If you’re thinking about combining a hike, taking in some fall foliage and of course maybe dapping a dry fly on a stream in Shenandoah National Park, be sure to check out the National Park Service’s fall colors report (updated weekly) and their leaf color cam (updated throughout the day). The image you see on the cam looks like a panorama from Skyline Drive. The image on the right is mine, from the Appalachian Trail almost a year ago.
Time for the fall trout stocking program in Virginia to begin again. And it already has.
Note the South River, near Waynesboro, Virginia. I spoke to one of the owners of the relatively new South River Fly Shop at the Rapidan Trout Unlimited chapter‘s fly fishing show this past February (see also the fly shop’s fishing conditions report). He had a lot to say about the South River’s comeback and I had meant to get down there this year to fish but have not. Yet. According to the fly shop’s fishing conditions report, the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries “stocked the 4.5 mile Special Regulations Area in Lyndhurst yesterday (September 26th). 10,000 brown trout were stocked, with sizes mostly from 6-8″, but some fish approaching 12″ were included.” This may be one of the items below from the VDGIF’s fish stocking report, but for a different date, interestingly.
- Augusta Co.
- South River (Ridgeview Park) (10/05)
- South River (Delayed Harvest) (10/05)
- Bath Co.
- Jackson River (Rte. 623) (10/01)
- Jackson River (Hidden Valley) (10/03)
- Craig Co.
- Potts Creek (10/01)
- Floyd Co.
- Burkes Fork (10/05)
- Giles Co.
- Wolf Creek (10/04)
- Henry Co.
- Smith River (Lower) (10/03)
- Madison Co.
- Robinson River (10/05)
- Nelson Co.
- Tye River (10/03)
- Roanoke Co.
- Roanoke River (Salem) (10/05)
- Rockingham Co.
- South River (Grottoes) (10/05)
- Russell Co.
- Big Cedar Creek (10/04)
- Scott Co.
- Bark Camp Lake (10/04)
Not sure what’s so tough about some Nordic arctic char getting down to some lovin’ but the video is fascinating (direct link to vimeo). This is probably the closest cousin to our beloved brook trout. In fact, they look so similar to brook trout (char that they too are) it’s easy to be fooled.
The age old ritual continues.
Caught me off guard — Maryland just began its fall trout stocking program last week. It’s that time of year. The brook trout will soon be spawning but you can still get your trout fishing fix in the stocked streams throughout the east coast.
| Howard | Little Patuxent River (2 Fish/Day) | Sep 29 | GO > |
| Howard | Middle Patuxent River, Delayed Harvest Area | Sep 29 | GO > |
| Howard/Baltimore | Patapsco River at Daniels (2 Fish/Day) | Sep 22 | GO > |
| Howard | Little Patuxent River (2 Fish/Day) | Sep 22 | GO > |
The salters? Yes, the saltaahs! An update from Orvis News about efforts to restore sea going brook trout (aka. “salters” that’s right) on Red Brook, a 4.5 mile spring creek that feeds into Buttermilk Bay on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
The Sea Run Brook Trout Coalition as well as Trout Unlimited are leading this effort. These sea run native brookies are hanging on thanks to these organizations.
Good stuff.
Nice photos at the Fly Fisherman blog about a recent brook trout fishing trip to the Minipi River in Labrador, Canada. Nothing like understatement — “Obviously, these are not your average-sized brook trout.”
Yep.
Menhaden Defenders has a campaign to stop the over-harvesting of this important species of fish. How important? The most important fish in the sea — remember that book? Stocks of menhaden have declined alarmingly in the past 25 years. They are harvested for uses such as Omega-3 oil supplements and oil based paint. Atlantic menhaden also happen to be a primary forage fish for a number of species of game fish such as stripers (or rockfish for you Mid-Atlantic residents) and bluefish.
Go here to take action to stop overfishing of menhaden. You can use the text they offer or paste the slightly corrected version below into their online form:
Dear ASMFC Commissioner,
I am deeply concerned that the Atlantic menhaden stock is at an all time low that that the latest stock assessment found that overfishing is occurring. Atlantic menhaden are vital to the Mid-Atlantic marine ecosystem, and this fishery should be managed with the utmost care. Therefore, I respectfully request that you:
1) Establish the first ever coast-wide cap on the menhaden fishery for the 2012 season. This quota should be based on an target of 30% of the Maximum Spawning Potential—i.e. 30% of the mature fish in an “unfished” stock must be left in the water—with a corresponding overfishing threshold of 15% MSP
2) Require appropriate monitoring and enforcement measures to avoid fishing over that cap
3) Move quickly to manage the species on an ecosystems basis, accounting for the critical forage role that menhaden play.Thank you for considering my views.
Ever wonder why your favorite streams are named “run” and “branch” but your friends in other parts of the country talk about their “brooks”, “sloughs” and “forks”? Here is a cool map and blog post about the U.S. distribution of how these things commonly called streams are named.
This a very well done graphic.
Here in Virginia, runs and branches are common. In New England brooks are widespread, and where I grew up (New Jersey) that’s what we tended to call small streams, too.
Derek references a couple related blogs, including one that shows terms for UK streams (including terms heretofore unbeknownst to me such as “burn” and “afon”) as well as an exhibit of maps with smaller sets of data for common stream names on flickr, which makes comparing some of these terms a little easier.
All of these blogs illustrate really cool ways to use publicly available data sets — these all use data from the US Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) database.
Well, it’s been a month since I fished here and it’s the first time I’ve tried it during the summer. When I got there I did not expect to find a mostly dry boulder strewn spillway with some scattered puddles of stream. How can fish survive a summer in something like that? But survive they do. I ran across a couple walking their dog and they said it looks that way every summer. I know I’ve caught some nice brook trout in this river on two occasions (both springtime) so they are in there somewhere. And I managed to find a few.
I parked on the side of the road at the bottom of the stream and hiked into the park. It’s tricky figuring out how to walk in without trespassing. Hikers are definitely not encouraged with all the no parking and towing warnings, and you have to walk by a couple houses right at the park entrance but it’s all legal. I always make an effort to be quiet and move quickly past residences in these spots, which is not uncommon throughout the lower reaches of Shenandoah National Park. If I were living there that’s what I would appreciate, so I try to operate that way and be unobtrusive and as invisible as possible.
Anyway, I fished only in one pool:
Here is what I caught… One minnow with red eyes:
One small rainbow One Rosyside Dace:
One very small brook trout:
Oh ho ho. On a three weight with a mouse pattern. That is a NICE brook trout!