Yough River Run - Finally!

Whoooaa doggy!  Finally time to man up and run the middle Yough.  After running a few other rivers in the drift boat over the past months and having David take me down the Yough once and show me the lines, it was go time.

David manning the front of the boat

David and Joel and I put in around 7 am in Confluence near the tailraces to start our all day float.  I was about to learn more on this float than all other combined.  The Yough is damn technical and your constantly slipping around boulders and sliding through holes the size of your boat to get through the many sets of rapids.  David did a great job coaching me on the approach for each rapid and the proper lines to run. If you don't hit these lines, and you can't turn the boat on a dime, you're in for a brutal ride. Plain and simple.


While I was busy learning the river, Joel and David were sticking it to the fish.  In the morning they caught fish on nymphs.  Again it was mostly rainbows, but there always the chance at a monster brown.  Joel took care of lunch and brought this little propane camping stove to grill up some burgers and potatoes at one of the middle islands.  High class baby!

Chef Joel grilling up some burgers on an island

In the afternoon, they switched to some dry / dropper fishing.  We found a lot of risers all afternoon, but these were much tougher than the fish we worked a couple weeks ago. Typical to the Yough, these fish were cruising around like a pod of killer whales munching on really small emergers / nymphs.  All you would see is thick backs and tails and then they would rise again a foot or two somewhere up river.  This is like fishing on the Henry's Fork and can be down right addicting and maddening.  We coaxed a couple to take a dry, but we're going to have to change our game if we want to consistently catch these fish. 

David with a chunky Yough bow

After running through some of the most difficult rapids on this stretch and with about an hour to go in the float a huge thunderstorm snuck in on us over the mountains.  Realizing what inevitably was about to happen, we put the graphite lightning rods down and I paddled like crazy to get down the river.  But that storm chased us down like a trout on a midge and we ended up in the middle of torrential thunderstorm.   I'm talking the center of some of the loudest thunder booming and the most ridiculous lightning that I have ever been in.  This was not cool at all.  20 minutes later we were soaked to the bone and had about 3 inches of water in the boat.   But we managed not to get electrocuted, so I'll chalk it up as a win.

Maiden middle Yough run

It was a pretty memorable float and one I was glad to get under my belt.  Now, I just gotta remember those lines and run it another half-dozen times and I should be straight.

James River, Virginia - Buchanon to Alpine

We went down to Lynchburg, VA for Spencer's 30th birthday.  Prior to the evening surprise party, I went out with her Dad, brother and a couple guys they work with that know the James inside out.  We put in around 8:30 am at Buchanon and planned to float to Alpine.  The water had a nice color to it and was running at 1100 cfs.  Those guys fished out of canoes and used rubber lizards and top water crank baits.  Bobby and I took the drift boat and took turns on the oars and caught fish on clawdads and clouser flies. It was a really nice float through a beautiful part of the state.

Bobby manning the oars

Lunch break

There were a many class I and II rapids that were good to run in the boat.  The only real issue was that a couple of the rapids had wide rock ledges - some were 50-100 ft wide.  This made taking a line to avoid the small ledges unavoidable and some you just had to run over.  There was a good amount of water in the river, but higher flows would have allowed me to get through the rapids without hitting these ledges.  The James is known for its trophy small mouths and a citation (20" or 5 lb) fish is always a possibility.   Everyone caught smallies, but nothing of any real size today.  Though I did see two muskies on this trip that were about 3ft long. I know when I do this float again, I am going to rig up the 10 wt and target those big boys.

Ed with an average smallie.  Bass hate lizards.

 I really enjoyed getting out there on this water with my father and brother in law.  Looking forward to doing it again soon.

Pres was the only one in the ideal boat doing the ideal float

Mt. Biking - Candler's Mountain, Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA

Got out for a ride after work in Lynchburg, VA at Liberty University on Candler's Mountain.  I'm not positive, but I think they only started really building trails here about 5 years ago.  You know Falwell's army of Liberty kids aren't out boozing on the town, so I guess they just build mt. bike trails instead.  Every time I ride here there are more and more trails built.  They are all named, well marked, and have a difficulty rating assigned  from beginner to expert.  The last time I rode this mountain, I about killed myself falling through a bridge made of railroad ties traveling at warp speed down a hill while being clipped into the bike.  When I woke up I didn't even know where the hell I was.  Ha.  This time I fared a little better.  Great little mountain to keep you busy all day with different trails and within 15 minutes of the in-laws.

Tulpehocken Creek

Apparently I am on a tailwater kick with this being my third straight dam-release outing after the Delaware and Yough. The Tully has been on my radar for some time and I have heard good things about this tailwater.  I was working in the area and was able to hit it after work today for the evening rise.   I never checked any reports and when I arrived and I found the water running like chocolate milk.  Ughh.



If the herons are still fishing in the muddy water, so am I

It was a 40 minute drive to get here so I explored a little and found a clear tributary spring creek running into the Tully.  I watched this section for a bit and noticed some fish working right where the two waters merged.  I ended up being able to fish rising fish the rest of the evening with not a soul in site around me.  

I managed to catch a couple on some small x-caddis, but for the most part though, these fish were really picky and onto something I couldn't figure out. I saw lots of caddis pupas in the film in the 16-20 range of different colors, sulphurs, cahills, and even some midges. The rise forms didn't help much either.  I saw some splashy rises that told me some fish were on the caddis, but I also saw both some emerger rises and soft head poke rises that looked like some fish were eating spinners too.  So each fish was eating something different.  Sweet.  To add to the challenge, they were all feeding where the slow and fast current collided creating mini swirls and whirlpools going every direction.  Getting a proper drift in this little tricky water was really tough and I was sure that most of my refusals were due to this.  All I know is that if it was easy, I probably wouldn't want to come back.  And the funny thing was when I got back to the hotel, I checked the reports which said, 'the Tully is blown and probably won't fish for a couple days.'  They were right about that.

Yough River Float

A few weeks ago Joel and myself tried to float down the Middle Yough in the maiden voyage of the drift boat. Long story ….but we weren’t able to get takeout permission and I was pretty disappointed at the time. That same evening I randomly met Joel’s buddy David while we were fishing Indian Head Creek. Ironically, David also has a drift boat and does some guiding on the Yough. When we told him of our plan to take our first trip down the middle Yough, he offered to take us down and show us how to run the river. Its funny how things just seem to work out sometimes.

Fast forward to this trip - the three fishaholics got on the water at o'dark thirty (which meant a 2:30 AM wakeup from the Burgh – worse than turkey hunting!) We started out fishing some nymphs and streamers and the bite was a little slow in the morning but picked up when the sun hit the water and the caddis started working. Joel hooked up with a nice palomino that he spotted morning. I am not sure who is handicapped worse….the albino deer or the golden trout, but both are pretty screwed right out of the gate. Anyways, Joel had him hooked solid and should have landed him, but I busted out the camera a little too early and after one pic the fish mysteriously got off. I’ll take the blame – sorry Joel.

The float was really awesome and I learned a ton from David on how to run the proper lines on the water. The middle Yough isn’t terribly big, but its definitely technical water to run in a drift boat and has its tricky sections. A few years ago I took a raft down this section and it didn’t matter if we went down rapids backwards.  There is a lot more to it when running a drift boat and I'm really fortunate to learn from someone who knew what they were doing.

On the trip we saw, caddis, BWOs, sulphurs, cahills, slate drakes. The BWOs that were coming off around 2 pm were size 26 / 28.  The sulphurs, cahills and ISOs started in the late afternoon and brought some fish to the surface for some fun dry fly fishing.

 

Overall, it was a great trip and many thanks to David for taking us down the river. He definitely knows this water and is one hell of a fly tier too. I’m looking forward to getting behind the oars next and repaying the trip down the river.

David with a nice middle Yough bronze back

Elephant Rock