Smith’s Creek
Kevin and I took off at 7:00AM on Monday to Smith’s Creek outside of Harrisonberg. It was a brutely cold and windy day but we fools took off work and we weren’t going to miss out on a day of fishing.
We met Billy at Blue Ridge Anglers who gave us a map to the place and let us know that we were really going to enjoy it. He was right. We had a great time. The water was a little murky, but it helped us hide from the trout. It had been raining the last few days so we were lucky that the water was fishable at all. The place hadn’t been fished in 2 weeks so it was ready for us novices.
You can’t ask for a better maintained stream. It had easy access. It had fast water sections and still water. It was like a completely made up place. Couldn’t get any better as far as I am concerned. I caught 2 browns and a huge rainbow (that got away – my mistake). Kevin caught a bunch more along the lines of 8 browns and 3 or 4 rainbows. He pulled in at least one 16 incher. I’m sure there were some much larger ones in there but on my 5 wt, it was a blast. I was planning to use my 5’6″ 3 wt which I am glad I didn’t. We were most successful with black wooley buggers, murray strymphs and bh prince nymphs.. all pretty large. I wasn’t planning on fishing with larger flies so didn’t tie any. And if you are interested, I did try the fuggly bugger and no, it didn’t work. The damn thing floated. Anyway, here are the pictures. I have some more that I took on a disposable camera that I’ll post later. Anyway, I love that place. I’ll be back.
