A Pic From the RRF last weekend

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Rose River Farms. Pure Awesomeness!

So it felt amazing to finally break that pesky little skunk off my back! 4 trips i went on without a single fish or a take! Granted 3 of the 4 times i went to the gunpowder when the weather was crap and the water had crap in it.. and the 5th time i went bluegill fishing in the middle of winter?!?!?!?!?  So it really felt awesome to break the skunk of with not one fish but 12 fish not counting the ones i hooked and fought but got off were another dozen! These are some monster hard fighting fish! Visit the Rose River Farm website or Facebook page for more info 0n fishing this amazing water!

Where: Rose River Farms, Syria Va

Date: 2.14.2010

Conditions: Clear Sky w/ few clouds. 38degrees. 20mph WSW wind in morning. 3mph WSW wind in afternoon.

Water Conditions: Good Levels. Unknown cfs.

Working Flies: Stonefly Nymph #10-18, Prince Nymph #16, Pheasant Tail #16-#18, Red Butt Soft hackle, Rainbow Warrior #16-#18, CDC Stonefly #14-18

Days on the Water in 2010: 5

Report: No Skunk Achieved! Started around 10:00am to fish downstream of the parking area. Got out of car to throw on waders and got met by some freaking cold wind! As the Simms website says “sometimes the wind cuts like a ginsu knife” and boy was it cutting today! I Hoped for some stonefly hatches but with the wind it did not work out there were a few very sporadic rises through the day but nothing major… So I figured I would tie on a stonefly nymph of my own secret recipe. Arrived at the beat of water I would fish first. It was a slow riffle of about 4ft.  Stacked up fish in feeding lanes (oh boy!) most fish around 15”-18” including a 20” near the back of the riffle in a pool! The fish were feeding on nymphs on the bottom. Needed to get my stonefly to the bottom so it required upstream cast to allow enough time for nymph to get to the bottom. Caught 2 fish on the #14 stone. Switched to a #18 flashback pheasant tail. Fish seemed to like the pheasant tail best. Moved downstream to one of the last pools on the farm and saw multiple fish (in rose river farms terms this means 2 doz. Plus fish!) This fish were not interested in the pheasant tail so I switched up to a #16 prince nymph. Fished the nymph through a deep riffle on the side of a pool to allow the nymph time to get to the bottom where the fish were feeding. Got one strike and another hookup but did not land the fish. Went back to the first pool I fished and saw one rise so I switched to a CDC Stonefly and managed one beautiful rainbow with a heck of a rise! Went back upstream for lunch and by this time most of the wind had stopped and I fished a pool below the parking area. And hooked into a fish with the #14 stone. Got another take but I was slow on the hook set. Went back for my lunch cup of noodles and pretzels! Fished the Pool right next to the parking area with a fishyboy special streamer and had a few follows but the fish only would follow if it had lots of action and going slow. Did not get any others in the pool with the stone, pheasant tail, or prince nymph. Walked upstream and found an awesome deep slow riffle/pool with several fish (remember rrf terms!) and switched to a larger stonefly with some more weight on it to get it to the bottom of the riffle. Caught like 3 fish on numerous casts. Lost a few nice ones from the riffle and hooked a beautiful 17” that took a huge upstream run and put the evo 1.5 through its paces! Went upstream further and spotted several large fish but unable to catch them.

maybe a pic or two later once i get the camera back from the mums!

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