Piney River

Waking up 40 minutes after your alarm was supposed to go off is not the greatest way to start the day, however knowing that the rest of the day is going to be spent on the water brightens the mood pretty quickly. That being said, I headed out to my cousins house near Shenandoah National Park through the frost covered fields of Westmoreland. Sunday morning is a great time to go fishing because of the lack of traffic makes traveling much less stressful. I picked up my cousin, John, just after 9am and we headed out to what the PATC Map 9 lists as "Very Limited Shoulder Parking". They also had the parking area labeled about .75 miles past a "no cars beyond this point" sign. With some guidance from a local we were able to find the one and a half spaces carved into the woods that was the supposed parking area and we set off up the trail.

The lack of blazes and plethora of posted and no trespassing signs were unsettling but we were just following the SNP sign post that pointed us up what at points seemed to be a driveway.

We started to see some park boundary blazes and that reassured us that we were on the right track. I had put the map location of parking area into my GPS and when we finally reached that point it was the SNP boundary/gate which let us know that it was time to fish. I know that the fishing is always better the further up/away you go from the car but I'm just not that patient. 

Looks fishy to me.

The morning started off a little slow, the sun was very bright and low in the sky so shadows were a major problem. Fish were darting off in every direction before we could even get a cast to them and if they stayed, keeping the shadow of the rod out of their sight was a chore.

Time to head upstream

Mr. Rapidan is always a producer

Once we moved up a bit further, we started connecting with some beautiful brookies.

My big one for the day

Stream side lunch...

You get what you pay for, and I didn't pay much for these boots. They did ok for a couple of seasons.

Small stream must have, wish I had started using it earlier!

Last one of the day for me!

A friendly wave.

Don't know what this means but it makes me want to walk faster.

A "science box" in the woods.

All in all we had a great day on the water, the weather held out wonderfully for us and we both caught some trout. We already have plans to check this one out in a different season!