Hemlock Overlook outing earlier today

[TurbineBlade]

Hi - much thanks to all of you who made suggestions about fishing the river here.  My wife and I were off today and decided to fish for a few hours here.  Man, Clifton, VA is a little neat town there!  It reminded me of livign in rural Missouri again ;).  But man, some of those gated homes out there were really ghetto.  I was expecting, like 8 million dollar homes...and none of these were probably over 6.5 million or so.  I kept looking over my shoulder expecting to be sold a time-share at any moment.   Lucky I remembered to bring my trusty "board with a nail in it" in case I was approached by any thugs out there.  I have soem extra boards that I'll send you if you want, but you have to supply your own nails. 

 

Anyway, we didn't hit the river until about 11:00, but we fished from then until about 5:00 pm.  I used one of those blue poppers (boogle bug) with the flat face, I think a #8.  I could barely keep the bluegill off of it and honestly I wasn't even doing much actual "popping".  They'd hit it on a drift, on a swing, popping, etc.  It was fun.  I moved up to another boogle bug, this time a black #6...hoping to pick up a bass and avoid smaller gills.  I ended up catching more gills with it ;)...that's okay though. 

 

My wife started with a white clouser and didn't get hit in the riffles, downstream from the riffles, around rocks, etc.  She switched to a green damsel nymph and got the only bass of the day (small one) and several bluegill also ;).  I also tied a yellow rubber spider (bully spider) and got some gills on it too.  They seem to like just about anything.I

 

Water was a bit tinged from the rain earlier this week.  Very, very nice weather.  New waders didn't leak! 

 

All said, that's a really nice stream fairly close to home that we'll hit again for sure.  Anyone know what the cannon fire was that we kept hearing? 

 

Oh, also there was a middle-aged couple sitting there making out on a large rock while we worked upstream.  So apparently this river is a hot spot to renew interest in your spouse!  I've always liked my wife in a set of breathable waders....so maybe they're on to something. 

 

Thanks guys,

 

Gene

[Eric Kruel]

The artillery fire is from a private gun club down river about a mile or so. I looked into it a while back to see about shooting there. Its not cheap to join and you need to be nominated by another member to get in. I think you need to own one of them 6.5 million dollar shacks to get in. Place does look pretty sweet from google earth, they even have a private fishing pond.

I might head down to hemlock either tomorrow or sunday. What way did ou head when you got to the bottom of the trail left or right. I have had better luck to the right, but it has been a month or so since I have had a chance to fish there. Also you might want to check out the winery on the left befor you get to the hemlock parking area. They have a nice happy hour on Friday nights with live music, it's a cool spot to check out.

[TurbineBlade]

Oh, Hey Eric!  We headed to the left first actually to fish the rocks and that big riffle not too far down.  Got some fish in there, then moved back upstream for a bit.  I wanted to go further upstream, but I couldn't believe how long we'd already been there and we were hungry and decided to beat rush hour traffic.  I knew from the posts I got previously that the further left you go the more "wide" the river becomes, but I'm so happy to have my wife interested in fly fishing that I'll go whichever direction she wants...and that was her pick ;). 

 

We might bet getting to the point where we're not too embarassed to have other fly anglers witness our casting -- and I know you said you've fished there often and live not too far away.  It's kind of like when you try to go workout at the gym before going to workout at the gym so that people won't look at you ;).  I guess it doesn't make a lot of sense....

 

The next time we hit it I'll drop a post on here in case you're in the area with nothing to do! 

 

Gene

[Eric Kruel]

Hey Gene I know you mentioned you were wearing waders, how was the water temp. Too cool to wet wade or did you just want to try out the new waders.

[Todd Kuethe]

Where abouts in rural Missouri?

[TurbineBlade]

Oh, we lived in Springfield, MO for about 5 years during school.  My folks are up near Salem, MO if you know the area.  It's pretty near to Rolla.  

Her folks live up North in the Troy area (1.5 hours North of St. Louis).  We've spent time in nearly every county in the state, either hiking, seining fish and macroinvertebrates, or hunting in her case.  

On Friday, September 21, 2012 8:14:28 PM UTC-4, TurbineBlade wrote:

[Todd Kuethe]

Awesome! I'm from Cuba, so I know all about Salem.

[TurbineBlade]

Wow, small world man!  My wife's grandparents live in Steeleville....well, actually cherryville.  We drive out to visit once a year -- this would be the 1st year I'll go back and be able to use a fly rod.  Well, hopefully I can use the fly rod anyway ;).  I'm slowly getting better at it.  I think some of it just comes with experience (like getting hung in trees, stepping on your line, etc.) 

 

Gene