What can you expect when fly fishing in November? In todays podcast I will be discussing the trout and bass fishing in the area.
Fly Fishing for Trout
The delayed harvest and larger trout streams in Virginia and surrounding areas provide some excellent fishing during the hatches of midges. These are thickest the last two hours of the day and on heavily overcast days. Since these flies are so small, often I can see trout rising to take the natural midges before I see the flies.
When the trout are rising to feed on the adult midges, they actually suck the midges in so that we see a dimple on the surface. I go one on one with these trout with a Mr. Rapidan Midge size 20.
When the trout are feeding on the emerging nymphs I usually see a splashy riseform as the inertia of their body produces a splash or a swirl right at the surface. I fish for these trout with a Brassie size 16 or a Mr. Rapidan Soft Hackle Nymph, Olive size 16.
Occassionally you will see different trout in the same pods feeding on emergers as well as adults. An effective technique here is to fish a Mr. Rapidan Midge size 20 with a Mr. Rapidan Olive Soft Hackle size 16 on a 24 inch dropper. Listen to my podcast for more information.
Smallmouth Bass
Every year in November I have a few favorite spots that I regularly return to because the smallmouth fishing is good. These are pools formed by ledges running all the way across the river in the head and tail of the pool. The water in these pools range from 3 to 6 feet deep. The water flowing over these ledges, going into and out of these pools, is from several inches to a foot deep. Apparently the appeal of these pools to the bass is the protection they gain from the depth of the water and the abundance of minnows they hold.
My favorite way to fish these pools is to wade into the river just downstream of the lower ledge. Wading all the way across the river, I fan my casts up and up and across stream to cover all of the water I can reach. Then if the water is not to deep, I wade up into the pool and continue fishing. If the pool is too deep to wade in the center I move over to the side of the pool and continue wading upstream.
Since I’m casting upstream and swimming my flies back downstream, just slightly faster than the current, I find the fly selection is critical. Ostrich Herl in a fly swims very well when it is stripped back downstream so I use flies tied with this. The Murray’s Strymph and Murray’s Marauder are my most consistent flies for catching large bass in these pools in November.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Subscribe: RSS