The confluence

The confluence from Google Earth.  Man I love Google Earth.
I also like saying confluence.

I got a book last Christmas (2015) about fishing for smallmouth (and trout) on the Rapidan River in Virginia.  One of the first chapters details fishing at the confluence of the Rapidan and the Rappahannock rivers just west of Fredericksburg.  The author raved about the smallmouth fishing, and I had always wanted to give it a try but just couldn't work it out last year.

Karen was out of town this weekend, so I figured I could scout it out and see if it was a worthy place.  I headed down yesterday afternoon and got to the Fredericksburg area around 5 p.m.  Instead of checking into my hotel, I decided to try and find this fishing spot.  Sit around a hotel room or fish?  Easy decision.

Rappahannock on the left, Rapidan on the right.

The book's author gives directions on how to get to a parking spot near the confluence.  It was basically drive west on Route 3, turn down some road, and turn down some other road.  When the last road ended, that was where to park.  From there, there's a well-defined trail that leads to a small campground right at the confluence.  After following the directions and making the 20-minute walk down, I was there!

Unfortunately, because of rain from Friday, the river looked a little high and flowing fast, and the water looked like chocolate milk.  This is what the same view should look like:

This morning at the confluence.  Not much difference
from yesterday.

My number one rule when wading is to know the underwater terrain.  Since I hadn't fished here before, there was no way I was going to venture out.  Even if I know the terrain, if the water has no visibility, I'm probably not going to venture out either.

I fished from shore for about a half hour and decided to give it another try this morning.  The Potomac usually takes a few days to thin out after a day of rain, but I didn't know if the Rapidan/Rappahannock was the same way.

Rocky section reminded me of
the Upper Potomac.

This morning, I headed out from my sweet $47 room at a Motel 6, followed the backroads to the parking spot, and hiked down to the confluence.  The river looked to be a little lower but the water had the same visibility -- none!  Before leaving the hotel, I checked americanwhitewater.org, and both of the rivers had gone down some but not a lot.

From the campground, there's a small trail that leads upriver on the Rapidan side.  I followed that maybe 50 yards until reaching several large rock formations in the river.  It certainly looked "fishy" minus the chocolate brown water.  A few nice pools, some "slicks" behind rocks, fast water bordering slow water that are good spots for smallmouth to hang out looking for food.

However ...

Two hours later, I had nothing to show for my efforts, not even a nibble.  Tried almost everything I had with me except for topwater lures ... and nothing.  Water temp was just above 50 degrees, so maybe combined with the big rain, the smallmouth still haven't started to move to the usual spots.

Not to be discouraged, I would still like to try this area again when the weather has stabilized.

One interesting thing I saw yesterday:

What's in the pocket?

In that pocket is a booklet:

Title page of the book.

And people have been filling in reports since late 2015:

Kayakers, fishers and hunters have written down their experiences.

It's like a web blog without the Internet!  I remembered to bring a pen with me today and entered a trip report.  If you want to know what I wrote, you're going to have to go down and read it yourself!

"You are here" -- yellow line on the map.

This area is also rich in Civil War history.  The first turn off of Route 3 is where the primary action of the Battle of Chancellorsville took place.  I'm pretty sure I motored by this marker this morning, too.  The Wilderness is just up the road, too, plus other battlefields are in the area like Spotsylvania and of course Fredericksburg.