Dry Flies & Blue Lines Pt. 2

Day 2 of the adventure began after a hearty camp breakfast and a drive over the mountain into Pendleton County. Chris and I planned to make a long hike from one side of the mountain over the the other traversing 2 completely different watershed drainages and attempted to catch brookies from both of those watersheds. To do this we needed to park his truck near the top of the Allegheny Mountain at one trailhead, and park my truck near the bottom but on the other side of Allegheny. We quickly loaded up our packs, strung up our rods and looked for pocket water on the Cheat Drainage side of the mountain. It wasn't long before I spotted a nice brookie for Chris from the trail, and after 2 casts he had fooled brookie #1. I tried my hand at a few pools, but the low water and smaller sized stream made some pools difficult to approach without spooking the whole pool. Finally farther up the trail, I connected on not one, but two brookies that were full of life, and color. Decidedly we'd had enough and moved it on up the mountain and after a longer hike than Chris and I planned for, we finally topped out on the top of Allegheny Mountain. After a brief break and lunch, we descended the mountain on the back side headed for a stream that is a personal favorite and we were trying to catch another brookie from anothe watershed. After finally making it to the stream, I tried the first pool, and on the first cast, I hooked a really nice brook trout with shoulders that measured 10.5 inches. Brook Trout in my opinion seem to be the novelty of this stream and are rare anymore, but this guy is by far my best Brook Trout from this stream. As we progressed forward upstream, we hooked and caught several more rainbows, but neither Chris nor I caught another Brook Trout. We leapfrogged one another for the rest of the afternoon slowly working our way up the mountain again headed for his truck, and finally after approximately 9 mile of walking/fishing/wading, we made it to the other trailhead where his truck was parked.