I was privileged to have the opportunity to once again fish the Rose River in Madison County, VA at the
Rose River Farm, thanks to my friend and host Douglas. Tons (quite possibly literally) of really big, thick, meaty trout and gin clear water. My fishing skills limited my performance to just a couple over the course of several hours, but every trout I saw or caught was this size or bigger. This shot is misleading because his tail is falling away from the camera, but it's a nice size fish. Very nice. Really difficult to hold and photograph a trout this big by yourself, but that's a really nice problem to have!
Douglas, his awesome dog Enzo, and I think that must be Enzo's beer on the rock out in the middle.
Sunrise over the mountains. Boy, ice crystals in the late fall air sure do make for spectacular skies. Madison County is a beautiful place.
A face so great I had to put another Enzo shot up here. He's a Spinoni, and every time I spend time with this dog I am further convinced my next dog will be a Spinoni too.
4 comments:
Hi Ed!
What up with the dorsal fin on that bow? It looks like a double humped camel! What did you find that limited you from catching more fish? Hard to get the right cast? Hard to get the right drift? Wrong bugs on the end of the line? Just curious.
Joel
I don't know, man. Good question. I've been around plenty of accomplished fly anglers and one thing I can say is that I honestly don't think it's my casting. Not that I'm ready for flats fishing and throwing 75 feet of line into the wind with no false casts. But for the kind of fishing I do, I can get good casts, good presentations. I just never seem to catch many fish. Ever. Maybe it's fly selection, but I try a lot of things that don't work, including locally recommended stuff. There are days I feel like it'd be easier to just spin cast, but luckily I am even less productive that way. I'm not down on it all, but I do get frustrated.
Ok buddy here are my two bits on the lack of catching. When I am guiding clients the two most common errors I see is one not getting your bugs up in front of the fish far enough and two not setting the hook enough. If you are site fishing to a fish you have to present your bugs at least four to five feet up stream from that fish. It allows your nymphs to get down where the fish is and gives the fish a good chance to look at your bugs.
Now when I talk about setting the hook I am talking about nymphing. If you see that indicator go down at all set the hook. I will guarantee you that the person who sets the hook the most will catch the most fish everytime!!! I have convinced one of my best customers of this practice and he smokes everyone he fishes with now.
That's just my two bit though Ed.
Joel
Thanks Joel! I will try and concentrate on those two things next time I go out, I will try them on the Gunpowder, a nice piece of water that I never really do very well on.
Thanks again.
Ed.
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