Established January 2009

Friday, June 25, 2010

Campin' and Fishin' part 3









Today, as the rest of my family broke camp and went home, I headed over to a stream I had fished previously but had intentions on fishing a new section. I was meeting my good friend, Nathan Rees. Nathan showed up at the trailhead with his friend Dave and the 3 of us headed to the top of the mountain to drop off my truck. We headed back down the mountain where we first met and geared up. After begining our hike we headed strait up to the top of Allegheny Mountain and dropped into a different watershed than the one we just left. After getting creekside, we stopped for a much needed break and ate lunch. We began fishing around noon and the 3 of us worked our way upstream. This stream is teaming with Wild Rainbows and Native Brook Trout, but as I later found out, I turned out to the the only one who would not catch any Brook Trout. Despite the low water, the Rainbows were eager to take a well presented fly and a #16 Usual was the ticket for me. Plunge pool after plunge pool we made our way to an old meadow campground that is a popular hiker destination and the creek got smaller and smaller and turned from higher gradient to lower as we made our way upstream. As the day progressed, several fish were brought to hand between the 3 of us and around 5pm, we decided to finish our hike out. Around 6pm, we reached my truck and we had just completed a 9 mile hike through some of the most beautiful woods and water in WV.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Campin' and Fishin' part 2






Today my cousin Nate and I decided to go check out some streams I had heard about and I wanted to try and mark a couple off of my "To Do List". Skipping breakfast, we left camp around 8am and drove over the mountain and headed South to a drainage I hadn't explored much. After arriving at the first stream, we both strung up the rods, tied on a parachute adams and headed upstream. Again low water was the case here, but we took our time and tried not to spook many fish. This particular stream was a Brook Trout stream but there were also rumors that a few Brown Trout called it home as well. It wasn't long before I hooked up on a nice Brookie, and I wanted to put Nate on some fish, so he was up next. We spotted a better sized fish in the tailout of a pool and Nate put the sneak on him and shortly he hooked and landed a Brown Trout. We continued to take turns on each pool and several more Brookies were landed, but Nate hooked a fish of really good size maybe in the 12 to 14'' range that we couldn't positively ID. I'll try that fish some other time.
Later in the day, Nate and I drove as far as the forest service roads would take us upstream in the watershed and fished another new stream. It wasn't a large stream by any means, but it held some nice Brook Trout. We didn't fish this stream for much longer than just to catch a few. Mark another one off the list.
Back at the truck, we decided to venture North for another tributary of the same river in an attempt to do two things; Fish another new stream, and catch the final third of a Randolph County Wild Trout Trifecta. On the way we drove through a major thunderstorm, but we pressed on and found ourselfs on a new stream. The passing storm put the fish down, and our catch rate was not that good, but I did manage to catch a small Wild Rainbow Trout and complete our goal. With better weather, I will fish this stream again.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Campin' and Fishin' part 1




Every year for the past 4 summers, my dad, Uncle Ron, his two sons Ronny and Michael, all of their kids, and myself have been camping at Laurel Fork Campground in Randolph County. We use that campground because its a good base for lots of different streams both stocked and native and there is plenty of other things to do for those of us that dont fish or dont want to fish. This is a pretty large blog entry so its going to be broke up inton 3 posts for each of the days fished.

The first day started early in the campground with a hearty breakfast, but got to a slow start fishing. My dad, Ronny, and his two boys Nate and Jacob, and I finally made it to the stream of choice at around 1pm. After stringing up the rods, we headed up the trailhead and slowly broke apart so we could give one another room. Nate and I started working our way upstream and we began working each pool. Nate was fishing a parachute adams and picked up his first Brook trout of the day. I started with a stimulator and picked up a few Brookies here and there. The water was a tad on the low side and gin clear so finding fish that didn't see you first was the main challenge of today. A few really nice Brook Trout were spotted, but most of the time they spooked shortly after being spotted. Nate and I fshed upstream for over a mile and a half, and then we decided to make our way back to the others so we could head to the truck. The other half of our party brought some fish to hand as well, but no big numbers were put up today.