Pacemaker Fishing Forum

for the lake anna tornament we can go a day b4 and spend the night at my waterfront property so we can get up early

L1Ranger wrote:

let me know whats up with the trout Charlie.  There's plenty of streams down this way and I could host small groups on a saturday or sunday for a day of fishing.  Depending on what each group wanted to do, there's put and take, delayed harvest and wild trout streams within close range.

This is a great offer....I would be willing to help and wet a line too!

I'm about 10 miles south of front royal.

anytime from now until the water gets low is a great time for trout as they don't mind the cold water so much.  Pretty much all spring
of course, nobody wants to go freezing there butts off (though I don't mind).
if you can get a group or two together and set a tentative date we can go from there.  if the weather doesn't cooperate, we can reschedule.  wind and rain will ruin a trip.

if anybody is interested in fly fishing and has the equipment, we could do a special trip for that as well.  its my preferred method for trout.

that would be great ernie - I've only got one that would be suitable for trout.

A guy at the bar at Ruby's was trying to get me to start fly fishing.  He said that there is a really cheap rod that is great for learning at walmart for $30

Pacemaker wrote:

redskinsfan360 wrote:

A guy at the bar at Ruby's was trying to get me to start fly fishing.  He said that there is a really cheap rod that is great for learning at walmart for $30

Don't get it....bad habits!

But with it I can get the hang of fly-fishing.  If the rod gets stuck on something and breaks because of a beginner mistake, then i will not be out a couple hundred dollars.

redskinsfan360 wrote:

If the rod gets stuck on something and breaks because of a beginner mistake, then I will not be out a couple hundred dollars.

You don't need to spend a couple of hundred $$s! But a $30 WM rod will do nothing for you.

My 1st fly rod was a cheap, $35 piece of junk. I THOUGHT I was casting properly but I was not. The rod would not and could not load properly so I cast improperly. If you want to learn to fly fish, I have some rods you can use. You can buy used St. Croix Premiers for $50-60 and they are decent to cast with. There are many other is that category. The cheap rods are twice as thick and twice as heavy as they need to be.

Once you develop a bad habit when fly fishing, it is hard to break.

I have broken  three fly rods...all were clumsy operator errors! All were repaired or replaced by the manufacturer for a small fee.

it depends on what the group wants to do

wild trout - 3 in a group
delayed harvest - 3 or 4
put and take - maybe as many as 8

it would also depend on help.  if Ernie can help out, or somebody else, we can do more than one group in the same day

put and take are generally easy accessible streams that are stocked by the state on a regular basis, but they are also fished pretty heavily and 99% of the fish are kept. 

delayed harvest is pretty easy to get to, and stocked by the state, but from october to april all fish must be released.  regulations call for single hook artificial lures only.  There is only one of these in the vicinity, and b/c of its size, more than 3 or 4 would be too many.

wild trout are generally smaller streams, some are pretty easy to get to, others require some hiking.  wild trout are much more colorful/pretty and very scrappy, however, they are generally smaller.  All streams  in SNP and some are single hook artificial only.  Most of those in the park are catch and release. 

put and take and delayed harvest both require the additional state trout stamp.
wild trout do not require this.

I will do some talking to see if I can pull together another option that will include more people, but I'm not sure yet.

Wow!  That place is beautiful.  I will talk to people next week at school.  Maybe a small group the first time (maybe the officers or something) and then maybe a second trip with more. 

do you use waders or just stand from the side?

Thanks again for all of your help!!  If this works out it could be really cool!

Last edited by redskinsfan360 (Jan-10-09 9:03AM)

I would suggest waders, but you can probably get by without them, esp if you are spin fishing.  fly fishing is much easier with waders.

on smaller water, 4 and 5 wt fly rods and light power spin rods

on larger water, a ML or M spinning outfit and 5 or 6 wt fly rod

at elk springs, fish up to 20"+ aren't that uncommon

Last edited by L1Ranger (Jan-10-09 11:25AM)