Between Rivers: 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-