Mossy Creek Fly Fishing Forecast 9/11/2023
Colby brings us the fishing forecast this week. Scattered showers and thunderstorms marched through Virginia Thursday evening through Sunday evening. Much of the rain fell in southwest VA, central VA, northern VA, and just west of us in West VA. So we were pretty unlucky to not have gotten the rainfall we had hoped for but we did manage some heavy localized rain that improved flows in a few streams. Mossy was up and dirty this morning and Andy was out to take advantage of this recent rare occurrence. He slammed- brown, brookie, rainbow right out of the gate. We have not gotten reports from the streams to our west. There were some pretty big thunderstorm cells over the WV border and we are hoping that Dry River received a good shot of rain. Harrisonburg and straight north along the 81 corridor didn't receive much rain until you hit around Woodstock. It does look like the blue ridge and spots along the Shenandoah National Park got some decent rain over the weekend. The Rapidan in Ruckersville hit 400 cfs but is currently dropping rapidly. There may be another spike from rainfall late last night that could still hit that gauge. We are hoping that the forecast Tuesday into Wednesday materialized into more storms in the area to give us more relief as the 10 day forecast isn't showing much more. The good news is the weather is much cooler on the backside of this front. We have a high of 83 today but highs will be in the mid 70's this week with lows now into the low 50's and upper 40's by Wednesday. Water temps will drop significantly especially up in the mountains! Trout anglers should still focus on the spring creeks and tailwater fisheries and enjoy throwing streamers for a few days until they clean up and the terrestrial fishing on top resumes. The smallmouth guides were headed to the river and the South Fork was up and dirty at Port Republic mostly from the North River side. South River was up and flowing well but running clean. They headed down towards Elkton to find cleaner water. It is looking like the South Fork will bump up a bit and we are waiting to see if there are any additional pulses of water coming down South, Middle and North River. Right now it appears that the North River gauge might be broken as it flat lined around 104 cfs. The Lynnwood gauge has been fixed and is currently at 300 cfs and going up! Although this might not be the massive bump in water we were hoping for to carry us well into fall it should help clean up some of the grass and algae that has been stacking up for a few months. As the water drops and begins to clean up the fishing should be a bit less technical. Visibility of about 2-3 feet is usually fine for good smallmouth fishing and makes it much easier to get closer to fish than when it the river is running 'gin' clear. Load up on your streamers for fishing this week with the reduced visibility and the cooler weather headed our way! Water temps will be safe for musky fishing later this week after a few cooler nights. They have been feeding aggressively lately as we have caught quite a few on bass streamers and conventional tackle in the past 2 weeks as bi-catch. As our guides and clients are fishing and traveling through the valley we will post updates on stream conditions regularly this week on our social platforms. Enjoy seeing some water flowing and awesome temps this week!
BEST SMALLMOUTH FLIES THIS WEEK:
BEST SPRING CREEK TROUT FLIES THIS WEEK:
- Tags: fishing report
- Colby Trow
