North Fork Thornton - April 2024

Pictures at the end.   

    Like all good stories, this one starts at 4:30 AM on the crapper. The biggest problem with planning a trip more than a month out is working with the weather. I had been watching the rain forecast like a hawk for the last couple of days before our adventure but I had failed to check the wind forecast until the day of... 23mph, with gusts up to 54. Lets go fly fishing!

    Picked up my cousin, John, just about 7:30, had a little visit with the family then we headed off to the foot of the mountain. Our first glimpse of the river showed what we had feared, the rain the night before had really clouded up and raised the water to unfishable levels. Between the high water and the copious amounts of shiny and new "NO PARKING", "POSTED", "NO TRESPASSING", and "TOWING ENFORCED" signs, we decided that it would be best to try our luck hiking in from Skyline Drive.

    As is my usual MO when driving Skyline, I wasn't paying attention to the mile markers and I drove right by our little parking lot but that gave us a chance to turn around in the lot for Jeremy's Run where an angler was packing up for the morning. He said that the water was fishable for a decent way down but the catching part of the deal wasn't worth the walk for him, a premonition I suppose. Well we turned around and headed back to the little 6-car lot and crossed our fingers that the only other vehicle there was not a fisherman who beat us to the punch.

    Waders on, we headed down the mountain in search of fishable waters. The walk down was pleasant and I was glad that we weren't recreational hikers as decent sections of the trail had been turned into feeder creeks. When we finally got to the river crossing where the water looked decent, we decided to head down as far as seemed reasonable to fish. I started off with a "Thin Mint" streamer which is pretty much a Golden Retriever tied in olive and brown. I have never had too much luck fishing streamers in the park but the water was just too high and moving too fast for me to keep track of the dry/dropper that I prefer in these waters.

    Fishing was unproductive for the rest of the morning without so much as a missed strike. The aforementioned wind turned out to not be as much of a problem as expected as we were on the east slope of the ridge but the gusts caused us to pause every now and then. A slight sprinkle turned into a significant 20 minute rain shower that had us standing in the flooded trail with our back to the driving wind and rain but once it passed, we caught some fleeting glimpses of sunshine. Just about then the tiny black stoneflies started hatching in good numbers (some dark mayflies too but in much fewer numbers). Just before we broke out the stove for some lunch and tea, John told me that he had connected multiple times with what looked to be a decent brookie who turned out to have quite the appetite.

    Lunch was cheese, crackers, pepperoni, almonds, and green tea, everything needed to brighten the spirits after a cold and unproductive morning on the water. 

    After that pool where John had some interested fish had rested a bit, John went back and hooked up a third time with whatever was lurking in this pool, after getting snagged right in the middle of the pool, he invited me to take a couple of casts. After four or five drifts, I figured the pool had gone quiet when to my surprise, an 8"-9" brookie erupted from the water to engulf my Elk Hair Caddis. I'm not sure, but I think some expletive about blessed excrement was shouted as that was the last thing I expected to see just then. I felt bad about landing the trout that John had found and played cat and mouse with so we settled on "he caught it 3 times, I landed it once".

    I let John have free reign over whatever water lay ahead and unfortunately, we were neither able to connect with another trout and at about 5PM we decided to make the long slog back up the mountain to the truck. The whole time, I was just thinking about how much I like fishing up from outside the park and getting to have a leisurely (downhill) stroll after a day of fishing but the thought of an ice cold Yuengling back at the truck kept me marching on.  

 

Here we go!

The new park fishing rules

Morning energy drink

Yep, still there

High and fast

The lair of the only hungry trout this day

My new (to me) Blue Halo 7.5' 3wt.

Nothing like finding a brick to remind you of the folks that used to live in these beautiful places.

Job done!

Piney River 2022

    Sometimes, fly fishing small mountain streams can be pretty frustrating. Fighting into your waders and seemingly too small wading boots. That first stretch of walking while your waders and boots painfully “fit” to your your foot before you get to some cold water to break everything loose and relieve the pain. The first couple of clumsy casts while you get used to the weight of a 2wt rod after a throwing a 7wt for the past couple of months. The seemingly endless snags, both in the water and in the copious amounts of trees surrounding you. It can all get to you pretty quick! However, this is usually completely negated by the awesome amount of eager trout darting from the depths to absolutely pummel that big, bushy dry fly that only a little native brookie could love. It’s a fair balance most days and that’s what keeps us coming back. This however was not one of those days.

    It has been a couple years since my last trip to the mountains to chase these little beauties but in any case, I had some free time and the desire to make the 2.5 hour drive west. Well, Monday was that day! I have fished the Piney River a couple of years ago and seem to recall that it was kind of so-so. By no means a stellar day but worth a revisit. I left the house right around 6AM and rode straight through to the streamside, only stopping for the inevitable stoplights. I was getting the waders on and the rod strung up by 8:30. I have always tied on a fly or two at the car because I have never believed brookies to be super selective and because I have lost half a rod before because I didn’t have the line strung through the guides to hold it all together for the hike in. This morning I tied on a Dyret and a small non-descript tungsten bead head nymph. I have really grown to like the Dyret, especially a foam version I tie that adds just that much more buoyancy.

    The parking situation is a bit weird for the Piney but luckily I still had the spot marked on the GPS and recognized the spot and a half worth of pull off from my previous venture. I didn’t remember, however, which road to hike up to get to the first trail sign. I realized my mistake pretty quickly though and made my way up the correct trail. As stated in my last Piney River post, there are lots of POSTED and NO TRESPASSING signs to walk by on the trail/seemingly private driveway before you get to the park boundary but in any case I made it.

    

    My day probably would have worked out a bit better if I followed the tried and true advice to walk a while and not jump on the first pool that looks fishy but I couldn’t resist. I did however get out a bit later and walk up a couple hundred yards to try my luck after not even getting a rise for fifteen minutes. After another half hour or so, I was having some snagging problems on my dropper so I shortened that from 12” to 6”-8” and on the very next cast, I had a nice little trout come up and grab the nymph. I quickly got it to hand and fumbled with my phone for a bit, trying to get the camera up. If there is one thing I have learned with fishing, it is to take lots of pictures of your first fish because it may be your only one… With that one released any my confidence for the day back where I wanted it I charged forth with the fervor of a fisherman on a mission. Well for the rest of the time before lunch, I only had two more come up for a look and I missed both of them. One looked to be a pretty good size, the other one was maybe 4”. With that drive officially burned out, I decided it was time for lunch and a cup of coffee. After that, I had another hour or so before I had to start heading back to the car. I walked up a bit further and didn’t really see anything too promising but I tossed my flies into a couple of the more promising looking runs without any takers.

    With that, I decided to call it a day. I will give a list of reasons I think my day went the way it did. First was there was a lot of boot prints on the trail indicating that the trail was well used in the past 2 days. By fishermen? I don’t know but I’ll tell myself that it was. Second, the winter sun was directly behind me for the whole morning so I know I was throwing shadows. Third, the Piney is not the type of water I usually fish when it comes to brookie water, it doesn’t seem to have as much gradient and plunge pools that I am more comfortable with. Fourth, I didn’t wear my lucky boxers. Fifth, I didn’t hop on my left foot three times before my first cast. Sixth, it was a waning instead of a waxing moon… the list goes on.

 

That’s fine though cause a bad day fishing beats a good day at work, or something like that.

Best kind of parking area is an empty one.

One foot at a time.

Ready to roll

Right or left?... its right.

Wave to the trail cameras!

SNP gate is a welcome sight after all those NT signs

Didn't have my preferred foam so original flavor will have to do.

"For science!"

Instant will do

I wish I knew my minerals.

Concrete Tree

Yep, still there.

Spent some quality time with Kevin, miss ya man.

Rappahannock is much smaller in this neck of the woods.

Rose River - October 2018

I am slowly working my way south through Shenandoah National Parks many blue lines. This day I decided to head to the Rose River just outside of Syria to cross another one off of my list. I had originally planned on fishing Cedar Run but with all of the rain we have had this past season, a great deal of parking was cut off due to bridge damage (that and an honor safe that I didn't want to pay for). In any case, the Rose turned out to be a great alternative. I picked my dad up on my through town and we headed off to the park.

This trip was planned for a Monday before I realized that it was a holiday weekend, with that in mind I decided to postpone to Tuesday, even with this in mind, I can never help but feel a bit anxious when driving to a fishing spot. The thought of showing up to a lot filled with cars plastered with Orvis, Patagonia, TFO, Sage (the list goes on) stickers always gets me a bit nervous. However on this fine October morning we pulled up to a wonderful sight, an empty parking area. We had our bags packed and rods strung up and were on the trail in record time. 

There is a nice trail head kiosk at this location and after consulting that we decided to hike up to where the fire road crossed a tributary large enough to be marked on the map. We got to a point where there was a good bit of water crossing the road and called it good enough and we slipped off the trail and on to the water. I started off fishing a foam beetle with a small beadhead dropped about 8 inches behind and it was not too long before I brought the fist fish of the day to the net. A nice healthy 8 inch brookie. We continued fishing up stream and I was able to bring a couple more to net which is a piece of gear I was really glad to have along this time. The fish are by no means large enough to warrant a landing net but a small net to catch the fish as they flail about is really handy to keep them from hurting themselves. 

Around 11:30, I caught two fish back to back, the first one was landed in the net and released without issue. The next one, less than a minute later didn't get the luxury of a net landing because I somehow lost the net in that minute. I reached back and there was my magnetic net leash, dutifully holding nothing but itself. I searched for about fifteen minutes for that net and went back to fishing when I decided it was a lost cause. After this, I no longer really trust those S-Biner carabiners. I have almost lost my keys to them multiple times and now I have lost a net due to them.

Stream-side lunch this outing consisted of the finest freeze dried, Styrofoam encased noodles I have ever had, along with some beef jerky and trail mix (Wal-Mart Omega-3 mix is excellent). I have said it before but I believe that the location of a meal can change the quality by leaps and bounds, after all it was a $0.50 cup of noodles but it sure did hit the spot. With high spirits and full of new found energy we headed upstream for the afternoon.

The fishing remained about the same for me, I did however change over to a foam Dyret to drop the nymph from at which point my hookup ratio was about 50:50 on the dry and nymph which is always nice. Cant beat a hungry fish rising like a little missile out of the rocky nooks of the stream bottom. As the afternoon went on, I eventually came to the tributary where we intended to start and had a nice little break at the confluence near the bridge. Losing that net was really nagging me so I decided to pick my way back down stream to fish the nicer pools and runs and look for that net. After about an hour of backtracking we were never able to find that net but we were at the point where the elevation difference between the trail and river made it wise to jump back on the trail. 

We made it back to the parking lot where my car had been by itself the whole day. Despite the lost net, a bunch of beautiful fish were brought to hand and that makes it all worth it. I just hope that someone finds the net and it makes their day.

-On to the proof-

Ready to roll

The trusty 2wt.

Foam Dyret and a little green nymph

I lost this net somewhere on the Rose, if you find it, enjoy it.

Lunch with a view

And a view with lunch

Ugly Mugly

A good map is a work of art

A thing in the woods

See Bigfoot?

Two way radios are an excellent addition to small stream fishing, sure beats trying to shout over the water all day.

That pile of logs had to be around 20' tall, respect the river... its more powerful than you are.

There is a fish in there.

Told you.

ded

Best kind of parking lot. Empty.