Spring SNP Camping Trip

I try to get one full weekend of fishing in the spring and one full weekend in the fall.  This spring I decided to take the weekend before I start Grad school and camp up in the SNP.  The weather was going to be sketchy, but I decided to carry through with it anyways.  Got up to Big Meadows around 7 pm after work, just in time for the rain.  I set up camp quickly (too quickly)  and got a fire going to cook some brats.  I knew by the way the clouds were coming in quick I didn't have much time so I just wrapped the brats in tin foil and threw it in the fire.

 

 

And they didn't turn out too bad.

 

 

Well the rain picked up and I called it a night early.  About an hour into the rain the thunder picked up and it was a pretty bad storm.  Being on the top of a mountain didn't help either.  The lighting didn't really bother me, it was the strong winds that did though.  After three hours of laying wide awake in the tent that was being blown around violently, I decided to just sleep in the Jeep.  It was a pretty crappy night sleep to say the least.  Here's a picture of what the tent looked like in the morning.  Note I said I set up camp too quickly because of the rain and I didn't tie down the tent good enough.

 

 

After fixing the tent I got coffee going and some bacon.

 

 

Then it was off to stream #1

 

 

 I was supposed to hike down the trail a quarter of the way and then take a drainage ditch down to the stream.  Ended up passing the drainage ditch and when I realized it I decided to just hike the whole trail down to the main branch of the river.  The hike down was easy, the hike out was all up hill and took a couple hours.  Wasn't really worth hike considering the fishing was sub par, there was an easier way to get to this river then the route I took, and only caught one decent brown and a couple dink brookies.

 

Came back and decided to cook up the steak after the hiking I did.

 

 

The night sleep was a lot more enjoyable.  Started off the morning with some bacon pancakes and coffee.

 

 

On the drive to stream #2, I saw my first wild black bear.  He was about 10 feet off the road when I stopped and I took a couple pictures and carried on my way.  Pretty good sized bear too.

 

 

On the hike to the stream I just happened to look down at my feet and noticed a funny looking stick on the path, and then I saw a tongue flicking out and stopped about a foot from it.  It was just a garter snake, but I would still prefer not to get bitten.  I moved him off the path so no other hikers would step on him.

 

 

Fishing at the stream made up for the fishing I had yesterday.

 

 

I hooked a giant brookie in the pool below but he came off after a short fight.  I cast back to the hole and caught this little guy.....

 

 

Big brookie of the trip

  

Quick Lunch

 

It was a good trip and a nice way to begin what will be a busy end of spring and summer for me.  Thanks for reading.

Stream Revisited

I took this past Monday off work since I had a crazy week last week and revisited a stream I fished a couple weeks ago.  I fished to a substantial waterfall and decided to turn back since I was solo.  Well, it's been bugging whether or not there is brookies above the falls, so I decided to wait till everything in the woods came alive to make the hike around the falls.  That stream is definitely a fall/winter stream with the tough access and bush whacking involved.  Water levels were great and there were bugs coming off the water like crazy and the dry fly action was constant all day.

Foggy start to the day.

Stonefly

My favorite shot of the day.

This guy had an interesting tail.

Close up of his tail.

So you get an idea of the tangled mess I was fishing.

Picture of the falls.  the two trees are good sized trees and should give you an idea of the height and steepness.

Had to actually hike downstream 50 yards and up the side of the mountain to get around the falls.  Fished the next ten pools and came to the conclusion that there is no brookies above the falls.  Same too because the section above the falls is nicer then the section below.  A bucket transportation may be due in the near future.  The fact that the trout can not get above the falls is testament to the size and steepness of the falls.

Instead of messing around anymore with this stream, I hiked out and went to another stream near by to kill a couple hours I had allotted for the above falls section.  Here are the pictures from stream two.

Nice sized brookie on a dry.

Fumbled fish shot.

Thanks for reading.

Big Brookies in High Water

Yesterday I fished a stream that tends to handle rain well due to the recent storms we got Friday.  Central VA did not get much rain so I figured I would be fine.  I tied on a dry/dropper rig at the Jeep because of the 65 degree weather and in hopes of some big brookies hitting dries.  Hiked to the stream and was greeted with this.

Laughed at my dry/dropper rig, cut it off, and tied on a heavy weighted tungsten bead fly.  Plan for the day was to find some still slow pockets and fish it hard.  The big fish seemed to be stacked up in these few and far in between pockets.

Black Locust

And then I took a spill.  No real danger in this smallish stream, but was still some slow and careful wading in this fast moving water.  My foot stepped on a slick rock and I fell forward getting some water in my waders and soaked my shirt.  Had to start a fire to dry out my shirt as would of been a long day in the wind soaking wet.  Also had to empty out my waders of the little bit of water that went in.  Luckily I carry a flint fire starter.

After warming and drying up, it was back to the brookies.  Next came a big brookie that put up one heck of a fight.  

The most colored up brookie of the day.

Wake Robin.

Overall it was an awesome day, especially with the conditions.  Lots of 6 to 8 inch brookies caught and a lot over 10 inches caught.  Really unreal.  Thanks for reading.

Slow Spring For Bass

It has been a slow spring for the bass in ponds warming up.  For the past two weeks, all I have been catching are dinky 6 inch bass.  Average size of the brookies I catch is around that size.  Here is a montage (dinky montage) from pond fishing the past two weeks.

I tied up some Deceiver variants to mess around on the ponds and they seem to have yeilded better results.



Bigger then what it looks. Was a solid pound bass no thanks to the goofy camera angle.



Hopefully more and bigger bass to come soon.  Thanks for reading.