Another New Member to the Sport

A couple of things I enjoy most of this sport: exploring new places/water and introducing new people to the sport of fly fishing. I get equal enjoyment out of both!

My only outing prior to this one was to introduce a fellow co-worker (and Aggie) to the sport and to show him what West Virginia has to offer in the way of scenic beauty. This time I would help introduce another generation to the sport and hopefully provide some guidance for his trip to Colorado in late July.

The interesting thing about this individual is that a few years earlier I taught his dad how to fly fish and I also took his dad to Colorado for the first time in 2011. I was also able to put him on every native species of cutthroat Colorado offers, including one of the top three streams I have ever fished in the west - I refer to it as Cutthroat Heaven.

When I introduce a new person to the sport, I like to start on a good brookie stream. There are a couple of reasons I start this way: brookies will hit anything big & fuzzy and there are plenty of strike opportunities to keep them interested. I talked it over with "dad" and we decided on a big brookie stream, with plenty of space (for casting and three people), and it also happens to have a good population of larger fish. Other than Seneca, this has become one of my favorite streams.

The first thing I always teach them is how to read the water and where the fish, most likely, will be located. From there, I go with the high stick drift...no need to worry about casting. It didn't take long for "junior" to catch his first fish on a fly rod while, basically, standing right over top of it.

Father and son sharing the moment.

"Junior" with his first trout on a fly rod; a nice, native West Virginia brookie.

After it appeared "junior" had a slight grasp on the system, and with dad assisting as needed, I was able to poke around a bit and land a few nice brookies of my own.

Soon after, dad got in on the action.

With everyone into fish, we moved much quicker upstream, picking up fish from nearly every decent looking pool. 

It was nice to lag behind and watch father and son enjoying the time on the water. With the video game craze, this is becoming even more rare every day.

Father's watchful eye...

As much as I enjoy introducing new people to the sport and showing them around some of my favorite places, I still enjoy catching fish. Even fishing used water, I was able to pick up the occasional brookie.

We fished well upstream, further than what I realized actually. After about a two mile hike out and some snacks/drinks on the tailgate, it was off to Seneca Creek to catch a few wild rainbows for dinner. That didn't work out to well...we landed plenty of fish but nothing of size to make a meal out of - car camping food for dinner it would be.

Our last stop for the day was Seneca Shadows campground for the night. I have been past the entrance of this campground a hundred times, but I have never stopped or stayed here. That has been my loss as this was the view from our tent site.

This is where I get sentimental for a moment. The reason I hadn't fished much was the business within the company I had worked for 21+ years had been sold and this was my last night as an employee of the former company. When I would wake up in the morning, I would be an employee of a new company. This hasn't happened in over 20 years and even though my job or my coworkers weren't changing, it was definitely a new chapter in my life. That always causes me to reflect on memories of what once was and thoughts of what will be. 

The one thing I finally came to realize was: I like change, I'm an explorer! Let's get this party started!

With that now behind me, I slept well and felt no different when I woke up...let's go exploring!

The next morning was a couple of quick stops to streams I had not fished previously. I hadn't checked off any new West Virginia streams yet in 2014 - that changed this day.

The first stream was one of the last two remaining streams in the Seneca drainage. It was a small stream and the water was a bit low, which made fishing with three people difficult. I left the father and son to fish together and I pushed upstream far enough to give them some space to explore on their own.

I quickly picked up a small brookie in a small plunge pool...add this stream to the list.

I moved up the high gradient stream, skipping most of the marginal water, until I spotted a good-sized pothole about eye level. With a high stick drift, I caught another brookie and a decent one at that.

I studied the GPS and topo map and decided I needed to return to this stream sometime and explore further upstream. I've heard there are wild rainbows in here too, so I added it to my never ending West Virginia streams to pay a return visit.

After a decent fish to finish up this stream, I moved back downstream to pick up the boys and move to another stream on my list.

I've stared at the mountain contour which contained this stream every time I travel down the east side of Rich Mountain. Today would be the day i would finally check this one off the list, so over Allegheny Mountain we went to where the GPS indicated the mouth of the stream should be.

We parked the truck and waded across the main stream to the mouth. After a quick couple of drift at the extreme low end of the stream, we decided to pick up an old Forest Service road and hike upstream.

I picked up the first little brookie at the bottom of a culvert hole where the Forest Service road crossed the creek the first time.

It's a good thing I caught that brookie in the first culvert hole because I didn't move another fish in that little stream. There seemed to be an excessive amount of silt in the stream. I believe there is a grazing allotment at the top of the mountain and that may have something to do with the siltation, but who knows?

After adding another member to the fly fishing community and adding two more brookie streams to my West Virginia life list, it was time to head for the house...more memories created and time to reflect - that's why we do this, right?

Chris

Brookiebum 2012 - Shenandoah National Park

Every year Phil and I do a multi-day backcountry adventure that we call Brookiebum. It's our annual trout bum adventure where we search for our beloved native brook trout.

Previous years have had us backpacking into the Cranberry Wilderness but this year we decided to switch it up a bit and head out of state. We debated between Smoky Mountain National Park or Shenandoah National Park. I do an annual outing every year with my son in the Smokies, so we settled on Shenandoah. The original plan was to backpack in, set up camp, and explore one watershed. I've only fished SNP one other time and my list of streams was too long to just fish one, so (again) we changed the plans and decided on a central campground where we could hit multiple streams.

Day 1
The day finally arrived, I met Phil in central West Virginia, and it was Rt. 33 all the way to Shenandoah National Park.

On the way over we stopped at a roadside brookie stream that Phil had fished a few years earlier. Once on the stream, I fished in jeans, and spooked a couple of brookies without picking one up. I took my shoes & socks off, rolled up by jeans, and moved upstream barefoot. It wasn't easy but I finally picked up one small brookie and added another West Virginia stream to my personal list.

A mile or so up the road we stopped at the spring head, only to see some of the biggest native brook trout I have seen anywhere. There they were, finning in the current, just off the edge of the underwater vegetation. I couldn't get them interested enough to even look up but it sure was nice to see something that size swimming in West Virginia waters....No photos of either the brookie I caught or the big boys swimming at the spring head - SORRY!

After this quick stop, it was on over the state line to Harrisonburg, Virginia and the gateway to Shenandoah National Park.

After FINALLY finding a campsite in the park, it was a quick dinner and a quick turn-in.

Day 2
The plan for this day was a short hike off the Blue Ridge Parkway to the Hoover Camp and the Rapidan River. From the trailhead, we were on the Appalachian Trail for about 20 yards before heading down off the mountain.

It was a short two miles to Hoover's Camp on the Rapidan, then another half-mile beyond the camp, we jumped into the famous Rapidan River. This stream has been on my list for several years!

What do you tie on when you are fishing the Rapidan River? A Mr. Rapidan, of course.

It didn't take long, the first small pool, produced my first Rapidan River brook trout.

What I failed to mention was that about thirty minutes into our hike, Phil stopped dead in his tracks, and asked me "Guess what I forgot?" He had remembered his reel but forgot his rod! The options were: Phil hike back to the top of the mountain and give up an hour of fishing or we could take turns fishing my bamboo rod. We chose not to give up fishing time and split time with my rod - Phil made the rod after all.

It didn't take long for Phil to pick up his first Rapidan brookie either.

We continued upstream taking turns on the rod. After you land a brookie, it was time to give up the rod. We were switching up quite often as the fishing in the Rapidan was outstanding and it continued to be outstanding.

On one of my rotations on the rod, I picked up the big fish of the day. This guy was a handful on the 1wt bamboo.

Having no experience on the Rapidan, I have to assume it always fishes this well, and the Mr. Rapidan got quite a workout.

I also forgot to mention I picked up a nice fly box at a fly shop in Harrisonburg - where we also picked up the Mr. Rapidan flies.

As I took my turns behind Phil, I was able to take a few shots of the beautiful Rapidan River.

We fished to the forks of Rapidan, the location of president Herbert Hoover's camp. At this junction, Mill Creek goes to the left and Laurel Creek go to the right. Above Mill Creek is the cabin that Herbert Hoover had built for the prime minister of England.

It was amazing to add another stream to my life list and in the shadows of history. If you look closely in the next photo, beyond Phil's celebration, you can make out the Prime Minister's camp.

After Phil also added this stream to his list, we decided it was lunch time and time to check out Hoover's camp.

The camp is open to visitors and there were National Park Service volunteers there to answer any questions.

I couldn't make out the maker on the bamboo rod, I wanted to think it was an original that President Hoover actually used to fish the same waters Phil and I had just fished.

Then there was Hoover's camp at the forks. The history of this location was amazing!

We could have spent hours checking out the camp, but we had new water to explore. There is nothing like catching brook trout in the shadow of greatness...add another stream to the personal list - Laurel Creek.

The tribs of Rapidan were small and heavily choked with downfall and brush. That doesn't bother me, I love extreme small stream fishing.

The water was small, the pockets were small, but the little brookies were all fat and healthy.

As with the main Rapidan, as Phil took his turn on the rod, I snapped off a few shots of this beautiful little stream.

We fished upstream to the stream crossing and this small cascade, where Phil picked up one last brook trout in the Rapidan watershed.

From here, it was about 1.5 miles (all uphill) to the trailhead. As we hiked up and out, there was one small trickle of a stream the trail crossed. I wonder if....

Yes, this stream you could step across without extending your stride contained brookies. Although this is an unnamed stream, add another one to the personal list.

Once on the Parkway, we stopped at an overlook to check in. While there Phil surprised me with an award on behalf of the West Viginia Council of Trout Unlimited - The Silver Trout Award.

That evening was a nice evening in camp, but cold for June. I wore a toboggan and a fleece jacket up until the time I crawled into my tent. The toboggan stayed on all night long...was it June or March?

Day 3
The evening before we made a decision to "run and gun" this day, as opposed to hiking off the Parkway again and hitting only one or two streams. The plan would be to drive off the east side of the Parkway and work our way south to north and hit 2-3 different watersheds.

The first watershed was the Graves Mills area and the Conway River. Once on the Conway, it was a short downstream hike to a small tributary with a great name - Devil's Ditch.

Devil's Ditch quickly produced brook trout, as Phil caught one at the trail crossing. I picked up three little brookies in no time and I added another stream to my list.

With several streams on our list that day, it was back out to the main branch of Conway - run and gun!

Phil, again, was the first to add the Conway to his list, and he did it with his own rod. The Conway was a beautiful stream that reminded me of several of my favorite streams in GSMNP. The major difference was it fished much tougher. I know I fished for about an hour before I finally picked up a camera shy brookie in the Conway.

By the time I landed that guy I was already to get off that stream so as soon as I landed it, we were done!

Next stop was another Rapidan trib, the Staunton River. To get there it was back to Graves Mills and the Rapidan River trailhead. Before making the turn up the Rapidan, we stopped at the Graves Mills post office, which was established in 1828.

Reading the Civil War it was easy to see how several of the area streams got their names. On this marker were men of the Conway, Graves, Rose families.

The history of the east side of the park is amazing, I could spend days in the area just checking out the Civil War landmarks.

Continuing with our running and gunning, the Staunton River was next. A short hike along the Rapidan, the trail split and we were following the Staunton.

It didn't take long and I added stream number three for the day to my personal list.

The Staunton was different than the other streams, in that it was a much higher gradient. There were several pools where we fished at eye level.

I picked up several brookies in the Staunton, no size, but healthy brookies. Not only were the individual brookies healthy, the population was healthy too. I saw a few very large broods of young of the year brookies.

The Mr. Rapidan worked well on this stream too!

By this time it was lunchtime again. I picked up this little box lunch in a park visitor's center/supply store. It was made by Go Picnic and it was the best box lunch I have ever eaten on the stream: multi-grain crackers, turkey pepperoni, asiago cheese, dried cranberries/pineapple, and an almond roca cookie. I'll order more of those off the internet before my next pack trip.

With a couple more watersheds on the list for the day, we decided to call it a day on the Staunton. On our last bridge crossing of the Rapidan I looked up and saw another amazing site. A bald eagle on the Rapidan, could it get any better?

Our next destination was the Rose River, so we were off to Syria, Virginia. We drove up the Rose to the park boundary and the Rose Rive trail. We hiked up the trail a half-mile or so before bushwhacking over the hill to the stream.

The stream was a beautiful tumbling stream with beautiful pools.

The fishing was not equal to the appearance of the stream. We fished for a couple of hours and we landed three between the two of us. We each caught one of these beasts!

Talk about extremes! I caught one aggressive two inch brook trout, then the only other brookie I caught was a true beast! The largest brookie of Brookiebum 2012.

That brookie would also be the last brookie of Brookiebum 2012.

We had plans to fish the Hughes, but with the trailhead parking closed, it would have been a half-mile hike up the road just to reach the trail. We both had enough miles on our legs for the day so we decided to call it a day and head back to the campground.

I finished Brookiebum 2012 by adding nine new streams to my personal life list - one in West Virginia and eight in Virginia.

It was a nice closing evening to our annual trip.We talked around the campfire about Brookiebum 2013. It's looking like Great Smoky Mountain National Park will be the destination for Brookiebum 2013, and it looks like my son Ross may be along for his first Brookiebum.

Looking forward to next year!

Chris

Fishing with Friends

Every year my WVU professor friend (Rick) and I try to coordinate a backcountry day trip. This wouldbe the fourth consecutive year, with the first two being in the Seneca Backcountry. Lat year's rain and high water forced us into a different watershed - he really liked it, so this year we would return. We were also able to get our good friend (Phil, bamboo rod maker and current West Virginia Council of Trout Unlimited chaiman) to join us. I hadall of the makings f an outstanding day trip!

My alarm went off at 2:30 AM and 3.5 hours later I was at the trailhead with my friends. The plan was to hike about a mile up the trail, to the mouth of another very nice brookie stream, start fishing from there and fish our way well into Virginia.

By 6:30 AM we were headed up the trail. The forecast was for mid-80s, but the early morning temperature was in the low 40s and it would be hours before the sun would reach the water in this deep valley.

There was very good conversation on the hike in regarding the controversy a couple of individuals in TU "National" created on this stream last year. I won't go into details except to say the actions of these individuals cost TU several members and caused me MANY hours of public relations work as the WVCTU State Chairman at the time.

We soon reached the mouth of the feeder stream, so I rigged up my 000wt with my favorite prospecting fly; a mini-hopper from Ben at Arizona Wanderings.

The air was a bit chilly and when I stepped in the water (wet wading) I discovered it to be a bit cooler than the air. Regardless, the first run produced my first brookie of the day....it's going to be a good day!

With three people fishing a small stream you can cover a lot of water. You can also slow down, admire the scenery, and enjoy watching friends work the water. Here Rick works a nice, deep pool with one of his deadly rubber-legged woolybuggers.

We each took turns fishing the nice runs and deep pools, with each picking up the occasional nice brookie. The mini-hopper was working well that early morning.

Phil is not only a fine bamboo rodmaker but he is also an incredible photographer! I think one of his secrets are the angles he uses. Here he shoots a nice brookie "blind", without using a viewfinder of any kind. He posted several of his photos from this day on his Facebook page. I'm not sure of his privacy settings, but you may be able to view his shots at this link.

Another talent of Phil is cinematography. He has made two videos for trout and coldwater conservation:

Vandalia Angler

Vandalia Angler 2: Backing the Brookie

Phil brought his video camera with him on this day and he took several clips. I can't wait to see Vandalia Angler 3! Phil at work, filming Rick working another nice run.

It would be a couple of hours before the sun started hitting the water deep in this valley. As the sun starte peeking through the trees, it made for some very nice shots, and reminded me of one of my favorite narratives.

But when I am alone in the half light of the canyon all existence seems to fade to a being with my soul and memories. And the sounds of the Big Black Foot River and a four count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise. Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.....A River Runs Through It

I don't kow of very many streams where you can fish across a state line.

As the sun continued to rise, it made for some interesting shadows. Rick was fishing from the shadows while Phil was capturing it on video.

Phil would put the cameras down from time to time and take his turn fishing this outstanding stream...

...and when he did, the result was usually this: a very nice brook trout. This legitemate 12" brook trout had a very nice kipe!

The air and water temperatures were rising but some of the deeper canyon sections had still yet to see the sunlight. Not a good time (or place) for Rick to take a swim - note he is wet from the waist down. :)

The fishing continued to be good and I continued to pick up several better than average brookies.

Occasionally we would find stretches of water in the direct sun and the resident brookies were very active in these sections. Rick and I both picked up brookies under the overhanging rhododendron.

This stream has very good bug life and the bugs were coming off all day. There were caddis, yellow sallies, midges, and a few different species of mayfly...including the very large eastern green drakes. The green drakes looked like small helicopters coming down the stream and there were also a few coffin flies around.

I dug deep into my pack and found an old match the hatch fly box. Phil tied on a green drake dun and I tied on a coffin fly pattern. I picked up 5-6 brookies on the coffin fly - brookies on a coffin fly was a first for me.

This guy came completely out of the water twice, from a back eddy at the head of a very nice pool, before I finally landed him.

I thought, being deep into the Virginia backcountry, we would be alone on the stream. I was wrong and in the early afternoon we ran into a father and son that had made there way into the stream from a spur trail further upstream.

Having spent nearly eight hours on the water and having a 3+ mile hike out, we decided to call it a day - a ver successful day on the stream with two very good friends. It's not every day you can catch brook trout in two different states but in the same stream.

It was approximatly a 90 minute hike out and Rick had supplies ready for the tailgate when we made it out. It was very nice relaxing on the tailgate, hanging out with my friends, but we had other engagements for the evening. It was also the weekend of the Blennerhassett chapter spring campout, the WVCTU fly fishing school, and the WVCTU Spring State Council meeting - all at Thornwood Science Camp.

I really enjoy sitting around a campfire with good friends, but having been up since 2:45 AM, I was in my bunk by 9:30.

The next morning it was breakfast and a quick 1.5 mile hike into a trib of the stream we had fished the day before. The State Council meeting started at 10:00 AM, so I hike downhill for 30 minutes, prospected for 10, then hiked back out.

However, I was able to add another stream to my personal list of brook trout streams.

I would have loved to have stayed for the entire weekend, but I had commitements at home. Until next time...my next entry should be Brookiebum 2012 - Shenandoah National Park.

Chris