Rapidan River, Shenandoah National Park

Trout fishing outside of NJ
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martalus
Posts: 486
Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2018 2:39 pm

Rapidan River, Shenandoah National Park

Post by martalus » Sun Oct 04, 2020 1:28 pm

I made my annual fall pilgrimage to Shenandoah National Park to fish for wild brook trout. I decided to fish the Rapidan river as it has five plus miles of absolutely perfect and public wild brook trout habitat. Last year I fished the upper stretch which required a five mile drive on a non maintained fire road. This year I entered the lower entrance at about 900 feet above sea level which was a much easier entrance. The Rapidan is known to be best wild brook trout stream in VA and one of the best in the country due it’s size, the size and quantity of fish, and the fact that such a large part of the watershed, including several tribs are 100 percent wild brookies on heavily forested protected land.

After a two hour drive from DC, I arrived at 8 am and started hiking a fishing. After two hours I started to get frustrated as I only caught creek chubs despite seeing brook trout in perfect pools and riffles. I also got caught in quick sand which was unnerving to say the least and I was on the lookout for rattlesnakes and copperheads that often look to sunny rocks to sun themselves before winter sets in.

After regaining my composure I finally started catching lots of good sized brook trout! After getting nothing on a tandem nymph rig a yellow stimulator dry with a prince nymph dropper was the ticket. I got several plump 8-10 inch fish plus a 13-14 inch beast that absolutely crushed the dry. It felt like a smallie on my 3 wt. and was first time that I have heard my drag scream. The shear number of absolutely perfect deeps plunge pools and riffles full of brookies blows the mind. The lower section receives a lot of pressure and has the lowest density of fish so I chock up lack of success there to that and the fact that I was a bit rusty from all my summer smallmouth fishing. I called it a day after almost 8 hours of fishing and hiking and had some BBQ and beer before heading back to DC. Although there were a fair amount of hikers along this section of stream, I definitely recommend it, especially if you come on a weekday.
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martalus
Posts: 486
Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2018 2:39 pm

Re: Rapidan River, Shenandoah National Park

Post by martalus » Sun Oct 04, 2020 1:30 pm

Some more stream shots.
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martalus
Posts: 486
Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2018 2:39 pm

Re: Rapidan River, Shenandoah National Park

Post by martalus » Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:51 pm

My family is still out of town in Mozambique so I just decided to hit the Rapidan river this weekend. Its been a fairly rainy summer in Virginia and there will be low temps in the low to mid 50s this weekend so the fishing for wild brook trout could be decent. As much as I love the NJ or Vermont wild brook trout streams, Virginia has them both beat for quality/quantity of fish, larger stream size, and sheer mileage of pubic access to perfect streams with full forest canopy for the whole drainage. I believe that there almost 100 wild brookie streams in Shenandoah national park-there are sections you can drive right up to and sections you can hike several miles to get to and everything in between with so many trails to take you around. A 10-12 inch fish is not unusual and they can get larger as there lots of 4-8 foot deep boulder line pools. I feel like most of the Vermont and NJ brookie streams struggle to have 2-3 foot pools and as a result struggle to have fish over 8 inches(with some notable exceptions). Also as Rusty said, Vermont often stocks over wild brooktrout water creating competition for them. In the Shenandoah they have miles of prime territory to grow. Anyway, I will post a report after the weekend!

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46er
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Re: Rapidan River, Shenandoah National Park

Post by 46er » Sat Aug 27, 2022 11:23 pm

Shenandoah, some of the best Brookie fishing. Washington/Jefferson NF is another very nice spot, even fewer people.
aka; Ralph
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martalus
Posts: 486
Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2018 2:39 pm

Re: Rapidan River, Shenandoah National Park

Post by martalus » Mon Aug 29, 2022 10:57 am

Thats right-the Shenandoah NP is huge with lots of water and trails, but it absorbs visistors from the whole DMV region and beyond. Those other places just a bit further west are a bit more of a drive and probably get much less visitors.

kype
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Re: Rapidan River, Shenandoah National Park

Post by kype » Wed Sep 07, 2022 8:06 pm

awesome brookies. looks like a nice trip.

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