ass-hooked" catfish. Thanks buddy.

I went back to catching shad until I noticed that my arms were turning a nice shade of purple. It seems I had lathered up my neck, face and ears with sunscreen but neglected the arms. It was time to call it a day.

The Swan Song

Well, not exactly a swan song, but pretty close. Followers of this blog have heard me talk about my good buddy Marty countless times. We've shared car rides and trout streams from New York to Tennessee over the last several years. But that's all about to end. No, he's not sick or moving out of the area - he's about to have a baby - the poor SOB.

I'm only kidding of course because congratulations are in order, but this is going to seriously cut into the amount of time he can devote to goofing off with a fly rod in hand. I'm selfishly thinking about the solo fishing trips that are in my future and all of the extra gas money it's going to cost me, while taking solace in the fact that I'll be chasing trout while he's changing poopy diapers.

Since the date is coming up pretty quick, we've been getting in as much fishing as possible while he' still a free man. The weather has been working against us, but the streams in SNP finally dropped to fishable levels this weekend, and we planned an all out Saturday assault on a favorite east sloper.



The fishing was good right out of the gate and the weather turned out better than forecast. We were expecting some early rain, but that held off and the sun even poked through the clouds a few times.





The stream was still pretty full and some of our favorite holes were a little too high to fish well.



Dry fly fishing was good at times but there were spots where the fish were unwilling to come up through the heavy water to feed on the surface. They were usually willing to take a nymph if you could get it down to them.







Wildflowers are still in bloom. I think this is a Trillium.



And the bugs made a strong showing.



This is one of the prettiest and most rugged streams in the Park.



Towards the end of the day, Marty landed this 10" beast (after I gave him the right fly). On a previous trip he spotted an even bigger fish in the same pool but this one wasn't a bad consolation prize. I made careful note of the spot as I'm hoping to send Marty a nice picture of that 12" fish sometime next month when he's on diaper duty.



Oh, the memories...

April (not May) Flowers

Last April, I was lucky enough to spend a day in the Park fishing with my Dad, where we had a great time even though the fishing turned out to be pretty lousy. This year my Mom wanted to come along to spend some quality time with her son and to enjoy some of the wildflowers that bloom in the spring. I haven't shared a trout stream with my Mom since I was a kid and I have hazy memories of those trips with her and my Grandma. Once again the fishing was inexplicably lousy, but it didn't matter, and the only thing that could have made the day better would have been if Granny was able to join us.

My Mom is a wealth of information when it comes wildflowers - knowledge passed to her from her Mom. I'm afraid that I'm a lost cause when it comes to this, for even though I enjoy looking at them when they're in bloom, the names go in one ear and out the other. Even though the flowers weren't quite in full swing yet, we saw plenty as we worked our way up a favorite east slope creek. So here are few of them, compliments of my Mom.

This one is called Bloodroot. The sap in the roots of this flower was used by Native Americans to color their clothing and make war paint. Cool.



Bluets:



Great Chickweed:



Unknown:



This one is called Coltsfoot, is edible, has a sweet taste, and is used to make cough syrup. I felt fine so I didn't try one...



When my Mom wasn't identifying the flowers, she was busy taking some video of me not catching fish. Here's a quick clip that pretty much exemplifies the day as far as the fishing was concerned. It's a good thing the company was good.

April Showers

The weather has been downright uncooperative around here lately.  I've been looking for some of those bluebird spring days with comfortable temps in the 60s and sunshine.  We've had some during the week while I've been stuck behind a desk staring at spreadsheets and email, but when the weekend rolls around things turn nasty.  To a weekend warrior such as myself, this is deeply troubling.  In an effort to cheat fate, my good buddy Cronin and I decided to take a Friday off and head out to the Park to chase some brookies.  Things looked promising up until last Wednesday when the forecast changed and showed that rain was on the way.  Since we already had the day off, we decided to stick it out and go anyway.

We started early and the weather seemed promising at first.  We even saw some blue sky on the drive out to the mountains- but it wouldn't last.  By the time we got down into the creek, the skies opened up and didn't close for the rest of the day.  Fishing in the rain isn't my favorite thing to do, but it beats sitting in the office, and the fishing turned out to be pretty darn good, even in the downpour.  I didn't take many pictures because of the weather but we each caught a couple dozen chunky chars, mostly on dries.



My man Cronin loves showing off his casting skills so I thought I would include this picture even though it turned out slightly blurry.  You can see that he's got a sweet double haul and I'm sure it came in handy for the 10' cast he needed at this little pool.  I also like his strategy of wearing the brightest orange jacket he could find - the fish love that.

 
All joking aside, it was good to get out with my old buddy because we don't get to fish together very often.  Maybe one of these days I can show him what the Park is like when the weather is nice, the bugs are hatching, and the fish are stupid.

The Intruder

Water levels were good, temps were fine, bugs were hatching, and I had caught one fish in 4 hours.  Somethin' wasn't right. Then I saw him up ahead - the guy I had been unknowingly fishing behind all day.  I hate that.  There's nothing worse than spending a day casting flies to holes and runs that someone else has already tromped through.  I cursed the intruder for trespassing on MY stream, made a vow to never again hit the snooze button (except on work days), and got out to go around him. As I neared, I watched him get out on the other side and start back down the hill.  Good, now I had the place to myself and it was time to get down to business.



Up until that point, I had been content to take a few scenery pictures and a shot of some yellow flowers. My one and only fish of the day had come unbuttoned whiled I fumbled for the camera.



This little brown came from the second pool I fished after passing the intruder. He inspected and refused 2 different dry flies before taking an unweighted pheasant tail nymph.



Shortly thereafter, I hooked up with a nice brookie that wasn't as shy about taking the dry fly. One of my better brookies of the year so far.



Little Blue Quills and some bigger Quill Gordons were hatching most of the day. I fished a size 12 parachute Gordon and switched to a size 16 Olive (closest thing I had) when I found a fish that wouldn't eat the bigger fly.



This is one of my favorite holes on this creek. It gave up a 14" brown last April - today it gave up jack doodly squat.



A few more brookies were in the mood to eat as the hatch was winding down. After these fish, things cooled off again, and since I had a 45 minute slog back to the truck and a 2 hour drive home, I called it a day.