Once again, we hit the beautiful Shenandoah River. Once again, I tried to get a large group of friends to join. Once again, only 4 made the trip. Seems like a trend, huh? We arrived early Saturday afternoon to a rather large crowd. I knew a few of the individuals we camped next to from my high school days. I enjoyed speaking with them. Once the campsite setup received proper attention, we waded out into the crystal clear water of the Shenandoah and fished the far bank for an hour or so. We caught a number of smallmouth bass and blue gills. My wading buddies consisted of my lady friend and Wes (or Weslihno, or Westicles as we like to call him). After the hour pasted, my brother Corey arrived from his beach vacation to the Outer Banks. We waded back over to the campsite, loaded up the canoes and yaks, and kindly asked one of my high school comrades drop us off upstream. This way we avoided the painstaking task of retrieving the vehicle from upstream after the less than sober floating and fishing session.
Camping
Shenandoah River (south fork) 05/29-30/2015
My oldest brother emailed me a month or so before this trip about getting out to the Shenandoah. I am lucky enough to have a close high school friend whose family owns 7 acres right on the water about 20 miles north of Luray. We decide to head to the river after work Friday and invited a rather large group. However, other than my oldest brother, Patrick and myself, only two friends made the trip with us. I met up with Wes at my parent’s house near Culpeper. We loaded up my canoe on top of my parent’s Subaru Forest, packed the car with all the necessary supplies for glamorous riverfront camping, and headed for Luray. Of course, once we reached Luray we instinctively made a stop at Wal-Mart and purchased food and a healthy (or unhealthy, depending on how you look at it) about of beer. Other than the obligatory, case of light beer, we added a few tasty numbers from the 21st Amendment Brewery. Hell or High Watermelon might be one of my favorites.
Big Run Overnighter 05/08-09/2015
The seed implantation for this trip took place when I read through the Stream section of Harry Murray’s, Trout Fishing in the Shenandoah National Park. My brother worked as a SNP Ranger and stumbled upon a copy of this trout fishing bible while stationed at one of the campgrounds. Having grabbed the book from him and thoroughly read through it multiple times I found, not only the name, and distance from easy access appealing about Big Run, but also the fact that it holds many trout, and mucho large brookies at that.
The James River Mermaid 