Rappahannock report

[fish4evr]

Fished the Rappahannock this afternoon above the Rt 1 bridge. I brought a wading staff and encountered a lot of sand but none of the dangereous marshmallow silt that had previously been reported.

Was throwing a 7 wt with sink tip. The shad weren't anywhere near as thick as on the Potomac but I still managed to yank in a few. I did, however, catch at least a dozen fat white perch and crappie up to about 10 inches. Spin fishermen around me were reporting that they were catching smallmouth on darts.

Funny how the birds are so different on the Rap compared to the Potomac; all the cormorants must have headed up to Fletcher's and left the shad to the 15 or so heron that were crouched among the boulders. Seems to defy physics to see a pencil neck heron swallow a 16" Hickory...

[djones]

Not having fished there for a couple of years, I've wondered if things are noticeably different since they blew out the dam upstream. When I fished there in the past, I also learned a sink tip was the way to go, unlike the Potomac in the Fletchers area where you generally have to get deeper. But like the Fletchers/Chain Bridge area of the Potomac, in the Route 1 area of the Rapp, you can catch a variety of kinds of fish, as your report indicates.

[boondoggle]

Most of the silt is encountered when you enter the river from Falmouth park and try to work your around the island. You also need to be careful below the bridge as the sand continually washes out beneath your feet.

Did you catch any herring or just hickories? I'm ready fo rthe rockfish.

[fish4evr]

Didn't catch any herring and it also looked like the herons were only catching hickories and not herring (sounds like a riddle).