Murray's Fly Shop in Edinburg, Virginia, has been publishing monthly outlooks from Jeff, one of the shop's long-running guides, for years, and the May 2026 instalment is a tight read for anyone fishing the Shenandoah Valley over the coming month. Water levels are dropping, temperatures are climbing through ideal windows, and three distinct fisheries are all on at once.
"Right now, everything in the Shenandoah Valley is starting to drop back as far as water levels go," Jeff said. "Waters are in great condition as far as temperatures go, meaning the fish are active." The main smallmouth river is running in the low 60s Fahrenheit, the brook-trout headwater streams in the mid-50s, and the stocked trout streams between 55 and around 62 to 63 on a warm afternoon. "This means the fish are eager to feed and very willing to take our flies."
Smallmouth bass are in pre-spawn. "I've even seen some pairing up getting ready to spawn," Jeff said. His core May playbook is streamer-heavy: a number-two olive Gallup's Dungeon, a 1/0 brown CJ Sluggo, or a 1/0 grey-and-white Murray's Minnow. The streamer rig is a 2X fluorocarbon leader about six feet long behind an intermediate or sink-tip 3 line. "Slow steady strips are going to be most effective when the water temperatures are in the 50s," he said. "As it warms up into the 60s, you'll do a little better by stripping faster."
The underwater alternative is a number-four olive crayfish or a number-four black hellgrammite. Jeff's favourite May rig once temperatures push higher is on top: a deer-hair mouse rat, greased with silicone floatant and skated across the tails of pools on a 2X leader. "Often times, you'll get some aggressive strikes this time of the year as the bass are beginning to think about their spawning." He expects popping bugs on a 9-foot 2X bass-bug leader to come into play late in the month, earlier than normal this year because the water is low and warming faster than usual.
On the brook-trout streams, Jeff is dropping back to small flies. "The brook trout seem to be a little more willing to hit it," he said of a #16 Mr. Rapidan parachute. He's running a six-foot 6X mountain leader and expects to switch to a 7-and-a-half-foot 6X classic as the level keeps falling. Pheasant-tail nymphs in #14 or #16, including the black-bodied French and the red attractor, are picking up most underwater strikes. "The brookies themselves are getting spooky," he said. "The more you sneak, the better off you're going to do."
The stocked trout streams are entering their best window for hatch matching. Little yellow stones, March browns and the occasional light cahill are already off the water; on overcast days the blue-winged olives are coming off in numbers. Jeff matches them with a #18 Mr. Rapidan parachute on a 9-foot 5X classic, dropping to 6X tippet for tougher days. Underwater, he is fishing a #10 olive or black Marauder or a #10 Murray's crayfish dead-drifted and swung. A #16 purple Blowtorch is his swing-nymph pick, with the caveat that it has to tick the bottom without sitting on it. "If you find that you're sitting on the bottom too much, reposition yourself so you're fishing a little bit faster current, or go to a lighter pattern."
The drag-free drift remains the bottleneck, particularly on stocked trout that have been in the system for weeks. "Some of these fish have been in the stream for a couple of months now and they're in tune with what's going on as far as drag," Jeff said. "It's your job to get that fly out there to them with that drag-free drift."
Jeff's most pointed warning was about timing the brook-trout streams. "Water levels keep dropping, the brook-trout fishing's going to get pretty tough here fairly quickly as we get into June, so don't hesitate to get out there and hit those streams sooner than later." The Shenandoah Valley's three-fisheries-in-one May window does not last long, and 2026 looks set to compress it earlier than usual.
