Tag: WV

Lagniappe

The Virginias

By Tom Burnett

There are three rivers listed in the Trout Unlimited’s Guide to America’s 100 Best Trout Streams that hail from Virginia (Rapidan) and West Virginia (Seneca Creek, Cranberry).  As we traversed these two states we couldn’t help but imagine there were many more rivers that could have been on the list, especially given that two of these rivers are very small mountain streams of which there are many in the mountains here.  We actually did fish another, Hazel Creek in Virginia, when we found we couldn’t get to the spot on the Rapidan that our guide, Carson Oldham of Albemarle Angler in Charlottesville had originally intended to take us due to the road being blown out.  Luckily, Barb and I had hiked up the Rapidan the day prior to fish it from another access point.

One of the things we were most struck by in both VA and WV was the natural beauty of these states.  As you’ll see when you watch our music video of The Virginias (above), this natural beauty was for us, the highlight of fishing here.  While we did hook into fish in each of these streams, the fishing was not spectacular from a “catching” or “size” perspective.  We fished Seneca Creek and the Rapidan in the fall and the Cranberry in the spring, so perhaps it was our timing.  We did enjoy our “Creek Stompin’ in West Virginia” and the “Wild and Wonderful” Cranberry.  However, one of the things we found fishing the two WV streams was the lack of guides and fly shops to assist us in our fishing.  We did get great help for the Rapidan and Hazel having Carson along with us on our “Oh Shenandoah” journey.  In a downpour of rain, we fished small pockets of water along these beautiful streams hooking into beautiful small trout.

We hope you enjoy this short video chronicling our time in The Virginias.  We’re sure to come back and find more of these small mountain streams to explore.

 

Read more
Lagniappe

487 x 34,585 x 95 x 149

By TB

For much of the past two years, we’ve been on our River Ramble, exploring trout streams across the USA.  All total, we’ve been on this journey for 487 days and have visited TU Greatest 100 trout streams in 26 different states.  In fact, we’ve now fished 95 of the Top 100 streams and 149 different trout streams in all.  I know what you’re thinking, you’re still 5 short, and indeed we are.  There is one more state we’ve yet to visit, Alaska.  While we are looking forward and already deep into planning our Alaska adventure to fish the final 5 (and a few more of course) of the TU 100, we wanted to take a moment to look back on this past two years.

As we’ve continued to discover, Its Not About the Fish…. its about the people we continue to meet along our Ramble.  We’ve been blessed to have fished with some of the best guides in the world on the best trout streams in the world.  In small villages and communities, we’ve met some great local fly shop owners and staff who’ve sent us to some off the beaten path fisheries that, while not TU Top 100 streams, easily could have been.  What we’ve enjoyed most have been guides, shop owners and community members who’ve befriended us, shared their stories with us and allowed us to see the rivers through their eyes and experiences.  We feel so lucky to have met each and every one.

Our tagline for our blog, “Fly fishing, food, friends and fun” has been just that.  We’ve sampled more than a few local brews, pubs, diners and dives along the way.  We’ve also had a great time visiting family and friends in Arizona, Indiana, Missouri and Montana…. rafting, zip lining, pickle ball, baseball, hiking and of course, fishing too.

Our “mothership”, the SaraLinda, has performed like a champ, taking us nearly 35,000 miles along this journey.  We’ve camped in state forests, state parks, national parks, Corps of Engineers campgrounds and even dry camped in amazing, remote locations.  The 180 sq. ft. we’ve been living in is dwarfed by the incredible outdoor expanse we’ve called home these two years.  Our backyards have been the Tetons, Yellowstone, Great Smoky Mountains, Appalachian Trail, Maine wilderness and stream side campgrounds in most every state we visited.

2016 was a great year and we posted up a “Year in Review” video for it last December.  We’ll be fishing numerous streams across the country in 2018 as well as the streams we’ll fish in Alaska, but for now, we wanted to share a look back at 2017.   We hope you enjoy this short music video and a few highlights from our 2017 River Ramble.

Read more
Lagniappe, Seneca Creek

Creek Stompin’ in WV

By TB

There are two streams in West Virginia that are on the Trout Unlimited’s Guide to America’s 100 Best Trout Streams, the Cranberry River and Seneca Creek.  Last year we fished the Cranberry River, which proved challenging given we’d never fished the river and we had no guide.  As we approached fishing Seneca Creek, we found ourselves in the same position, never seen it and no guides around.  We started to wonder just why these two streams were on the list in the first place, but undaunted, we headed to Seneca Rocks, WV, to fish Seneca Creek.

When we arrived in the area around noon, we talked with some of the staff at the Smokehole Resort where we were staying. They indicated that the water levels in Seneca Creek weren’t too good.  In fact, the river running right behind the SaraLinda, the North Fork of the South Branch of the Potomac River, which Seneca Creek runs into, was incredibly low, a great indicator that Seneca Creek wouldn’t be any better.   We also learned that there was a large fire in the mountain above us, with around 50 firefighters deployed and another 50-100 more firefighters on their way and would be checking into the cabins next to us.

We hooked up the SaraLinda and decided to go checkout Seneca Creek, following the directions written in the TU book. When we reached Seneca Rocks, we turned onto Highway 33 and drove until we saw White’s Run Road.   We turned onto the road and headed up the mountain until we found the parking area next to the Seneca Creek trailhead.   We were the only car there.

We got out in a light drizzle, rigged up our 7′ rods and began hiking up the trail.  The book said to hike up a ways before beginning to fish, but as we checked out the stream as we hiked deeper into the woods, there was not a soul in sight.  After about 1.4 miles, we came to a spot where the trail crossed Seneca Creek.  We stopped, looked up and down the creek, not seeing much water to fish.  After walking another .3 mile further upstream, seeing no deep holes to fish, we came back to the crossing and waded in, deciding we’d find the deepest holes we could and drift a small stimulator through it.

After trying this in 3 or 4 small holes, a small brook trout took the stimulator… we had a fish on Seneca Creek.  We fished a bit more, but decided that the water was just too low to fish more so we headed back to the SaraLinda.  We talked that night and decided we’d give Seneca Creek a rest, not wanting to stress the small brookies that might be hiding in any water they could.

The next day, we went over the mountain on Smoke Hole Road to fish the South Branch of the Potomac, which we’d heard had some water in it.   We fished near Eagle Rocks in a beautiful fall setting.  We hooked into some creek chubs on dry flies, so, the fishing was fun.  As we headed back over the mountain to the SaraLinda, we came across a staging area full of firefighters.  The road was still open, but was now being used as a basecamp for fighting the fire.  Further along the road a light rain began to fall.  As we rounded a corner, this incredible double rainbow appeared out of nowhere.  It was so close we felt like we could touch it.

While we found the fishing in West Virginia very challenging, we found the natural beauty of the state amazing.

Read more
Lagniappe, River

Wild and Wonderful

By TB

Almost heaven, West Virginia.  So goes the John Denver song Country Roads and we sure took a lot of country roads in our first foray into WV.  I say our first because we will actually make two, one this year and one next.

This year’s journey took us to the Cranberry Wilderness area of WV to fish the Cranberry River.  When we were doing our research into each river, finding shops and guides for our first day in each, we found that there were no guides working the Cranberry.   Seemed strange, having a Top 100 trout stream and no guides but we’d fished enough and were confident enough to just seek some local advice and trek out on our own.

We found Four Seasons Outfitters in Richwood to be great.  The staff there set us up with flies… shared a map with us and highlighted some areas to fish… and talked about how they’d fish the river.  Nymphs deep or streamers drug through deep holes.  Pretty standard stuff.

What they also told us was that to get to the “catch and release” section we wanted to fish, we’d have to hike at least 7 miles.  Ummmmmmm,,,, 7 miles?  Barb and I love to fish but we’d never walked 7 miles to do so.  3 miles, no problem.  But 7?  On an old railroad track turned into a path?  Up a mountain?  So we negotiated and got them to admit that if we just walked up a bit over 2 miles we’d find fish but we’d also see more anglers fishing “catch and keep” with trout bait.

Undaunted by this, we started our trek into the Cranberry Wilderness on the trail and within minutes saw a guy coming at us riding a bike.  When he got closer, we noticed he had a fishing rod stuck in a piece of PVC pipe attached to his bike.  He’d been fishing!  We knew the area was known as a mountain bikers haven but a fishermen’s too?  Turns out it is the common way people access the river to fish…. biking it.  Next time we’re getting bikes.  The hike up for a little over 2.5 miles was filled with excitement fishing this beautiful stream.  The hike back about did us in.   And to top it off, it had just snowed in the mountains and the fish bite was off.  No one was catching fish that day.  Luckily, we went back to the river a couple of days later and hooked into some pretty fish.

We found our goto spot for breakfast on the trip, Mumsey’s Iron Skillet in Richwood;  right on the Cherry River with great food.  We got to meet some of the locals and got some great intel on things to do in the area.

One local we met was Dr. Lloyd Atkins, the town dentist.  Turns out, Lloyd is an avid fly fisherman.  We sat and talked each time we were at Mumsey’s and got great information and lots of exciting stories.

Also need to give a big thanks to Lee Orr, the President of WVTU.  Lee also traded emails with us about where and how to fish.  He put us in touch with an outfitter on the Elk River we’ll visit when we swing back through WV in 2017.

We just missed by a week the annual Ramps Festival in Richwood, which bills itself as the Ramps Capital of the World.   We saw ramps signs all around the town and wondered what they were.  Turns out, ramps are kind of wild onions, sort of like a leek, really pungent like garlic and are in high demand because the season for finding them is so short.  As one person indicated, its kind of like waiting for Punxsutawney Phil to come out after the snow melt.  For Barb and me, we likened it to morel season.  We asked if they also had morels in the area and they did; they just don’t get the love that ramps get.

OK… we are off to Maryland… time to Ramble On!

Read more