The Summer Shandy Trip

[Arofishing]

My buddy and I got away on Monday-Tuesday for some fishing at Crane and some camping at James River Outfitters. The trip started off slow. He was late and still needed to pick up supplies so we didn't get to Crane until 5-5:30 pm. He had been on fishing hiatus for a while so I didn't have much hope for this trip, at least as far as the trout were concerned.

Started in upper section Monday night with what little light was left. I was messing around by the bridge waiting for his slow a** and managed to pick up a juvenile on rubber legs. That was quite an auspicious start given my usual trout fishing habits. I wanted to show him a spot where I thought he'd have the best chance of catching a fish. The water was up more than I've ever seen it, however, and that spot had changed quite a bit. He ended up catching his first McCloud right near there, much to my surprise and slight dismay (I mean, come on, it took me 3 trips to Crane to even catch a fish and I had to tie his tippet to his fly line because he forgot the effing knots).

We got to the lower with just an hour of light left. The water actually had some color (again, a first for me). This being my friend's first time, I made sure to show him all of the public land. We started at the end and quickly worked up. We both had success at that nice riffle above the drum. My friend caught the biggest trout he has ever caught there (on a prince) and I caught my biggest trout on Crane. I really think the color and lack of light helped a lot. The other notable thing we saw was a huge snapping turtle, I'd say tail to head it was about as tall as your waist, with a shell almost the size of basketball. He was hanging out in that pool where most people (in my experience) cross to the other side of the creek. Maybe that's why I've never had any luck there?

We camped at James River that night, got in late, but had enough time to get everything setup and buzzed. After packing that morning, we hit up the James around the campground for an hour. My friend managed to catch to largemouth bass on a white and yellow clouser I tied. The only thing I managed to do was fall in and get wet. Again, more water than I am accustomed to, which is nice after trying so hard to fish the James during the dog days of last summer.

We did the lower park section before leaving Tuesday afternoon. I had never been all the way down there, so that was part of my motivation: to figure out where the public land ended and the private began. Aside from some vague signs from the MDC saying, essentially, "you're about to leave public land" it wasn't well marked. In any case, no guns and no threats were involved, so if we trespassed, we did it surreptitiously. I was the only one who caught any fish: a creek chub and two trout using a prince nymph and some shot to get it down. All in all an awesome trip. None of the fish had much size to them, but that was an unprecedented haul of fish for me given the time fished (I averaged a fish an hour). And we were fishing only a couple days behind the Oklahoma boys who, as usual, had a tremendous amount of success (I swear their pictures are coming from elsewhere! ). What a great experience for one of my last trips to Crane!