Rapidan WMA / Rose River / White Oak Canyon

[Greg Feder]

I'm thinking about an overnight trip the weekend of 6/12 -14, hitting the Rapidan and camping in the WMA overnight (they seem to allow "primitive camping" and open fires), and then the Rose and/or White Oak Canyon the next day before returning to Arlington.  I'm not much of a back country camper, but I've car camped before and this plan would let me do that.  I have a Nissan Frontier 2wd that  sucessfully navigated the road along the Rapidan in the past, so I'm not worried about that.  Any tips?  Anyone interested in joining?

 

Cheers,

 

-- Greg

[TurbineBlade]

Beth and I fished the "larger" or those streams today from 7:00 to 1:19 and saw not one other person the entire time....not even on the way out, which is unusual on such a nice Saturday.  

I like frog's fanny quite a bit for CDC -- I have a before and after picture.  I think it beats the "kitchen roll" as the British say (paper towel).  I got 24 fish on that fly before "retiring" in into a tree.  CDC and Elk worked great too -- but nothing on those foam beetles yet.  That should be soon.  

I used to not fish that fly on rough water too much because it's so easy to sink CDC, but with frog's fanny I may have to add it in a lot more -- I think it gives a better impression based upon the action.  My gut is that it's mostly just the handy brush under the lid, but meh.  

At 1:19 my rice krispie bar wore off and we had reached the upper section and decided to call it a day.  

Oh, and I don't know that mayfly, but it's a pretty one.  Lots of midges flying into my nose and ears all day -- but good fishing trumps that annoyance ;).  

The Rapidan has several good "worn" campsites that get frequent use.  Most of them are very obvious as you drive up the road -- and our experience is that if you arrive Friday morning or afternoon, there's often few people there and virtually no one setting up camp yet.  

Gene

[TurbineBlade]

We may be able to join you -- don't know yet.  I shoot you a PM.