Shenandoah River - Harpers Ferry - Jefferson County, WV 8/9/2015

[elonDO]

Had the opportunity to fish the Shenandoah River in Harpers Ferry for the first time. My in-laws live in Frederick, MD, and it has only taken me 15 years to discover this fishery! I'm certainly glad I did!

My father-in-law and I hit the water Sunday 8/9/15 at about 9am. Weather was great, USGS gauge in Millville, WV, was reading discharge of 725 cubic feet per second & height of 1.75 feet. We fished from 9am until about noon & took short break for lunch. We resumed around 12:45 and fished until about 3pm. I managed 14 smallies throughout the day - 12 on size 6 olive Clouser Crayfish & 2 on size 2 Avalon. I had multiple other long-line releases, my hook on the crayfish took a beating & didn't have a hook file on me. Didn't change it out because it was working & that was my last olive crayfish! Average fish was about 10-12 inches, but all were a healthy looking fish.

This was a beautiful river to fish, only saw 2 other fisherman throughout the day. It was a tricky river to wade, glad I was wet wading. I can imagine it would've been a lot harder to wade if the gauge was only a little higher.

I will definitely be back to explore more of the Shenandoah & likely the Potomac in that area as well!

Here are a few pics from the day:

Shenandoah River looking downstream towards Harpers Ferry

Another fly fisherman across the way.

An upstream look on the Shenandoah River

Shenandoah River smallie

Another smallie shot

Another smallie shot

Clouser crayfish - what's left of it...

 

[Fishidiot]

Nice report - love that area!
Now yuh just need to tie up a whole bunch of crayfish. 🙂

After a tough start to the summer bass fishing season, it's great to see so many folks hitting the big rivers and doing well. In my experience, perhaps the best river bass fishing of the year, at least for numbers, often comes in late summer during extended periods of warm, humid, high pressure weather systems that result in warm water temps and low, stable water levels. We're finally seeing this trend, more or less, across the region and river bass are responding (hopefully, the rain today and changing weather will not have too much affect on the rivers).

 

[jkilroy]

The Clouser crayfish is a awesome pattern. They never let me down, they are just a little complicated. I did well on the juniata river with that pattern last weekend.

 

[geebee]

i love that spot but have never got there without relatives in tow.

it sure looks a fun place to rock hop and fish the many many plunge pools and runs.

 

[charliepff]

The wife and I were out this morning too. We did about the same. Wish we could have met up. It was a great day to be out.