Established January 2009

Thursday, June 14, 2012

For Way Too Long

About a month ago, I got a phone call from a good friend Brandon "Bubba" Holt who I havent fished with or talked to in quite a while.  Its my fault not his.  Anyways, he wanted to know if I would go with him to his camp in Pocahontas County aptly named "The Mountain Camp".  Theres a story behind that, but I wont go into it.  Well the time finally came and I left Kingwood around 10am on a Tuesday morning and decided I would go hit a stream on the "LIST" while I was waiting for Bubba to get off work and meet me in Elkins.  I arrived at the stream around 11:30 or so and I took my time rigging up my new 1 wt that I just got this Spring.  I was in no hurry as I had all day.  After rigging up, I walked to the stream that another good friend Chris Shockey had told me about.  He told me to just jump in and start fishing but to understand that the fishing would get better after I fished my way up past a few camps that are near the mouth of this stream.  I started fishing with a rubber legged stimulator and immediately started catching fish.  This stream and Brook Trout in this stream are truly unique as the both the trout and the water have an odd looking tinge to them.  Also of note is the lack of canopy over this stream, and you would think the stream would suffer from not having any shade from the tree canopy over it.  I continued to fish upstream for maybe a good 3/4 mile when I approached a hole and began to fish it only to hook, fight, and loose a solid 10 to 11'' brookie.  I had other business to attend to so I decided to head downstream and back to the truck.


I had never been to this area before so I decided to take a late lunch break and do some sightseeing and experience other things in the area besides the fishing.  I wasn't dissapointed by my travels and the scenery in this area is impeccible.  I only scratched the surface at what is to offer, but with only 1 day and daylight burning, I could only see and do so much. 



I headed back to the same trailhead I was parked at before, only this time I was headed upstream on the larger stream that the first stream I fished emptied into.  I walked up the very worn trail for about 10 minutes for going over the bank and getting into the stream.  I was immediately impressed with the temperature of the water despite the absence of the tree canopy.  I was also thinking the whole time I fished both of the streams that they resembled so much of a western stream in Wyoming or Montana or somewhere like that.  All this led me to the conclusion that this is no doubt one of the top 10 places in WV or atleast in my book.  The fishing was slower than it had been earlier in the day, or atleast the catching was.  I had missed several fish but just failed to hook up with them.  I did manage to bring 3 to hand but it didnt matter at a place like this.  As I continued upstream 2 things stopped me from going as far as I really wanted to.  1.  A serious looking thunderstorm was brewing on the mountain this stream started on, and 2. Time was against me as I needed to start making my way back to the truck so I could drive back to Elkins to meet Bubba at our pre arranged meeting time.  I will be back to this stream and hopefully soon. 


After meeting Bubba, we headed over Cheat Mountain and headed south of Bartow for Green Bank to the camp.  Bubba and stayed up way too late as we were catching up, shootin' the bull and just plain BS'in.  Fast forward to 8am later that morning.  Going to bed at almost 3 AM ... not such a good
idea as it took a while to get motivated. After getting a quick breakfast and taking care of a few of the camp chores Bubba and I were off to a stream that I hadn't fished in 3 years.  This stream is a major tributary of a tributary of the Greenbrier River.  Its also a 2 minute drive from his camp.  We stopped off a the last bridge that crosses the stream before heading into the headwaters and we were amazed at seeing well over 100 trout under the bridge.  Some of the Brookies were HURGAN DURGANS over 12''.  Seeing those fish gave us all the inspiration we needed.  After parking the Jeep we hiked up the trail for 30 minutes before we started fishing.  Bubba was the first of us to hook up and it was a nice one too.  Taking turns fishing each hole, we consistently hooked and caught over 25 Brookies apiece.  We also fished further upstream than either he or I had ever been before.  We fished to within a mile of the start of this stream.  We'll save that other mile for the next trip.  Around 6pm, we made it back to the Jeep for a quick trip back to a section of stream that gets put and take rainbows but also has some wild trout as well.  Bubba and I fished here until almost dark catching a brown apiece and a stocker rainbow apiece for the grill.  Grilled T-Bones and Trout was on the menu for dinner that night at camp.

The next day we got a late start partly due to staying up too late again, but never the less, we found our way to a stream in a completely different drainage that I had fished previously but Bubba had never fished before.  When we got to the parking area, Bubba and I rigged up and started upstream.  After bushwhacking our way around a huge Rhodadendron patch I told Bubba to fish the first hole and he was shortly rewarded with a very nice Brookie.  This Brookie was very bleached out so to speak, simliar to a stocked Brook Trout, but all of its fins were in perfect shape and I think that this fish and others yet to come were swimming upstream into the colder feeder streams of this drainage.  We continued upstream and fished sever good looking pools and landed many brook trout and even caught a small Brown Trout.  Bubba caught another quality Brookie that we taped at 12'' even.  I got in on the action a little bit and landed a nice 10'' and a really pretty 9'' Brookie also.  One of the brookies landed had a wound on its belly that had healed over but indeed left a scar.  Im not sure what caused the injury. Time got away from us and reality set in that both him and I had to go back to Kingwood and Parkersburg respectively.  We packed it up and in and headed north to Elkins to retrieve my truck and part ways. 

Its very rare that I get to fish for 3 consecutive days and these 3 days were hands down the best trout fishing I have done this year.  I had an excellent time both fishing and and I enjoyed some great company and got to see Bubba's camp.