It was a spectacular weekend of weather in the northern Virginia area, and I took an overnight backpacking trip to a stream I hadn’t yet fished in Shenandoah Nat’l Park. I won’t name the stream, but the Park’s own website claims it has the highest population of brook trout in the Park…which is really saying something. Fortunately for those of us who enjoy solitude, it’s not an easy hike to get to fishable waters (~1600 feet of elevation change over a 8-10 mile round trip hike). I packed in Saturday and found a nice campsite right near the stream.
Fishing was extremely productive. I fished both my rhodo and suntech keiryu rod and caught upwards of 30 fish over two days. Mostly 5-6" brookies, but a few bigger ones like the last photo. Everything was caught on dry flies…I briefly considered switching to something else for educational purposes, but it was too much fun catching fish on every third cast.
If you like catching a ton of fun brookies who fight really hard, then you’d do worse than the Blue Ridge in spring. Wait, check that…the fishing was terrible…don’t be bothered with this place…
