West Virginia Brookie Bum Adventure - Part 2

This is the backcountry portion of my nine-day West Virginia adventure.

I met Phil and the "czar" of the West Virginia DNR Limestone Fines program at the North Fork trailhead on the Scenic Highway early Monday morning. We left one vehicle at the trailhead and commuted to the Cranberry Glades trailhead where we would begin our Cranberry Wilderness Area adventure.

It would be a five-mile hike off the mountain to the forks of the Cranberry River, then a short hike up the North Fork of the Cranberry where we planned to set up camp for a night or two. The original plan was to fish the Cranberry watershed, then up and over the mountain to the Middle Fork of the Williams, to explore those tribs before ending up back at the trailhead for the Middle Fork of the Williams Bucket Brigade on Saturday morning.

I had never been in the upper Cranberry watershed so I didn't really know what to expect. One thing I didn't expect was the size of the liming facility at the mouth of the North Fork.

There were a couple of DNR employees working at the facility when we arrived. How nice would it be to call that location your "office"?

Phil and I hiked upstream a short distance and set up camp while our partner for the day stashed his bike away for the ride out later that day. We were quick to set up camp, partly because of the weight we were carrying on our back, but mostly to check out new water.

There were brookies immediately out of camp and I was given the first opportunity to add a new West Virginia stream to my list...and it didn't take long.

After I picked up the first brookie in my second new stream of the trip it was time to allow my partners to do the same.

It sure was a beautiful piece of water!

It didn't take long for everybody to land a brookie, then it was just of matter of skipping around and sharing the pools and pocket water. Here is one of Phil's many brookies.
 

 
I love fishing high-gradient, braided pocket water. Did I mention it was a beautiful stream?
 

There were brook trout all over the place and there were multiple age classes....

 
...including young of the year.

Considering most people think the stream is dead, I would say it is doing very well.


It was typical fast action brookie fishing until we made it to a large pool that had been created by a downed, beaver-cut tree wrapped around a very large boulder. I cast to the end of the downed tree and landed this nice brookie.
 

So, I turn him loose to cruise the smaller water at the tail-out....

 
that's when I notice this little guy cruising down the edge of the pool and he literally came within a couple feet of our feet...
 

 
so, after bolting into the pool, he parked himself right (exactly) where I had caught the previous brookie. This is when the fun started. Cast to him, drift, strike, hook up, and land. I release him beside me in the tail-out, look in the pool, and here comes another little brookie to claim the prime real estate, then it was repeat: cast to him, drift, strike, hook up, and land.
 
I know there are prime locations in each pool but I didn't know there was a waiting list for this one. Phil said it was like a gumball machine; keep putting a quarters in and out comes another brookie.
 
We fished upstream a little more before calling it a day for this section of stream. It was dinner time (backpack style) and our fishing partner for the day had a 5-mile bike ride back to the top of the mountain.
 
The next day we decided to hike down the main stem of the Cranberry in search of resident native brookies. Phil quickly picked up a couple of native brookies and all I was able to accomplish was breaking off a couple of nice wild browns.
 
As we moved upstream we started getting into more and more stockers, left over from the last stocking a week or so prior. I can't tell you the last time I caught a stocked trout but it was a nice relaxing change of pace. I did complete the "stocker slam": rainbow, brown, and this nice stocker brook trout ( I refuse to refer to a stocker as a brookie).
 

Phil also completed the "stocker slam", including this little brown that had some tiger in him.

 
Stocked trout are so dumb, we caught several fish that just had us laughing at how stupid these guys were. I won't make a habit out of it but, like I said, it was a nice change of pace.
 
Sometime about mid-afternoon the skies clouded up and we headed for camp. It was dinner in the tent (boy does that Snow Peak Gigapower stove heat up a one-man tent), a couple chapters of the new Gierach book, and a short nap.
 
The rains passed quickly and we decided to try our luck on the South Fork for the evening. We fished up the South Fork a short distance, each of us picking a couple of the resident population of wild browns, before making the decision to hit the large junction pool in time for a possible evening hatch.
 
I don't know how many fish the DNR stocked in that hole but it was a lot! There were a few sulfurs coming off and the stockers were occasionally rising to them. Phil tied on a Usual and was picking up one here and there. Me, I tied on the largest rubber-legged woolybugger I had in my brookie box, and the dumb stockers really liked it! I had strikes or landed stockers on nearly every cast. Phil would catch one at the head of the pool while I would catch 3-4 at the tail, we would rotate, Phil would catch one at the tail while I caught 3-4 at the head. We repeated this for a while, until I got tired of catching stockers. Did I mention stockers are stupid fish? Sorry, no photos of the dumb stocked trout.
 
As the sun started to set, we decided to call it a day, and I didn't catch a single native brookie. At camp that night we made a decision to change our backcountry plans. We decided to make the hike out the next day and do some exploring in other watersheds.
 
The next morning we packed up camp and start our seven mile climb to the Scenic Highway. The trail is not a heavily used trail but it is easy to see where it was once an old railroad grade when the area was logged 100+ years ago.
 

Our suspicions were soon confirmed when (miles from anywhere) we found this very well preserved bridge abutment.

 
Shortly after this point we lost the trail and fought through a couple hundred yards of rhododendron hell. Rhododendron is tough enough to maneuver through alone and very difficult with a full pack with rod tube! We decided to split up to find the trail, I went stream side and Phil went high. Phil soon found the trail and we played "Marco Polo" to locate one another. By this point it was time for a break and as we neared the three mile mark, and the forks, we decided to drop our packs and explore the smaller water.
 

 
The water was smaller but the results were the same.
 

 
We soon found ourselves at the forks of the North Fork and now it was time for exploring for brookies again. We were informed by the limestone fines czar that the Right Fork contained brookies, so it would be the Right Fork first.
 
I caught one at the junction pool, but that's not the Right Fork proper, so we moved upstream and it didn't take long. Add new brookie stream number three to my West Virginia adventure.
 

...and one more for good measure.

After Phil and I both landed a couple of brookies, it was back to the Left Fork. The Left Fork drains off the same mountain (albeit the opposite side) as the "dead" upper Middle Fork of the Williams - of Bucket Brigade fame. We fished and stomped around for a couple hundred yards before declaring it void of brookies. They can't all have brookies in them.

We back-tracked to our packs and prepared for the four mile climb to the Scenic Highway. It was a slow gradient all the way to the top, except for the last half-mile where the North Fork trail and the North-South trail intersect. The sun was high in the sky by this time and the temperature was in the mid-80s, making for a tough climb. The post-holing in the swampy areas of the trail didn't make the climb any easier, but we made it.

A couple of bottle of water (one over my head) at the trailhead marked the end of the backcountry portion of my adventure. The next four nights would be spent in a small US Forest Service campground.

Chris

West Virginia Brookie Bum Adventure - Part 1

Back in 2009 my friend Phil Smith (maker of my Vandalia Rodworks bamboo rod) hatched this idea of packing into a brookie stream for a few nights We decided to call it the Brookie Bum Adventure and after the first we decided to make it an annual event.

In 2010 Phil was building a house and I was in the process of transferring the family to Kentucky, so we had to call off the event. Earlier this year we made the decision we weren't going to let it slip by again. The decision was then - where and when? After talking with the head of the West Virginia limestone fines treatment program the decision was fairly easy - a stream in the Cranberry Wilderness Area that most people thought was dead.

I was going to extend my part of the adventure and do something I have never done before. I planned to spend an entire week vacationing/fishing in West Virginia. I have done several three or four-day weekends but I have never spent an entire week chasing brookies across the state. My vacation was nine days and started early on Saturday morning, on a stream I know very well, and later that day meet a friend from Virginia TU to show him the upper end of the very same stream.

This stream usually does not wake up until late morning, but that day was not the case.

Typically on the lower end a good day is double digits but this day I hit double digits in a couple of hours. They didn't have much size but they did make up for it in beauty - excuse the quality of the photos, I struggled with photo quality all week.

Following a great morning on a great stream I met my friend for lunch, then I took him to the upper end to show off one of TU's greatest success stories in the state.

This stream was dead twenty years ago and through the miracle of limestone fines, it is now thriving.

Streamside, we talked TU for a good while before hitting the stream. I also got to practice my field surgery skills as my friend stepped on his leader while holding a fly in his teeth....OUCH! To add insult to injury, as we were about to hit the stream a stranger came walking down the road and he had just fished the section of stream we planned to fish.

We were fishing behind somebody but my friend was very impressed with the ruggedness of the stream, which helps make stealth much easier.

He was able to pick up several small brookies on the short period of time we spent on stream.

I poked around in a few pockets and picked up a few little guys.

The bigger fish eluded us, but I blamed that on fishing behind somebody. This is one of the residents I caught in this stretch a couple years earlier.

My friend had a four-hour drive ahead of him, so we called it a day about 7:30 - just as the yellow sallies started coming off very heavy.

I told him next time we fish it would be on his "turf", which happens to be Shenandoah National Park. Brookie Bum Adventure 2012 perhaps??

I set up camp for the night along the USFS road heading to the stream and got up early the next morning to drive to my next destination.

I had fished the main branch of this trib but I had received a report a few weeks earlier that one of the forks also had brookies. This steam was also dead a few years ago but after limestone fines treatment started in 2005 the brookies have made their way back into the extreme headwaters.

The confluence of the forks was amazing, I wish I would have taken more photos! The right fork drops in with a series of small falls while the left fork drops in with a series of cascades...amazing!

The edge of where the left fork drops in.

After checking out the confluence, I decided to give the left fork the first shot. It didn't take long to start picking up little guys in every pocket. As I moved upstream I got into some higher gradient water and larger pools. Larger pools equals larger fish.

I picked up this guy in a likely ambush point, in dead water between two large boulders.

On upstream I picked up this nice brookie with amazingly blood-red pectoral and pelvic fins.

I caught brookies in every likely location and with the knowledge that the population was alive and well I backed out to try the other fork. Add new stream number one to my West Virginia adventure.

Once back to the confluence I gave the right fork a shot. The right fork is a beautiful little stream but another small trib further upstream drops low pH water into it pushing the overall pH to below levels that would support a healthy brookie population.

I fished and kicked around upstream a couple hundred yards and turned up no brookies. With this slight disappointment, I made the decision to hike down the main stem and fish back to the confluence.

The overnight rain had made the main stem very slightly off color. With the slight coloration I was pleasantly surprised that the resident brown trout population came out to play. I caught five or six of the little, cookie cutter browns.

Once back at the forks, I decided to take it all in. I climbed up on the large table rock that separates the two forks, took off my pack, used it as a pillow, and took a short nap.

When I woke, I pulled out some line, and picked up a small brookie my dapping over the edge of the table rock....life is good!

After the short three-mile hike out (GPS tracked 8.4 miles in total), I decided to have a little dinner at the trailhead picnic table. At 4:30 I thought my day was over, but that would not be the case. As I was leaving town Saturday morning, I sent an email to the head of the WV limestone fines program informing him where I would be for the weekend. Would you believe at all of the area he had to look for me he found me at the first stop?

His recommendation was either hike back into where I just came from or hit the stream we would perform the bucket brigade on six days later. I chose the latter, so at 6:30 PM we were hiking into the Cranberry Wilderness.

My partner caught one nice brookie, which I landed for him - note the watch, but it's his catch.

The fishing was slow but my partner made one amazing discovery!

For the first time in over 50 years we had brook trout young of the year in this stream - all thanks to the many volunteers who have made the bucket brigade a success!

We fished over a mile into the Wilderness Area and at 8:00 PM we were still headed in - it gets dark at 9:00 and I didn't have a light. Luckily, when I hike with this guy it is like chasing a mountain goat. The guy is a machine!

We made it out with just enough light to not need the light and it put me at nearly twelve miles of hiking for the day. By the time I made it back to my vehicle and to the trailhead where I was to start the second leg of my West Virginia adventure, it was too late to set up camp so I slept in the vehicle.

The next morning I would meet Phil with plans to pack into the Cranberry Wilderness for four nights....to be continued.

Chris

And Sometimes it Rains!

April was one of the wettest months in history! In the Cincinnati metro area we were 3/4" of precipitation away from the all-time record...and it continued into May.

This weekend outing back home had multiple goals. It was the WVCTU Spring Council Meeting, the Blennerhassett Chapter Campout, the WVCTU Fly Fishing School, and my annual outing into the Seneca Backcountry with my WVU Professor friend.

It was one busy weekend and it started with a 4-hour drive to WV then, after waking at 3:15 AM, another 3-hour drive to the trailhead. Unfortunately, it had rained several days prior and was raining as I met my friend.

You can see from the USGS Water Gauge (normal flow of 300 CFS), we were 4X the normal flows!

As opposed to making the ~ 10-mile trek we chose to explore new water on the other side of the mountain. I had fished a number of streams in that area which my friend had not. The only thing better than exploring new water is sharing it with a good friend.

The first stream we stopped at has had major work done to it over the past few years, including tree plantings and livestock fencing in the headwaters. From the bridge crossing the stream has two very distinct profiles. Upstream it is a lower gradient stream, meandering through large hemlocks and open, high meadows.

This section of stream reminds me of Tonahutu Creek in Rocky Mountain National Park, just above Big Meadows. Both are equally beautiful!

Downstream from the bridge it takes an entirely different profile. It is a high gradient, plunge pool type stream that is my preference when chasing the natives. You'll have to excuse the quality of the photo, I was using my waterproof video camera...did I mention it was raining?

The water was moving pretty good and we managed to pick up a couple of small brookies (sorry no photos), so we decided to try another of my favorites in this major watershed.

We drove the short distance to the trailhead of another stream that originates in Virginia and flows through West Virginia before meeting up with the Potomac. By the time we made it to the trailhead it had stopped raining, but had the damage already been done?

Instead of hiking to where the trail meets the water, we barreled down over a steep embankment to the water and almost immediately started picking up fish. The water was up a bit and still moving pretty good but it did not prevent these small jewels from coming out to play.

Then magic struck! As we made it to this large, green pool the big boys decided to come out to play...on top!

I fished the tail out while my partner hit the head. I picked up two of these nice specimen (on top).

Then, as I was standing and watching, my partner picked up this big guy - probably pushing that 12" threshold.

We continued to pick up a few fish here and there as the water continued to rise from earlier storms. The sun also played peekaboo with us on and off and every time the sun would come out heavy hatches of yellow sallies would come off - what a great time to be on the water!

By the time we decided to call it a day, the water was up to the point the only place we could find to cross was crotch deep and ripping. It made for an interesting crossing with a DSLR camera around my neck, but I made it.

The other great thing about spring: the wildflowers are out and the critters are awakening. I found this Jack-in-the-Pulpit streamside.

This little guy also met us on the trail for the hike out.

He's a harmless black rat snake but I wouldn't recommend this trail in the heat of summer. It is one of the rockiest, snakiest trails I have ever been on and it's located in Timber Rattler Central!

Following a great evening with good friends around a campfire, day two included the State Council Meeting and the Fly Fishing School. The question was: where do I fish before the council meeting?

I had marked several tribs of the upper West Fork of the Greenbrier fr exploration, so today would be the day. I thought that with a couple of hours to fish I could hit a couple of them...until I actually made it on this first stream.

In the lower reaches the stream flows through a beautiful high meadow before transitioning into the hardwoods. Over 100 years ago this was home to a logging community and there are still remnants of this.

The recent rains seemed to have passed through this small stream already but I still only moved one fish in the meadow. Once I got into the section of stream with good canopy it was a different story.

Sometime since the logging had stopped, somebody had done some major instream work on this stream. There were standing K-dams, log dams, and log re-routing of the stream. The little brookies seemed to appreciate all of the hard work.

It's always good to see the little guys in the stream too.

The fishing was so good and seeing the amount of work done on this stream was amazing. Add another WV stream to my life list. Needless to say, I didn't make it to any other tribs before I had to head over the mountain to WV State Council...too much water, too little time.

I had been anticipating State Council for weeks now! Not for reasons you would expect, but because I would get the return of my Vandalia bamboo #003! I had broken the butt of this rod the previous summer while chasing (unsuccessfully) Paiute cutthroat on Silver King Creek. Phil Smith, the rodmaker, was replacing the reel seat with a piece of 2,000+ year-old bristlecone pine we had picked up during our 2008 Colorado Cuttslam trip.

Following State Council it was back across the mountain for a presentation at the WVCTU Fly Fishing School. What was my presentation? Travel planning and native species, of course.

It was another great evening with great friends around the campfire.

The next morning it was goodbyes to old friends and decision time again. Back to the headwaters of the WF of the Greenbrier? A couple of friends had fished another small trib the day before and recommended it and it was on my route home.

Once on the stream, it didn't take long for #003 to return to form....the return of #003!

As always, it's good to see the little guys in there.

With over seven hours of driving ahead of me, I spent only enough time on the stream to validate a healthy population of brookies. Add another stream to the WV life list, then it's Cincy bound.

Before I could make it to the hard top, I ran into one more of the natives. This grouse wanted to play chicken!

Although the rain put a damper on day one, it was a great weekend with great friends! I can't wait until my next trip "home", I'm going to do something I've wanted to do for years. I'm going to take a week of vacation and stay home in West Virginia - backpacking through the Cranberry Wilderness area.

Until next time...

Chris