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Rapidan River
Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2019 9:59 pm
by martalus
Since my wife and kid are away for a few weeks, I took the opportunity to go way up in the Shenandoah mountains to stream I have been reading about. It's a little over 2 hours from DC, but the last five miles are a non maintained fire road which was a lot of fun to drive. I could have fished lower where there are supposed to be brookies up to 17 inches, but I decided to go way up to a less pressured area. Even though I was in the headwaters, it was a good sized stream, slightly bigger than DC or VCB. Flows were really good thanks to all the recent rain and there were lots of pools, riffles, and glides. I got on the water at about 9 am and the fish were feed on nymphs from the beginning despite the cold air and water temps. Fish were everywhere but mostly in the in 5-7 inch category, although I lost some in the 10 inch range. I was hoping for some bigger trout and I am sure they are in there, but it was a great adventure for sure and I lost track of how many fish I caught. I was experimenting with several nymph rigs tandem with indicator, tandem without, and stimulator dry with nymph dropper-the last one caught the most fish by a larger margin. I need to keep practicing without an indicator as the strikes were very subtle and I had a hard time detecting them, especially in fast moving water. For me nymphing is not the most fun, but it is the most effective.
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Re: Rapidan River
Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2019 10:00 pm
by martalus
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Re: Rapidan River
Posted: Sun Nov 03, 2019 1:54 pm
by Dave B.
Beautiful pics! Thanks for sharing
Re: Rapidan River
Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2019 11:53 am
by robtf
Nice report and agree beautiful pics!
Re: Rapidan River
Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2019 3:34 pm
by martalus
It was really nice to have a whole day adventure out there-That makes four whole day fishing adventures in the past 2 months! one to Maryland, two to Hughes river in the Shenandoah, and one to Rapidan in Shenandoah. This past monday a buddy from work asked to go fishing. He had done some fishing as a kid in Michigan but was interested in reconnecting with the outdoors/fishing. I really appreciated his commitment-I picked him up at 6 am and we didnt get back to DC until 7 pm after a full day in Shenandoah on the Hughes river. I fished a 7'6" fly rod and I lent him my 6'6" ultra light spinning rod. I set him with a trout magnet and coached him how to read and approach water. Flows were decent, but not as strong as the week before and the water was crystal clear. We spooked a lot of trout but we managed a half dozen each-they were his first wild trout ever so I was pleased that he stuck with it and made a real effort all day. It was 65-70 degrees and lovely all day, although that has changed now. In one big deep pool we experimented with tying a hares ear dropper off of the trout magnet-he caught 3 brookies that way-two on the nymph and one on the Trout magnet-its always fun to teach someone else and learn new techniques! I think with the mid winter weather now here, its was my last full day till late winter/early spring.
Re: Rapidan River
Posted: Thu Dec 05, 2019 11:08 am
by Twism86
Another one to add to the bucket list! Looks beautiful. Wild brookies up to 17''?? Say no more!