| Fishing Trip To the Robinson River |
Air Temperature: about 90-95 degrees farenheit
Water Temperature: about 60-65 degrees farenheit
Sun - direct
Flow - normal
Fish Rising? - yes
Fish Caught? - yes
Best Fly - ausable wulff
I went to western Virginia a few weeks ago with my friend Aaron to stay at his country house overnight, and then to go fishing in his pond the next morning, and then be at the Robinson by about 9 am. After an hour, two lost Woolly Worms, and two small sunfish, we ate breakfast and got a ride over to the river from Aaron. By the time we arrived at the river, the temperature was already almost unbearable, and if I hadn't had waders, would have been more than happy to do some wet wading. With waders, though, we started fishing just upstream of a small pedestrian bridge over the river called Swinging Bridge. After a few casts with Woolly Worms, a small black nymph I had made specifically for the trip, and various other wet flies and no success, I switched to a Pseudo, a fly derived from the Adams. With this fly, I landed a small chub, and then nothing, so I switched to an Ausable Wulff. After a few casts, I was able to bring in two more chubs, but I was still unable to provoke a rise from either the small Rainbow Trout or Smallmouth Bass, so after a quick sip of juice we decided to move on.
After we had walked about fifty feet from the hole that we had started at, I was in the lead, a small, thin reddish-brown snake about two feet long darted out of a rock directly in front of me, and scared the crap out of me. The snake swam upstream about ten feet, and then swam under what the snake must have assumed was a rock, and was actually a snapping turtle about a foot long lodged midstream between two rocks, apparently sleeping. I yelled for Aaron, and when we came back the snake and turtle were still there, and the snake had been completely submerged for more than 3 minutes. We found several sticks, flipped the turtle, and ran when the snake swam out and headed towards the bank. The turtle proceeded to meander his way downstream, and out of sight. After that, we were much more wary about snakes, although later we stumbled upon another snake, presumably of the same species. When we reached another hole under an overhanging tree, about 20 feet downstream of a cement bridge, we started fishing again, with a bit more luck.
The bass pictured directly above, the smaller of the two photographed, I caught in this hole. Also, the chub from the first page on this website I caught here, in addition to several other chubs, all with the Ausable Wulff. In this one hole, I had the most fun out of the entire day, because I was delighted to be able to cast within 10 feet of the tree's eroded roots, and have either a chub or smallmouth bass take the fly. In several instances, I was able just to sit down, and watch the smaller fish poke at the fly, until one of their larger cohorts took it, and ran back upstream for an incredibly easy landing. After losing my fly, and scaring the fish away attempting to retrieve it, Aaron and I moved on. We came to a relatively deep hole, at least 4 feet deep in the middle, where there was an overhanging tree and a rope swing. At the bottom of the pool, in addition to many dead limbs and leaves, were at least 4 Rainbow Trout at least 12" or 15" long. We wasted half an hour here, throwing several different wet and dry patterns at the trout, and eventually scaring them away when I had to wade in to retrieve a fly I had hooked to a branch on the bottom. This fly, the largest I had with me at the time, was a streamer with several black feathers wrapped on to make a body and tail, a pheasant feather split as the wings, and a black hackle wrapped on directly below the head of the fly for the legs. When fishing the fly, I watched, while the trout shied away, as the chubs, most too small to take the hook in their mouth, took turns attempting to suck in the hook, always unsuccessful. When I had to retrieve the fly, though, my visions of wet wading came true, and the water went over my boots, and just past my belly button. Reaching in, half my head went underwater, and my hat fell in as well, necessitating a second rescue. For the next ten minutes walking, I carried with me at least 15 lbs of water, in my boots, and finally I stopped to empty my boots, as did Aaron, who had fallen in over an hour earlier and had been surviving the physical strain of walking with the added weight until then. We then sat down for lunch, and after drinking our last drops of juice, which would later prove to be very vexing, as going for almost three hours in that heat with nothing to drink can be very trying.
After that, we continued to walk, and eventually reached a hole that had cut its way into the bank of a large patch of farmland, and from where we were could see the road. At the bottom of this hole we were able to see several fish appearing to be roughly a foot long, but we were unable to distinguish their species. After an uneventful ten minutes, we both landed a chub or two, a larger fish took my fly, still the Ausable Wulff, and ran with it. Awakened from my thirsty daze, I immediately started pulling in line, playing it without the reel. The fish took quite a bit of line, and Aaron suggested that I play the fish off of my reel. It took me almost a minute to take in all the slack that had accumulated in my hands, but when I landed the fish after almost five minutes, the job was made much easier by using the reel. The fish turned out to be a smallmouth bass, the one pictured at the top of the page, and measured about a foot. Incidentally, this was the largest fish of the day. After the picture was taken, the fish was placed in the water and I watched its progress as he raced upstream. After a few more unsuccessful casts, we continued on.
A few feet before we stopped at the final hole, Aaron flushed another snake, and this snake darted for the bank. After returning to Washington, DC, though we both had a vivid mental picture of the snake, we were unable to discern the species, but still concluded that the snakes encountered were poisonous, from their pointed heads. After a few unsuccessful casts at the last pool, near another bridge, we were picked up by Aaron's mother, and after getting our things from their house, were carted back to the land of insanity.
Patrick Leibach
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