{Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders} SF Shenandoah today -- fail

Hey - quick report on the SF.  We took a really early trip to float the SF from Guest to Karo rapids.  I tossed a 5 weight with a sink tip, using mostly clouser minnows and heavy woolly buggers.  Bethy tossed an 8 weight with a floater and some heavy white shenk streamers. Oh!  And the stupid factory loop on the floater had cracked where it is welded, forcing me to tie a uni "nailess nail knot" to attach a new leader butt loop.  Pain in the arse -- I hate those premade loops.  Every one I've had has cracked within a trip or two.  

We didn't have a bite -- no luck whatsoever.  The only fish I even saw was a huge carp under the canoe and he swam away quickly.  I did however manage to feel my way into working a sink tip line some....which I've been needing to learn.  I was toying with using a really long leader and split shot on a floating line, then working a sink tip with various weighted flies, shortening the leader, etc.  I see the benefit of using the sink tip with a pretty short leader (like literally 12-30" max).  I managed to hang on the bottom and had to break off 5-6 times.  The flow was pretty good today according to the front royal canoe guys, so getting hung up while trying to focus on managing the canoe is sometimes "exciting"  ;) (point the rod straight at the fly, break off, don't rock the boat, etc.) The best part of the trip was seeing all the phoebes, cormorants, and a blue-gray gnatcatcher.  We heard eastern wood pewees too.  Oh, and we had a big box of donuts -- that was awesome.  Beth always packs so well on trips -- she's really good at that.  

I've decided that I don't like fly fishing from a canoe on rivers much.  I really just like the fishing and though we've paddled a lot -- I suck at it and it's more annoying than enjoyable to me.  I think I might start looking at pontoons for SLOW water areas for lazy fishing.  I prefer wading rivers.  Canoes stress me out and rapids just mean I have to reel in and try not to die ;).  

Take it easy folks!  I hope you're killing the shad in the good weather (figuratively) ;).  

Gene

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