SF Shenandoah River Fishing (VA – Island Ford)

After my frustration fishing up the west slope of the Blue Ridge in September, I headed back to Harrisonburg to spend the night. Of course, when I drove across the South Fork of the Shenandoah at Island Ford, I took one look at the water and decided to divert from trout to bass.

The parking area is broad and wide, with plenty of room to turn a large vehicle around. In late September, the South Fork was at summer lows and was easy to wade, moving upstream from the bridge. This is clearly a popular local spot as there were some people clustered around the bank and standing on the bridge pylons, fishing the deeper water immediately under the bridge.

I fished away from them, leveraging a long, shallow ridgeline that stretched upstream. It gave me a good vantage point to fish into the center, where the water ran shallow over a rocky and vegetated bottom. In fact, the ledge allows you to fish in both directions since a substantial portion of the river runs down the left side of the ledge close to the southern bank. There are some deep spots there as well.

Since I did not have much time, I was not able to fish as far upstream as I either wanted or could have. Checking out the satellite view below, you can see additional riffles approximately a quarter mile upstream from the put in. I stopped just short of those and wished I had had the time to continue.

I don’t know whether this is normally shallow. Last summer, we had low water levels across the State and I may have just hit this location on the right day. However, even if you use a canoe and it is deep, the river looks like it is wide enough, with a calm current that you could fish up and downstream from the put in without having to do a shuttle.

Bottom Line: This is worth a return visit.

Upstream… riffles in the distance

Downstream to the bridge and the access point