Prior to the trip, our daughter Corinne received her Masters degree from Southeastern, earning several honors including Magna Cum Laude and Outstanding Graduate Student honors in her department. I told her that my gift for her accomplishments would be a fly fishing trip. She thought it would be with me to the lake so she wasn't too excited.
However, I had something else in mind. Back in February at the Atlanta Fly Fishing Show, I attended a presentation on fly fishing in Virginia. I knew there was smallmouth fishing in the western part of the state, but didn't realize how truly good it was. Being that I love fishing for smallies, I decided to book a trip as soon as plans on the LHC hike were finalized.
My first call went to the guy who gave the presentation, but he was booked the first half of the week and that was conflicting with our best hikes. He recommended Galen Westman of Shenandoah Valley Fly Fishing. Turns out Galen had an open day on Sunday prior to all our major hikes, so that was perfect.
We met him in Luray about 9:00am and loaded up our gear. Although I'd brought my Redington Predator and Ross FlyStik bass rods, we decided to use his TFO setups which worked out great. We were planning to do a full day float in Galen's inflatable raft on the South Fork of the Shenandoah, one of five prime smallmouth rivers in the area. The only caveat was the weather - an 80-percent chance of rain that afternoon.
No sooner had we launched than we started catching fish. I pulled up a couple nice bronzies on one of Galen's crawfish patterns. I forgot what Cokie was using, but she was catching quite a few in the 8-10 inch range.
Then things slowed down and we began experimenting with different flies. I had brought my bass box and pulled out an olive Y2K Bugger which I killed the smallies with in Maine, Arkansas and North Carolina last year. As well as largemouths all the time here at home. It did it's magic, and started hooking up smallies left and right. Mostly small, but even a 12-inch smallie can double up a 7-weight rod! As Jeff Guerin says, "they fight like wet cats!".
Things were still going slow for Cokie, so Galen suggested a popper. Especially since we now had heavy cloud cover. The popper worked okay, but it seemed they wanted something with a little more "show". Again I pulled something out of my box - Stephen Robert blue/white popper.
I don't know what it is about Stephen's poppers, but damn! They sure catch fish! Even moreso than my beloved Boogle Bugs. As it turned out, that was the only fly Cokie would fish the rest of the day. Twice the body fell off the hook from vicious strikes and Galen was able to secure it back on using UV epoxy. At one point she caught 13 in 19 casts! Including the biggest smallmouth of the day - 17 inches!
After losing my 3rd and last Y2K Bugger, I began trying different flies from the box. Two worked pretty good - my own Coma Crawfish and Daniel Moss' Kray Phish pattern. Not nearly as many smallies as Cokie was catching, but more decent fish on average, 12 to 15 inches.
We ended up with almost 100 smallmouth. We also caught about a dozen redeye rock bass and several hugamongously-thick longears. They must've been bedding because their bellies were 4-inches thick!
Not a drop of rain fell on us this day, and we even had a few periods of sunlight. Although shore lunches are pretty standard fare on trips, I must say this was one of the better ones we've had. I've been blessed to have fished with several wonderful smallmouth guides across the country, as well as some great guides for trout and saltwater, and Galen definitely fits that distinction. The young man was very patient, and knowledgable. And knowing that I was a certified casting instructor, he allowed me to give Cokie advise on her casting. Yes, she struggled a bit early and often, but by the afternoon she was laying out line like a pro! Let's just say after 4 years in graduate school her skills had gotten a little rusty.
In hindsight, booking that Sunday was a very wise decision. The rain did come - and stayed. The original forecast had called for highs in 70s and lows in the upper 50s. Instead we had highs in the 50s and lows in the 40s until Thursday. And heavy fog. Fortunately all the rain - and boy was it heavy - came at night so the club was able to enjoy our hikes. And even a day trip to Montpelier and Monticello. Wednesday night we had heavy rain, 48-degrees and 40-mph winds! Sleeping in a tent in those conditions takes a lot of faith that God will keep you safe!
On Galen's recommendation, I did make one more fishing trip for brook trout. We'd hiked along several of the park's many dozens of small streams and on each occasion, I spotted trout in the waters. Even a couple of 10-11 inch brooks which are considered big fish for these waters.
So I packed up my TFO Finesse 3-weight and hiked back one of those trails. All the rain made stream fishing difficult, not so much clarity but just difficult to get fish to rise in swiftly moving water. But I did manage a couple dozen, all 5-8 inches before finding a pool where I hooked up with two of those "big" fish. Got a few pics of them in the water and did a quick rod-tip release.
The bonus of this fishing day was that I sighted a black bear - my 4th of the trip. But before I could snap a picture, a little girl on the trail spotted it too and began yelling. You can't imagine how fast a scared black bear can disappear!
