Shenandoah mountains of Virginia/Catoctin mountains of Maryland
Posted: Fri Oct 18, 2019 2:16 pm
After 10 years overseas, I recently moved back to the States for work and am now based in DC. In the search for trout places in the area, last month I tried the Catoctin mountains near Thurmont Marlyand (about an hour north of DC, south of Gettysburg PA). The Little Hunting creek was supposed to have wild brook trout in the headwaters above a reservoir and a decent tail-water type fishery with wild browns below it. The water at the headwaters was very low and I managed one tiny brookie and some chubs after a lot of bushwhacking-probably not worth the effort but still nice to out. I scouted out the brown trout water below the reserovoir-it was much nicer looking-several miles of medium gradient stream about 20-30 feet wide on public land with lots of boulders, glides, plunge pools and riffles-since its less than an hour from my house in far NW DC, I will definitely check it out again-the guy at the Orvis store in Bethesda says it holds lots of 8-14 inch wild browns and the occasional brookie. I didn't have time to fish it as I was hoping to catch smallies in the Potomac later that day (that didnt pan out, I caught a bunch of sunfish and then slipped and fell in the drink, ruining my brand new cell phone.
This past Monday I made the 2 hour trek to the Shenadoah mountains in the hopes of finding some real brook trout. They are around a 100 streams with wild brookies in the Shenandoah national park with some better than others. I settled on the Hughes river near Nethers as I had fished it briefly ten years ago on a hike and the guy from Murrays fly shop said it has water even in dry years like this one. I left the house at 6 am and got to the Old rag parking lot by 8 and then hiked up along the stream into the National Park. The water was very low and clear but I did find a handful of decent pools like this one.
I was hoping for some simple brookie fishing with just a royal coachman dry but fish did not seem interested in any dries or terrestrials. In the lower water, I guessed that I either was spooking fish and/or they were hunkered down hiding at the bottom of pools. As soon as I switched to beadheaded hares ear, I started to get some strikes. I was not using an indicator or weight and the flows were very slow if at all so I would just cast into the deepest pools, let it sink down for a while and every once in a while give it twitch or lift which seemed to illicit strikes. I ended up hooking several nice ones in the 6-8 inch range and then got a wonderful 12 inch male, one of the largest wild brookies I have caught. I hoped to get more but as I hiked further up the mountain, the stream got skinnier and I was spooking a lot of trout as I approached pools. Finally, all these copperheads came out to sun themselves on rocks and I called it a day. I have never seen so many snakes in my life! Still a nice day and I hope to hit the region again in early spring with better flows. I also hope to hit the Rapidian which is a larger stream in the area which is supposed to hold some of the biggest wild brookies in the east coast (some in the 14-17 inch range), although the stream sees more pressure than the other small streams. Has anyone here ever fished the Rapidan or anywhere in the region?
This past Monday I made the 2 hour trek to the Shenadoah mountains in the hopes of finding some real brook trout. They are around a 100 streams with wild brookies in the Shenandoah national park with some better than others. I settled on the Hughes river near Nethers as I had fished it briefly ten years ago on a hike and the guy from Murrays fly shop said it has water even in dry years like this one. I left the house at 6 am and got to the Old rag parking lot by 8 and then hiked up along the stream into the National Park. The water was very low and clear but I did find a handful of decent pools like this one.
I was hoping for some simple brookie fishing with just a royal coachman dry but fish did not seem interested in any dries or terrestrials. In the lower water, I guessed that I either was spooking fish and/or they were hunkered down hiding at the bottom of pools. As soon as I switched to beadheaded hares ear, I started to get some strikes. I was not using an indicator or weight and the flows were very slow if at all so I would just cast into the deepest pools, let it sink down for a while and every once in a while give it twitch or lift which seemed to illicit strikes. I ended up hooking several nice ones in the 6-8 inch range and then got a wonderful 12 inch male, one of the largest wild brookies I have caught. I hoped to get more but as I hiked further up the mountain, the stream got skinnier and I was spooking a lot of trout as I approached pools. Finally, all these copperheads came out to sun themselves on rocks and I called it a day. I have never seen so many snakes in my life! Still a nice day and I hope to hit the region again in early spring with better flows. I also hope to hit the Rapidian which is a larger stream in the area which is supposed to hold some of the biggest wild brookies in the east coast (some in the 14-17 inch range), although the stream sees more pressure than the other small streams. Has anyone here ever fished the Rapidan or anywhere in the region?