Work Trip to Eastern Virginia With a Stowaway Fly Rod

[tangledup]

While I normally dislike internet scouting (both being the one doing the scouting and the one asked about scouting), I guess I must swallow my pride and stoop to the low levels of other internet scouts. I am getting sent to Stafford, VA for a work trip this coming week and figured I might as well pack a fly rod or two in the hopes of adding another state to my list of places I've been blessed enough to get to fish. The time available for me to conduct my typical pre-fishing trip research is extremely limited, hence my resorting to internet scouting. Most of the remote, small stream fishing that I enjoy so much seems to be on the wrong side of the state, but I have found three "urban" fly fishing areas less than 30 minutes from where I'm working and staying for the week. I have not began my research on the possibility of saltwater fishing yet. 

I have checked the Virginia public website for a list of various places and am slowly making my way through those suggestions in an attempt to plan out my fishing excursions for each night. Would any generous anglers on here be willing to point me in the right direction for some places to fish for trout or smallmouth within about 30-45 minutes of Stafford? I'm not looking for any specific secret spots, more just general areas to look at. A particular conservation area, public access, or body of water that might expedite my research time. 

Thanks in advance!

[BilletHead]

          What you are doing is research!   When we travel west, we figure out what we want to do. This you have already done. Then we know most of our routes and destination. Again, you know this. Next public areas, then Google earth or other online mapping for waters still or running. Most states have fisheries management people that have done assessments on most of these waters. It is for their use and our use. I am betting there are areas split up in the state with fisheries biologists for each that knows what is going on. Such people are being paid from our taxes. I have talked to many of these folks in many states on internet, by phone and in person. I have never met one that did not go out of their way to help. Good luck and give us internet scouters a report please. Some of us might not make it to fish such places but I for one want to see everyone succeed and enjoy reports.

   BilletHead

[tangledup]

11 hours ago, BilletHead said:

          What you are doing is research!   When we travel west, we figure out what we want to do. This you have already done. Then we know most of our routes and destination. Again, you know this. Next public areas, then Google earth or other online mapping for waters still or running. Most states have fisheries management people that have done assessments on most of these waters. It is for their use and our use. I am betting there are areas split up in the state with fisheries biologists for each that knows what is going on. Such people are being paid from our taxes. I have talked to many of these folks in many states on internet, by phone and in person. I have never met one that did not go out of their way to help. Good luck and give us internet scouters a report please. Some of us might not make it to fish such places but I for one want to see everyone succeed and enjoy reports.

   BilletHead

What you say is all very true. I do have some general ideas in mind. I just meant I’m not as prepared as I would LIKE to be when going to fish a new area. It might sounds strange but, to me, the process of planning a trip is almost as enjoyable as the trip itself. I typically build a binder of maps, destinations, a rough plan of the trip, lists of specific places to go and a goal list of the species I want to catch. By the time I take the trip I have spent so much time on Google earth, YouTube, and other digital resources that when I get to my destination it almost seems familiar. A preview to the trip, I suppose. This trip had such late notice I haven’t been able to prepare in my typical manner. But maybe that will add to the enjoyment of the adventure! Either way, I plan to spend some time outdoors, fishing new water, instead of shacked up at the hotel. I will add a report when I get back.

[Quillback]

Closest I've been fishing to where you're at is the Potomac up by Harpers Ferry, but that's probably further than you'd want to drive.  It's been 40+ years, but there used to be plenty of smallmouth, lots of access and wadeable water on the Maryland side.

[tangledup]

Well I have to admit, this trip turned out far better than I expected. I had resigned myself to fishing the stocked urban streams that were closest to my hotel and hoped to fish at least two of them after I finished with work Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. Those evenings came and went with no time to fish. While going on one of my virtual journeys in the hotel room, and cursing my vocation for keeping me so busy, I stumbled across an apparently well know stream in the Shenandoah National Forest named the Rapidan. I had never heard of it before but have since learned it’s a fairly famous stream.

Thursday afternoon rolled around and we actually finished up work around 1:00pm. I can’t describe how excited I was when I realized I actually had an opportunity to fish a picture perfect trout stream and add a brook trout to my list of species. I have wanted to catch a brook trout since I began fly fishing about four years ago.

I jumped in my rental car and stopped at Walmart on my way out of town to purchase the necessary tags. Only to learn their computers were down. After about 20 minutes, the dedicated employees had the computer up and running and I had my out of state trout fishing package purchased and stowed in my bag. After grabbing a few snacks, I was back on the road and completed the hour and a half drive to the lower Rapidan parking area. 

I really wish I had taken more pictures. That drive was absolutely beautiful. And the Virginia farms I passed along the way were all immaculate and well kept. 

I arrived at the parking area around 3:00 and changed shoes and got my rod rigged as quickly as I could. I hiked in 30 minutes straight, passing several attractive pools, with the strategy of getting past the areas with the most pressure to increase my odds of catching fish.

It had rained earlier in the day and the river was roaring. About 20 minutes into my 30 minute hike I met a local who told me the water was a little high for his liking and he was headed up to try the upper Rapidan. I gleaned as much intel as I felt was polite and kept hiking up the trail. Once I hit the 30 minute mark I wandered off the well marked trail and began hitting some pools that weren’t flowing quite as quickly. 

I began with my standard hare’s ear and pheasant tail with no success. After losing a pheasant tail in a deep pool I sat down to tie on another fly but began to notice fish rising in the pool I had just fished. I tied on a parachute Adams then took a few minutes to work myself around to a better angle. On the second cast I was rewarded with a strike but missed the fish. Somehow I had left my floatant at home and the parachutes were only good for a few casts before they started drowning. I missed two more strikes on the parachutes in this hole. I tried a couple smaller foam patterns in the hope I could continue to get surface bites without the need to dry my fly every couple casts but the fish weren't interested.

About a hundred yards up the stream I found a pool that had formed under two giant boulders the size of my living room. At the bottom of the pool was another large boulder about 8’ tall and 12’ wide. The top of this boulder was flat, allowing me to crawl up on top of the boulder and lay comfortably with a bird’s eye view.  I noticed a mayfly hatch starting and the activity of the fish in the pool increased. I don't know my insects down to the order very well, but I think they may have been Hendrickson's. They were large with that rusty brown color. Watching the hatch progress before my eyes was quite an experience. When I first laid down on the boulder I saw two or three large mayflies bouncing around, with another much small species flying in the background. This species was too small and too far away for me to identify. As I watched the mayflies dance up and down in the air I noticed their numbers increasing. Very slowly at first but within five or six minutes the air was full of them. All moving through the air in dance that was unchoreographed, yet at the same time had a very obvious rhythm and flow to it. I was so mesmerized I almost forgot to fish. Almost.....

I switched over to a small soft hackle I have started tying and using in small streams. Less than five minutes after my first cast into the pool I was rewarded with two brook trout. This was a species I have wanted to catch for a long time, so I was thrilled with this success.

I only got to fish until about 6:30 but it was amazing and I got to see some beautiful scenery.

 

 

[tangledup]

Some of the pictures didn’t upload for some reason.

[BilletHead]

        Great report and congrats on the Brooktrout success. Nice pictures to boot. 

[Hawg]

Good job

[MikeKaya]

Just read through your adventure with the stowaway fly rod on your work trip to Eastern Virginia—sounds like you turned a business class trip into a fishing expedition! Loved how you managed to sneak in some angling amidst your meetings and site visits. The story of casting under the bridge and landing a surprise bass had me hooked (pun intended)! It's awesome how fishing can turn even a routine trip into a memorable escapade. Makes me think about sneaking my gear on my next "work" trip—maybe I'll get lucky like you did! Thanks for sharing the tale and inspiring some of us to mix business with pleasure in unexpected ways.