I recently headed out to Shenandoah National Park to a very small stream that I’d never heard a thing about. These overlooked bits of water in the park are hit-or-miss, and you never know if they have fish until you hike up or down to one and cast a fly.
Turns out this one had some small brook trout, always a great thing to confirm.
The week before, on the Rapidan, size 12 and even size 10 Elk Hair Caddis worked great most of the day. Here, with temps about the same (mid-50’s), I couldn’t buy a fish on an EHC. But a size 14 Adams did the trick as it often does when trout are looking up.
There are a ton of tiny streams and tributaries in the park that most people don’t bother fishing. I have found a few with some decent sized brookies over the years, but I’ve also burned some time discovering some that don’t really have any, or at least do not harbor any consistently. Still, it’s always fun to explore the place regardless of how the fishing works out.
2 thoughts on “Small Stream Fishing – Really Small”
I just came back from SNP and was disappointed. Flows were really low! Hit N. Fk Thornton and caught a few. Left to hit Pass Run in search of the wild rainbows and caught a few dink specs. I used to live in New Market VA in the early 90s and the fishing in the SNP absolutely rocked. I moved to State College PA and despite the topography- you have to drive a good distance to find decent brook trout fishing. Consider yourself blessed.
Flows improved a lot over the course of the year with record rainfall in the mid Atlantic. Fishing had been quite good so far this spring. I’m tempted to try n. Fork Thornton as I’ve only been there once in the summer and the water was too low. That said, there are plenty of dynamite streams in SNP one of which is very close to N. fork Thornton.