I hitched up the skiff and headed west to Richmond yesterday to get out on the James with two old high school buddies. We launched at Ancarrows around 1PM and headed up just below the 95 bridge. I was late in arriving to the ramp, and they had already scouted a spot along the bank where plenty of shad were jumping. The river was high and muddy from a torrential storm last Sunday evening, and we knew we would have to work for the fish in the low visibility. Close to an hour passed with plenty of shad swirling around the boat, but with no bites. We pulled the anchor and headed further up, finding the outfall of a stormwater spillway on the south bank where dozens of fish were jumping at once. From that spot we managed about a dozen fish, half of which were true bites and the other half were snags. It wasn’t the nonstop action I’ve experienced in years past, but it felt good to sling a fly line and feel a strike for the first time since the Bahamas in January.
We gave it a change of pace and cruised downriver to the I-895 bridge, passing the soggy wooden pilings of forgotten wharves and docks, and the new concrete foundations of gravel conveyors and shipping cranes. We set up a few nightcrawlers on the bottom for catfish. I cast a black/orange deceiver with a rattle into some structure in hopes of drawing a rockfish strike from the muddy water. We caught a few cats on the bait and nothing on the fly. All in all it was a wonderful spring day out on the river despite the challenging conditions. I would’ve loved to have been out here a week earlier before the rains.
No sooner had I pulled the boat, I received a call from my brother in North Carolina. He was on his way back to Charlotte from Watauga County near Boone having spent the day in the mountains catching brown trout. Other than a brief report and the photo below, I don’t have any other details, but it looks like a nice day!
I’m going to try to branch out and write about something in popular culture that relates to each adventure.
What I’m sipping out on the river: Brown Ale by Legend Brewing Co.
Legend Brewing is a longtime Richmond brewery perched on the south side of the James between 9th Street and 14th Street. Their Brown Ale is among my favorite beers. I won’t go full millennial craft beer nut and describe the taste of mahogany or the color of caramel and molasses (did I get those backwards?), but I highly suggest trying one the next time you’re looking for beer in the central Virginia area. Legend’s mastery of their craft bolsters the city’s resurgence as a beer destination, and what angler doesn’t enjoy a nice brew to wrap up a day on the water?
What I’m listening to: Shakedown Street by the Grateful Dead
Disco Dead! After a more than a decade of experimenting in bluegrass, psychedelia, folk, rock, and Americana, in 1978 the Grateful Dead turned out this groovy tune with a distinctive dance beat. Deadheads at the time questioned their beloved band moving into such a mainstream, mass-produced genre, but Robert Hunter’s lyrics beg us to take a second look. Noted Dead author David Dodd suggests that the song is a reminder “that we can’t put the Dead into some box of preconceived notions. We had a responsibility, as listeners, to listen harder, to set aside our negativity.”
Bear with me while I make a connection. Similar to Mr. Dodd’s claim about the music, we should put aside our preconceived notions when it comes to fly fishing. We “think we’ve seen this town clear through” and “nothing here could interest you” are assumptions that fly fishing doesn’t belong in the city and is meant for pristine environments, far from the ruinous influence of humans. Looking at the urban, grey landscape of the James River in Richmond, one might think that “the sunny side of the street is dark” or that “nothin’s shakin down on Shakedown Street, used to be the heart of town.” The once wild environment has been tamed, altered, and destroyed and is no longer worth our time.
“Well, well, well, you can never tell” and “maybe the dark is from your eyes” suggest that our assumptions may not be quite right, and then “don’t tell me this town ain’t got no heart, you just gotta poke around” directly refutes those assumptions, reminding us that if we look hard, there are treasures to find in the most unlikely of places. These treasures are the nature among us, the nature in our backyard or out our office windows, the nature worth experiencing right here.
Extending this analogy to shad, the James River, and downtown Richmond is too clear: a lowly bony fish once commercially harvested to the brink of extinction, a river once treated as a dumping ground for chemicals, and a city center once abandoned as crime-riddled and unsafe – all three have rebounded and now intertwine to form a spectacular metropolitan catch and release fishery.
Chances are there’s a fishing hole you’ve driven past on your way to somewhere more remote, somewhere more exotic. I envy those far-flung trips just as much as anyone, but in between those trips, why not try to discover a nearby treasure? Go check out your nearby golf course bass pond. It may not hold monster steelhead or wary permit, but I guarantee it will provide its own distinct experience. You just gotta poke around.