Setting up first trip to Harpers Ferry

[Aaron O]

Planning to get to Harpers Ferry around 7AM Saturday morning.  Since we only have Virginia fishing licenses, we will have to stay east of the 340 bridge.  I know that Harpers Ferry area is small mouth bass country but there are other type including largemouth, channel cats, crappy, musky, etc....  We plan on wet wading with 6 and 7 wieght rods with floating and/or full sinking lines.  Expecting the water to be a little cloudy and possibly high/fast due to expected rain storms today.  Open to any thoughts or suggestions that you may have including locations to park or wade too would be apprecitated. 

 

 

Thanks,

 

Aaron

[Dalton Terrell]

I would double check that you can fish West of the 340 bridge with only a Virginia License, as this is in West Virginia. There could be reciprocity but I really don't know.

Don't take the sinking line, use Carolina blue poppers in size 2, and size 6 olive woolly buggers and Clousers. When the first tuber rolls through at 10:30, it's about time to pack up. I think there is a small parking lot at the 340 bridge that should be empty at 7AM. 

Dalton

[Aaron O]

Thanks Dalton,   I will leave the sinking line at home and will look into the reciprocity.

 

 

[Carl Zmola]

I second Dalton's suggestions.
I used Shannon's Streamers instead of clousers, but clousers would work just as well, if not better.

You can fish through the day, but it gets slow.

Carl

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[Richard Lin]

Aaron,

 

How was the trip? Hope you had great time there? My friend and I with our teen sons are planning canoe camping from Brunswick to white ferry this weekend – will stop somewhere in the middle for overnight. We are planning to stop some spots and fishing there. I understand that Dalton suggested not to bring sink lines, I will just bring float lines and poppers and woolly buggers, maybe hellgrammite – I was told by spinning fishermen – bass love hellgrammite in upper Potomac river.

Dalton – woodlly buggers – with or without cone head weight?

 

Anyone who know some tips or flies on this upper river would be great – thanks!

 

Richard

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[Carl Zmola]

On 08/12/2012 09:25 PM, Richard Lin wrote:

Aaron,

 

How was the trip? Hope you had great time there? My friend and I with our teen sons are planning canoe camping from Brunswick to white ferry this weekend – will stop somewhere in the middle for overnight. We are planning to stop some spots and fishing there. I understand that Dalton suggested not to bring sink lines,

Sinking lines will just get in the way.  9' leaders which come down to no more than 3x would be good.  I stay at 8lb mono for my tippet/leader.

I will just bring float lines and poppers and woolly buggers, maybe hellgrammite – I was told by spinning fishermen – bass love hellgrammite in upper Potomac river.

Dalton – woodlly buggers – with or without cone head weight?

Black conehead woolly buggers are a good hellgrammite imitation.
Poppers and sliders are good,
Shenk's streamers, or Shannon's streamer or white Clouser would all be good (white).
A white conehead woolybugger would probably also behave just the same.

 

Anyone who know some tips or flies on this upper river would be great – thanks!

And I don't really call this the upper potomac.  I usually think of the Upper Potomac as Hancock and above (where trout might live).  Is this the Middle Potomac?

Good luck and have fun with your son. 

Carl

[Danny Barrett]

Never used helgramites on the Pot.  But i have on shennandoah. Smallies destroy them on the shen.  But they also the most seen bug ive found under rocks.  See what dalton says but ive found the deeper you fish helgramites the better, but it was a different river.

Danny Barrett
dannyt...@gmail.com
(540) 222-8064

[Rob Snowhite]

Big fan of the hellgrammite. Big channel cats in tidal basin will slam them. I've had a lot of luck recently sight casting to bass with them. It's a fish version of a porterhouse. 

Sent from my iPod

[Dalton Terrell]

Richard,

I am not totally familiar with the area you are floating, but have fished at Brunswick once. I think I tend to only grab a sinking line for water that isn't wadeable, not sure if there are deeper, flatter spots along the float where you will consistently want your fly more than 3-4 ft deep.

For the wooly buggers, like Carl I prefer a cone head. Fishing these, I like short, quick strips and twitches/pops of the rod. For the poppers, I almost always fish these with a dead drift rather than popping them.

Dalton

On Sunday, August 12, 2012 9:38:59 PM UTC-4, Carl wrote:

On 08/12/2012 09:25 PM, Richard Lin wrote:

Aaron,

 

How was the trip? Hope you had great time there? My friend and I with our teen sons are planning canoe camping from Brunswick to white ferry this weekend – will stop somewhere in the middle for overnight. We are planning to stop some spots and fishing there. I understand that Dalton suggested not to bring sink lines,

Sinking lines will just get in the way.  9' leaders which come down to no more than 3x would be good.  I stay at 8lb mono for my tippet/leader.

I will just bring float lines and poppers and woolly buggers, maybe hellgrammite – I was told by spinning fishermen – bass love hellgrammite in upper Potomac river.

Dalton – woodlly buggers – with or without cone head weight?

Black conehead woolly buggers are a good hellgrammite imitation.
Poppers and sliders are good,
Shenk's streamers, or Shannon's streamer or white Clouser would all be good (white).
A white conehead woolybugger would probably also behave just the same.

 

Anyone who know some tips or flies on this upper river would be great – thanks!

And I don't really call this the upper potomac.  I usually think of the Upper Potomac as Hancock and above (where trout might live).  Is this the Middle Potomac?

Good luck and have fun with your son. 

Carl

 

Richard

 

From: tidal-potoma...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tidal-potomac-fly-rod...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Aaron O
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2012 11:12 AM
To: tidal-potoma...@googlegroups.com
Subject: {Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders} Re: Setting up first trip to Harpers Ferry

 

Thanks Dalton,   I will leave the sinking line at home and will look into the reciprocity.

 

 

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[Richard Lin]

Carl – I thought Potomac has two sections only – upper and lower. Yeah it is middle Potomac – Canoe trips is just below Harper Ferry to White ferry.  Thanks for suggestion about leaders and tippets.

 

Richard

[Richard Lin]

Danny & Rob,

 

Cool! I will bring Hellgrammite I bought from Orvis.  Thanks!

 

Richard

 

From: tidal-potoma...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tidal-potoma...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Rob Snowhite

Sent: Sunday, August 12, 2012 9:57 PM
To: tidal-potoma...@googlegroups.com

[Richard Lin]

Dalton,

I see what you mean….I will bring sink lines as back up. My friend and I did kayak 3 years ago (before I started learning fly fishing) in the middle Potomac, I saw few 24” plus carps swimming under my kayak in Dickson area. It was awesome size carp!

Thanks

Richard

 

From: tidal-potoma...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tidal-potoma...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Dalton Terrell

Sent: Sunday, August 12, 2012 10:02 PM
To: tidal-potoma...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: {Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders} Re: Setting up first trip to Harpers Ferry

 

Richard,

 

I am not totally familiar with the area you are floating, but have fished at Brunswick once. I think I tend to only grab a sinking line for water that isn't wadeable, not sure if there are deeper, flatter spots along the float where you will consistently want your fly more than 3-4 ft deep.

 

For the wooly buggers, like Carl I prefer a cone head. Fishing these, I like short, quick strips and twitches/pops of the rod. For the poppers, I almost always fish these with a dead drift rather than popping them.

 

Dalton

On Sunday, August 12, 2012 9:38:59 PM UTC-4, Carl wrote:

On 08/12/2012 09:25 PM, Richard Lin wrote:

Aaron,

 

How was the trip? Hope you had great time there? My friend and I with our teen sons are planning canoe camping from Brunswick to white ferry this weekend – will stop somewhere in the middle for overnight. We are planning to stop some spots and fishing there. I understand that Dalton suggested not to bring sink lines,

Sinking lines will just get in the way.  9' leaders which come down to no more than 3x would be good.  I stay at 8lb mono for my tippet/leader.

I will just bring float lines and poppers and woolly buggers, maybe hellgrammite – I was told by spinning fishermen – bass love hellgrammite in upper Potomac river.

Dalton – woodlly buggers – with or without cone head weight?

Black conehead woolly buggers are a good hellgrammite imitation.
Poppers and sliders are good,
Shenk's streamers, or Shannon's streamer or white Clouser would all be good (white).
A white conehead woolybugger would probably also behave just the same.

 

Anyone who know some tips or flies on this upper river would be great – thanks!

And I don't really call this the upper potomac.  I usually think of the Upper Potomac as Hancock and above (where trout might live).  Is this the Middle Potomac?

Good luck and have fun with your son. 

Carl

 

Richard

 

From: tidal-potoma...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tidal-potoma...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Aaron O
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2012 11:12 AM
To: tidal-potoma...@googlegroups.com
Subject: {Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders} Re: Setting up first trip to Harpers Ferry

 

Thanks Dalton,   I will leave the sinking line at home and will look into the reciprocity.

 

 

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[Aaron O]

Hey All,

 

     Sorry about the delay but I never got to update on last weeks trip.  Had a great time and I'm going back for my second trip to HF tomorrow evening.  I did learn two big lessions during that trip...#1 a Wading staff is a wonderful thing (would have fallen on my ass a number of times, instead of just once  :)  ) but you need to have a cord of some type to keep it connected to you (Imagine trying to hold the staff between your legs while you cast and land a fish, can you say "AWKWARD!).  The second lession was to use my vest instead of the landyard when wading deep.  I had my fly boxes in my pants pocket and one floated away when I wasn't looking.

      That being said, I have just a couple hours this evening to tie flies for this trip (contained mainly streamers and a couple poppers).  Any suggestions on what flies you would tie if you were limited in what to tie.   I plan on tying clouser minnows (one of the few flies I can tie quickly since I've tied more of these than anything else), possibly wooly buggers and Hellgrammites (Rob Snowhite showed me an easy pattern during the last beer tie that I plan to use) but I'm not sure if I should tie any other types.  I still have 1 red and white foam popper that worked well last time, a couple Walt poppers in blue,  black and black/yellow (large and small) along with a variety of nymphs and dry flies on another box that I have not used but have not had any success nymphing as of yet.

       Second question would be using a hellgrammite on a fly, I was told to cast it upstream and allow it to bounce on the bottom.  Would this still work well in Harpers ferry due to the speed of the current in the water and would you suggest using a non lead BBs to help weight it down?

 

 

Let me know your thoughts,

 

 

Aaron

 

 

 

[Cary Pugh]

A little late, but I do have a fly suggestion for harpers ferry - a clouser minnow that I use almost exclusively on my (sadly too infrequent) trips up there. I fish it up or down stream. Dead drift, swinging and stripping. My last outing (a float trip with John Hayes) it caught smallies (including a few 16-17 inchers) catfish and sunfish. No carp yet. Not sure what the fish think it is - maybe hellgrammite maybe cray fish maybe minnow. The fly is simple to tie which is why I like it. The colors in the order in which I tie in are olive, then flash (I use different kinds sometimes crystal flash sometimes Mylar, sometimes red sometimes mixed colors), then purple, then olive. All clouser style. I prefer calf tail as the fur - have tried other material and believe the crinkle in the calf tail works best and is most fishy. But it does limit the size of the fly. I generally go with size 4 tiemco s811 hooks (like for bonefish). I believe in using the best hooks I can afford. I tie using different size eyes to allow the fly to fish at certain depths - eg big lead or lead substitute dumbbell eyes, smaller brass eyes, bead chain eyes. And I like red thread. I will go an entire day fishing with guides and only change flies when I break the fly off or it gets mangy or I want to fish a different depth. And I just change to a new model of the same pattern. I don't know why this pattern out fishes other patterns for me but it does. Of course, it could be that I fish it better because it's my concoction and I have great confidence in it, and it also could be that the fly spends proportionately more time in the water since I'm not changing flies all the time. Anyway, I offer it as another possibility for your arsenal that is pretty easy and versatile.

[Aaron O]

Hey Carl,

Thanks for the suggestions.  That is actually my go to fly and I know from experiene that it works well.  Thanks for the suggestions, I will try some of the variences and see how they work. 

 

Aaron

[FlyTimesDC]

Inspired by this forum post, I decided to make the trek to Harper's Ferry for the first time this past weekend. I parked by the campsite on the West Virginia side and within minutes was in the water. After only a few minutes, I realized why this was such a special place.Clean water, spectacular scenery, lots of fish. Additionally, the tube hatch wasn't bad at all. Check out the bite index on my site for the full story! Thanks!

Remick
FlyTimesDC

On Friday, August 10, 2012 10:41:39 AM UTC-4, Aaron O wrote:

[Dan Davala - Founder/President]

Nice report Remick, thank you for sharing.  I would, however, like to remind you and the club at large that we have a strict "No Commercial Link" policy on this forum and have since its inception.  Since your "Bite Index" is a direct link to your site with rates, etc., that qualifies as commercial. 

 

We are working out the details and long term plans to offer sponsorship agreements to guides, outfitters, and related business at which point sponsor links will be allowed.  Until that time, please remember to respect the rules as they are.  They can be read here at the heading of our forum page:

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/tidal-potomac-fly-rodders

 

In the meantime, thanks to everyone for all of the great, informative posts and reports - keep them coming!

Dan Davala