just had to test out the underwater camera. It’s really short, but I didn’t think he was gonna hang around for a while. First time I’ve tried video underwater. I’ll have to do some experimenting. I really want to dunk this thing in a good holding spot and just let it record. We’ll see. Some pics from todays trip too. I’m too tired to write a full article, but plan to about this trip…
I just thought the spots on these guys were cool. The first one has the faint side spots like you see on wild rainbows. I’ve only seen that a handful of times on browns.
Thought I’d post this here. I made a little watercolor from the wild rainbow pic in the gallery. If anyone wants a watercolor done of a fish, let me know. Also, there’s a bigger version in the photo gallery.
Now that I have calmed down a little from the fly fishing trip this weekend, I can share some of it with you. My good friend Phil and I decided to try out some West Virginia streams. Since we have never been there fly fishing and only heard other peoples stories, we had to give it a go. The easy access areas were very much your typical stocked trout waters that can fish very well, but with miles and miles of wild trout water in the area had us ready to explore.
Let me first say that if your gonna explore wild trout waters in the mountain, be ready to put on some miles. Even though you have to work hard for these fish, it is well worth the work. The absolute beauty of these fish are indescribable. The main stream that we fished had both 100% wild brooks and rainbows. The colors of a wild brook is amazing, but these rainbows were the prettiest I”d ever seen.
So Phil and I started our Saturday with a strong cup of coffee and a stern breakfast. We needed to have a good reserve of energy because the walking was gonna be killer. The first pool that we actually got our lines wet in was incredible. It had two main currents, one from the head of the pool and one from a small spring feeding the edge. The depth of this pool was about 8 feet deep and full of trout. You may think that’s crazy deep for a mountain stream, and it is very uncharacteristic, but this was an amazing place. This first pool rewarded us both with a few trout to get the day started off positive. In most wild trout streams the fish are very spooky and even though several more fish made this pool a home, they shut down after a little disturbance.
We made our way farther upstream to find nothing but great pockets, pools, and riffles with cooperative trout. We took turns fishing and had a blast doing so. Phil was fishing a gray caddis dry while I was fishing a tan caddis emerger. Several times through the day we caught fish in the same pools on both the dry and the emerger. These fish were really smart and to catch them effectively, you had to be stealthy and present a well placed fly. The neat thing about wild fish is that if you can be undetected, you can bring trout to the net all day. Wild trout aren’t to picky, if you’re careful, if not it’s gonna be a long day.
Well, now we had made it about 300 yards upstream with a dozen under our belts, and it just kept getting better. Have you ever had one of those dreams that when you wake up your upset? Well this was one of those dreams that progressively got better. We found ourselves catching 2 to 3 brook trout at every pool. The farther we got upstream the nicer the fish got and the first wild rainbow was captured by Phil and it was amazing. These rainbows were in such good shape with superior strength for their size. The average size fish was probably 8 inches with a few smaller and a few larger.
Now we are a mile from the truck and we have been fishing for hours, but it was so rewarding to catch these little guys. We knew about some impressive waterfalls upstream, but we fished to slow and never made it that far, next time. The day was starting to come to a close with the satisfaction level super high, when Phil hooks into three more rainbows in one riffle. The rainbows must have liked the dries, because my emerger didn’t get any. Not that I’m complaining about catching all brookies, but it would’ve been nice to land a bow. At days end Phil landed five bows and a bunch of brooks. I landed a bunch of brooks and had a great time doing it.
This was one of the best times I ever spent on the water. I have been to Montana, Wisconsin, and several other places that have trophy trout, but this day of hiking and catching truly wild trout surpassed them all. The number of trout that Phil and I caught this day probably got close to 80 or so, but who’s counting. If you want to find beautiful seclusion and catch a mess of wild trout in the process, give West Virginia’s Back country a try, I know I’ll go back.
