Day 2 of the brook trout fishing escapade – see Day 1 report: Sin, Salvation and Stacks (and Something Fishy).

I typically don’t sleep so well when I’m not sleeping in my own bed, but at the end of Day 1, in  a motel in Roanoke, VA, I slept very well. And I was thankful I wasn’t camping. Camping in the east…I didn’t notice a lot of travel trailers and RVs as we traveled Appalachia. Here in the west it seems like every other vehicle is a pickup truck, every fourth vehicle is an SUV and 30% of either vehicle is pulling a camp trailer. And then there are the behemoth motorhomes careening down the freeway.

I came to the conclusion that it’s just too uncomfortable for many people to camp in humidity like there is in the east. Sure, lots of people camp, but maybe just not in the numbers they do around here, where not only the air is drier, but half the land is federal and camping is as easy as driving a dozen miles and pulling off nearly anywhere in the national forest. My personal experience tells me it’s probably the humidity though: a few years ago my family spent 28 days straight camping east of the Mississippi. No motels. No air-conditioning. It was miserable.

Tuesday morning came and we rousted ourselves from bed to get moving on. This was the day I was most worried about in the planning stages. We were looking for the northern Appalachian brook trout that day and we wanted to fish the Rapidan River to do it. The Rapidan has great historicity when it comes to fly fishing and it’s supposed to have  a good population of brook trout.

However, when I started doing some research about fishing the Rapidan for brookies, most of what I read mentioned that accessibility might be an issue—3 to 4 miles of vigorous hiking just to get to the stretches with the fish, then the actual fishing mileage, followed by a 3 mile hike back to the vehicle, uphill. I emailed a couple of folks and got pretty much the same response. Apparently the most popular method is to take Skyline Drive along the ridge of the Shenandoahs, park above Hoover Camp, then hike down below Hoover Camp and fish back up.

We wanted to avoid a lot of hiking (see Day 1 for more on that) and had plans to meet Justin in Charlottesville at 4:00 for some evening smallmouth fishing. We wouldn’t arrive at the Rapidan until about 11:00. 8 miles of hiking and fishing was out of the question.

I looked at Google Maps and really checked out the Hoover Camp area closely. I saw a road from Skyline Dr., past the camp, then continuing downriver. It hooked into some public roads just west of Criglersville. I figured the road to and past the camp were probably forest service access roads, and not accessible to the public. But since it connected down below to public roads, I thought it was worth looking at more carefully. I did some searches and found that coming from Criglersville we could follow a road up to a fire gate about a mile below Camp Hoover. Four wheel drive suggested. Sounded like the perfect spot.

We arrived in Charlotesville about 10:00 and looked for a fly shop, Albemarle Angler, Justin told me about. We talked to Tom(?) at the shop and he was extremely helpful. We wanted a couple of warm water flies for the evening and he hooked us up. We also wanted info about my access road idea. So I asked if he knew a good way to get to the Rapidan to fish for brookies. He outlined the very route we mapped out! Things weren’t looking so gray after all.

Except in the sky. As we pulled out of Cosby Creek Campground the day before, we were pounded with some of the hardest rain we westerners had ever experienced. We pulled to the side of the freeway because we couldn’t see the road. The skies had dogged us the remainder of the evening. As we pulled away from the fly shop, looking to the northwest, toward the Shenandoah Mountains, we could see clouds hovering.

We passed through the quaint towns of Madison and Banco. Traveling through such countryside, it was hard not to think of how Virginia is steeped in history, a history we memorialize so often because of tragedy. After driving through Tennessee and southern Virginia the day before, it was nice to have more open fields around the roads instead of just tree upon tree upon tree. It gave a nice pastoral setting to our morning. But the dark clouds looming ever nearer put a bit of a damper on how much we could enjoy it.

We only missed one turn, and backtracked a couple of miles before getting the right road. It seems that someone, after spending a couple of hours making really nice, detailed maps for the whole trip, left the maps on his desk as he was packing everything else. At least he didn’t forget any fishing gear this time. The road crossed the Rapidan and turned into a dirt road.

We rented a 4×4 for just this route. As we quickly moved along the road we realized that a high-clearance vehicle would have been just as good. Heck, my brother-in-law Danny would have been able to easily made that road in his Toyota Corolla (he’s taken that many miles over some incredibly rocky/dirty/chuckholey terrain). But, it was nice to know we had the extra capabilities if needed.

We moved from public road into the Shenandoah National Park as the clouds started to spit and spatter at us. After a couple of miles we left the Park and were on National Forest land for a few more miles. We saw one vehicle parked along that section, presumably an angler. The rain came down in earnest as we approached the fire gate at the beginning of Shenandoah Park property again. There was enough room for a couple of vehicles to park, but we were the only ones.

I was willing to wait out the rain for 10 or 20 minutes, but Dan said , “Let’s go!” Our plan was to wet wade, but it was cool enough and wet enough that we donned the waders, slipped into light rain jackets and went.

We were told at the fly shop that the water was down, and “hopefully you’ll be able to find the fish.” At the point where we entered the water, the Rapidan is a pretty little creek. We could see that a good volume of water could possibly move through the bed, but right then, it looked perfect for us, with mostly pocket water and a few plunge pools here and there—we could have easily been at home on a local creek.

The river was about 70 feet from where we parked, and before I even got to the water, Dan had a fish on. A rainbow. Dang! In addition to the rain, things got just a bit bleaker at that moment. But it was short-lived.

The rain began to ease and Dan was in to another fish. A brookie! In fact, from that point onward we caught nothing but brook trout. A good dozen or so brought to hand with an equal number off the hook or missed. And the weather cleared nicely, warming up quite a bit. We fished a good three quarters of a mile upstream. By the time we made it back to the vehicle, we were soaked with sweat, but we were happy with the fishing results—it was a lot easier done than some said it would be.

We rolled back to Charlottesville about 3:00. We were to meet with Justin at 4:00. I met Justin online through Goodreads’ Fly Fish Literati group. We then started up Rise Forms: Fly Fishing’s Literary Voice, our new angling magazine (first issue due this fall). Since we had a bit of time, and we were hungry, we stopped at Five Guys Burgers. Neither of us had been to one (although they do have a couple here in Utah), and since Virginia was basically their home territory, we decided to give it a try (also highly recommended by Dan’s brother, Chris). It was a huge burger. It was good eating.

We dropped by our motel, checked in, and unloaded a few things to make a little mre room for Justin, since we were driving him to our smallmouth appointment. We then zipped downtown to meet up with Justin. The old part of town is just on the outskirts of the University of Virginia (started by Thomas Jefferson), and seems to have a great atmosphere—someplace I’d really like to spend some time getting to know. But we didn’t have time right then. We pulled on to Water Street, headed toward 2nd Street, and it was pretty easy to spot Justin: the guy with a fly rod case standing on the street corner of a downtown always sticks out. We made introductions, then headed toward the Rivanna River.

I’ve never been smallmouth fishing before, and I was probably looking forward to that fishing as much as the brook trout fishing. The Rivanna River is a large river (relatively speaking—large for someone who lives in the desert) flowing through Charlottesville. As the river came into view, it seemed to be just what I imagined a warm-water fishery would look like.

We stopped at a parking area along the river where Justin has had success before. Not another angler in sight. In fact, Justin said that he rarely has seen people fishing there. We geared up and I realized I’d left my reel at the motel in a bag I took into the room. Three anglers, two rods. Dan, being the ever-gracious fishing companion, agreed to baseball it with me (three strikes and you’re out, next guy uses the rod and fishes).

Dan was up first. He fished the bottom of a nice chute with some decent flows through it and some still water depths on either side. Justin worked the slack water above the chute. There was no surface action, but we had on some poppers, trying to get the fish to rise. Justin was the first one with a fish on. A bluegill.

My first experience with bluegill was about 12 years earlier at a campground in Iowa. Or Oklahoma. Or…someplace…I don’t know. It was on the earlier-mentioned trip to the east coast. We stayed at a campground that had a little pond in it. My seven year old son and my two nieces (eight and eleven) went down to the pond. They came back a short time later, very excited. They said there were fish in the pond rising to anything, like pieces of grass thrown in. Or spit. They asked if they could have some bread. They took it back and fed the fish. Then they got the idea to tie some string on a stick, and put a doughball on the end of the string. They began lifting bluegill several feet out of the water before the fish would let go and plop back. It was a riot to watch.

Justin released his bluegill while I worked the slightly faster water on the far shore above the chute. But nothing reacted to my popper. So we moved upstream several hundred yards where there was a long ledge of rocks from one side of the river to the other. I had a strike, but missed it, so it was Dan’s turn with the rod again. Dan and Justin both worked the ledge pretty hard, but came up blank.

We again moved upstream a couple of hundred yards. There was a deep pool, and the water pinched in a little, with a little island toward the far bank. I began working the water above the island and in relatively short time I reeled in a 11″ smallmouth bass—mission accomplished!

Dan fished for a while, but didn’t seem to have his heart in it and turned the rod back over to me a short time later. I worked all around the island pretty hard, then started moving below the island 20 feet or so. I had another strike. This time it was a bluegill. For some reason they remind me of the triggerfish I caught in the ocean behind my house when I lived on Guam. Triggerfish are much more colorful, but I think it’s the blue around the mouth that triggers the memory for me.

I offered the rod back to Dan, but he declined. I continued fishing the area below the island and had a couple more hits. I finally connected with a little silvery creek chub.

It was time to call it good for the day as far as fishing went, and to head over to Justin’s house for some dessert. Well, it turned out to be dinner and dessert.

Justin has a great family with three active children under the age of six (Justin, correct me if I’m wrong on the age thing). While Nicole, Justin’s wife, put the finishing touches on dinner, the kids kept us occupied. In the previous 60 hours we had traveled 2200 miles and had less than 10 hours of sleep. Our trip had started to take on the surreal quality you get after being on an extended trip (we hadn’t been gone long, but lack of sleep and the previous day’s trip through Gatlinburg was adding to the weirdness). It was nice to sit back and relax with Justin’s family, to bring a little normalcy to our trip. That might seem odd, but Dan and I are both family men, and we’re used to having kids around.

So we had a great food and stimulating conversation. It was an excellent end to an excellent day.

Enjoy!

[To get the best results from the gallery below, select the first picture. When the picture pops up, use the little blue arrows at the bottom of the picture to advance to the next picture. The little green angled arrow (when available) will enlarge a picture.]

My absolute favorite fly fishing contains at least one of the following elements: native cutthroat, a nice hatch (especially mayflies), surface-feeding fish, dry flies, moving water, and finesse casting.

Today, all six of these elements coalesced into an couple of hours of fishing.

A little bonus was the fact that I got to fish with one of the genuinely nice guys in the world. And we rode our motorcycles to the river. And the weather was perfect.

Every now and again, we all deserve one of these days, especially when it follows on the heels of just the opposite.

I anticipated Friday evening with a little bit of giddiness since I was heading to my favorite little stretch of homewater. I typically reserve that place for a time when it feels right to fish there. However, my wife’s family has a yearly camp that lasts for four days. This year my wife’s immediate family (parents and five sisters and their families) were in charge, and they chose my creek. There’s a different theme every year, and they decided to have this year’s camp centered on movies.

I try to avoid the whole thing like the plague. My wife used to be disappointed when I bowed out, but she’s getting to the point of talking about skipping it as well. They needed someone to play King Kong, and I thought I would offer my services. Kind of. In a sneaky, not really offering kind of way. You see, Dan and I had planned on fishing in Idaho on Friday, not too far away from his in-laws’ family reunion he would attend. I told my in-laws that if something happened and I wasn’t fishing that day, I’d love to help them out (knowing full well I was going fishing). Heh-heh-heh! Well, something happened and Dan pushed the fishing back a day to Saturday. And I had to eat my words.

Of course, I would go up a couple of hours early get in some good fishing, do my part, then head home. No problem, I could do that. The first part of the plan worked out pretty well—I got there early. It went down hill from there.

You can’t get 100 people (50 of them kids) camped on a pretty creek without all the little buggers relatives destroying utilizing the riparian zone on a hot day. My brother-in-law Danny (I know, I know, too many Dans to keep track of) and I walked a ways up river to get away from the mayhem wreaked on the water. I hooked into a nice 12″ Bonneville cutthroat, but lost him going over a small waterfall. After that the fish were quiet. Too quiet. Dan’s friend (and a cousin-in-law) Justin happened by around that time and mentioned that he saw a couple of guys with a shocker working a small feeder tributary earlier. I figured they were probably in the mainstem too, but I pressed on.

The hike was enjoyable, and it was nice to see the restoration work that had gone into closing down a road that paralleled the creek for a couple of miles. The riparian cover created from the work looked great, but the fish just weren’t showing themselves. I moved on leaving Danny behind. Which, in retrospect, was too bad, since he would have appreciated what happened shortly after we parted.

I rapidly moved upstream a half mile or so, looking for any trace of fish. While navigating the far bank, I stepped out of the creek to bypass a couple of rocks and sunk my right foot about 16″ into some mud that was part of a sloughing bank. It sucked me down pretty solidly, so I looked for a firm place to put my left foot to get the leverage I’d need to pull my right one free. I was about two feet above the water, which was only six inches deep and covering what looked like gravel—the perfect spot. I put my left foot toward the gravel, shifting my mass in that downward angle, preparing to meet something solid. It wasn’t. It was gravel, but it was covering a layer of the same mud my right foot was in.

I was already experiencing Newton’s First Law of Motion, and it was too late to change the vector. My right foot pulled free with a slurp as my left foot continued to sink. There was enough viscosity that I seemed to be in slow motion, aware of every riffle and seam in the water my face was moving toward. My right foot, free of the muck, seemed to provide enough momentum to speed up the process at the last second.

This creek is about eight feet wide and ten inches deep at the point of impact. I wasn’t worried about drowning. But I was worried about (and for those who have taken a dip a time or two, they know this thought) my fly rod. I flung it away from me, and forward. Into the fastest part of the water. Even though the creek isn’t big, it was still in spring spate, so it was moving at a pretty good clip.

There I was, face down in ten inches of water, muddy boots flung up and over my back in another successful replication of Newton’s First Law as my rod slipped away from me. I had no choice but to to crawl after the rod. Which I did and succeeded in capturing after a couple of feet, just on the brink of dropping over a lip of rocks. Actually, I grabbed the float line coming out of the reel. And pulled. Releasing a couple of feet of line as the rod in fact slipped over the edge. I flung myself one last time and gripped the butt of the reel seat at the last second.

While still in that preposterous position, my first thought was, Did anybody see me? I quickly glanced to see if Danny had made it up, or if some hikers were walking along the path. I was in the clear, so I extracted myself and laughed. That must have been a sight—a one-man Three Stooges routine.

I made my way to a large rock bathed in direct sunlight. I stripped off my shirt and spread it out to dry, then settled my butt into a nice groove in the rock and faced the sun. I shifted my hat over my eyes and relived the humiliation, but laughed again. I really didn’t need to worry about Danny seeing that, as I had seen him take a tumble in the water several times over the 20 years we’ve known each other. In fact, it probably would have done him good to see someone else take it in the shorts for a change.

As the sun inched closer to the ridge, I decided to head back for my movie star debut, where I would get a second helping of humiliation.

My King Kong gig was for the “Universal Studios Tour” put on at dusk, in which the clan would wander around the camp area to view some prearranged movie sets and movie stars. I was to be in a “cage” (cardboard) where the tourists could only see my hairy hands and hear me grunting and rattling the cage. As they progressed on the tour I would make my “escape” only to jump out at the tourists when they came back past the wrecked cage at the end of the tour.

Arriving back at camp from my little water escapade with wet shorts and underwear, I needed to change. Luckily I brought an extra pair of pants, which I planned on changing into anyhow since after the sun drops the temps quickly follow. But I wasn’t planning on getting wet, so I didn’t bring any underwear. No big deal, I’d wear pants sans Hanes.

The King Kong costume was hot and made of some itchy material. In my role I needed to jump around and scare the kids in a gorilla-like fashion. Which I did with gusto. I failed to take a belt with me, and the gorilla-like activity worked the pants down to an uncomfortable position with regards to the nether regions and the chaffing material of the costume. At which point I was reduced to a half-gorilla stoop holding up pants no one else could see lest I give the little kiddies something even more frightening to behold. I returned to my house about midnight, a skunked and humbled man.

At 7:00 the next morning I met with Ken at his house. We fished together last year on Cinnamon Creek, and I remembered what a great time he seemed to have and how eager he was to learn, so I was excited to get on the river with him again. Reports of the river we were going to (herein dubbed “Chalkstream”) had been favorable, so I was doubly excited to go. Top it off with the fact that Ken has a motorcycle and he wanted to ride his bike to the river, and I was bursting at the seams because I was ready for a ride (with the cruddy weather we’d had, there hadn’t been much riding).

It’s approximately 100 miles from my house to Chalkstream. The ride was incredible, with temps in the low 50′s and a rolling countryside bursting with green. The sun, slanting low in the early morning hours, gave it that golden glow photographers love. We planned on meeting Dan and Coach at the river at 8:30, but we didn’t make it until 9:10, enjoying every minute of the ride. Since by the time we got there Dan and Coach had already taken off for some fishing, Ken and I headed across country downriver.

I wish I had my camera, but my wife took the point and shoot with her camping and my dSLR would have taken too much space in my saddlebags, already stuffed with fishing gear. The sun, bright blue skies with puffy clouds, green meadows, clear water with river grass snaking through it…it begged for a pastoral composition or three.

As we readied to cross the river, I saw a rise-ring: it was an excellent sign. I cast to it a couple of times, but nothing came to my #16 PMD. We crossed, headed over a hill (only to find out later that Dan and Coach were just then heading upriver along the bank, out of our sight on top of the hill), then to the water. An angler was downstream and around the bend, so I figured we’d head to an area I’d almost always had success at.

As we stepped into the river, I saw the air above the water thick with mayflies. Not the midwest kind of thick that is picked up by radar, but the Idaho kind of thick that is plenty enough for me. I heard the splashy rises of several fish and looked over the water at rise-rings floating past. The apex of fly fishing for me: rising trout and a slurry of bugs.

I eased toward the center of a river that is atypical for this part of the country. Our usual rivers and creeks are rough and tumble with lots of elevation loss, plunge pools, pockets, riffles—water far fro its destination but eager to get there anyhow. This river is what I picture the chalkstreams of the UK and the spring creeks of the upper Midwest, Pennsylvania and New York must be like.

There is very little structure from rocks. The riverbed is mostly gravel, with some silt thrown in. The gravel gets channeled, and weed beds get thick and ropey. A few riffles and ripples form here and there, most of that hydrology caused by the gravel channels and weeds, but it has hot springs in several places too, adding bubbles and current. But the majority of the surface is smooth.

Except on days when the river is pocked with rises from hungry fish gorging themselves on a thick mayfly hatch.

There were splashy rises from smaller fish, head-dorsal-tail rises from medium fish and pucker rises from the big ones. This wasn’t a Henry’s Fork phenomenon, with hundreds of fish marring the surface, but there were a good twenty or so I could see a hundred feet in either direction of us. It had been a long time since I experienced a good hatch. It got to the point that Dan and I made a special trip to Silver Creek last year just to catch the Green Drake hatch, but ended up missing them by about 20 hours.

My PMD flicked back and forth over the surface and fluttered upriver. It drifted down toward a steady sipper, then carried past him. The next cast did the same. The third cast sent the float line over the fish’s head, and he disappeared. I targeted another riser. And then noticed that Ken wasn’t around. (I tend to get a little focused while fishing, and hadn’t really picked up on the fact that he wasn’t near me in the water.) I looked back toward the shore and there he was, fiddling with his rod.

“I broke the cap off the reel seat last year when I fell in. I thought I glued it back together, but I can’t keep the reel on,” he said.

I offered to trade him rods or switch off my rod so he could get in on the action. “Nah, you fish, I’ll be okay,” he said. (I should have been a little more aggressive at switching rods, but I’ve learned you don’t press too hard with a guy who’s 6′-3″ and 250 lbs.) He worked his way into the water and tried to hold on to the reel and rod with his right hand and cast. It was a bit clumsy, especially for someone who was new to such wide open casting (last year’s excursion was in tight quarters with no room to get full casts in). I suggested he hold the reel in the left hand and work the rod with the right. And again suggested to exchange with him. But he insisted he was okay.

By then I had made it into position to work a seam against the far bank that had 5 or six risers. I decided to switch to a smaller #20 BWO parachute pattern. Knowing the fish on the river tend to duck and run when the fly line spooks them, I decided to fish from as close as parallel to the fish as I thought I could get. I put the fly above the riser a good six feet and let it drift back to him several times, but as before, it put the fish down. I moved tot he next fish and repeated the procedure, but with a slightly bigger, #18, sparser BWO pattern.

One of the things I like about fishing to risers is that they’re usually looking for a specific fly. And it’s my job to find the right pattern. That process of elimination and mental work is one of the aspects I enjoy in fly fishing (until, of course, the point comes where I’ve tried every pattern in my possession with no success—but there is even a certain kind of pleasure in that type of frustration).

The new pattern seemed to do the trick, as I shortly hooked into two fish. Both of them seemed to be solid takes and the fish felt heavy. I saw them and they both looked like they would easily be over 16″, but they both were off within several seconds.

It tells a lot about a person when things aren’t going well but they persevere without complaint or cussing. Ken was dealing with his awkward setup when I saw him reach into the water well past his shoulder. Up came the reel. Later he said, “It’s OK I tightened the tension down so I could easily retrieve the reel when it fell again.”

He was ready to head back to Dan’s truck and see if there was duct tape or something he could use to fix the problem. Then it came to me: tippet. We could take some tippet and tie the reel to the rod. Which we did. It worked for a wile, then had to be retied, but it kept Ken on the river a bit longer.

We had moved upriver to an area that has some lava rock on the bed and a few poking out of the water. This place gives a bit of holding water and I think I’ve always caught a fish from there. Sure enough, there were more risers working this section. We had been fishing for about an hour and the hatch had died down considerably. I had been working my eyes and brain in trying to figure out which stage the fish were taking the flies in, since emergers, duns, spinners and spent flies littered the water. As I watched the rises more closely, I could never see a full-wing profile mayfly in the rise. I tied on a #16 BWO emerger pattern (blue-gray forward tilting CDC post, green dubbed body and trailing Antron shuck) and immediately hooked and landed a fish. I had another hook-up with a bigger fish, but couldn’t bring him in.

Watching the big fish work the hatch was great fun. And casting to them was exciting too. Knowing that some of the fish were native Yellowstone cutthroat was unbelievable. Most of the cutthroat I end up fishing for are in the 12″ range, with the biggest pushing 18″. When I fish the Greys River for fine-spotted cutts, the average jumps up a few inches. But Coach had caught a 24″ cuttie just a couple of days before, and I had hooked into and seen a fair number of fish that big working the water.

Casting to rising, native cutthroat of that size just doesn’t happen too often around here, and I was having a great time. But I was ready to land one too. I had spotted a decent-sized fish working the edge of a weed bed on the far side of the river. I had thrown my previous fly his direction several times. The first time he rose to it, drifted down with it a couple of feet, then swam back to his feeding lie. The same thing happened with the next cast. The following five or so casts were then ignored.

With the emerger pattern tied on, I figured it was time to try for him again. My first cast drifted past him, six inches too far to his right. I gathered the line for another cast and put the fly four feet ahead of him in what looked to be a perfect cast. Apparently the fish thought so too as he took the fly, then took off. Fishing weed beds means fighting a hooked fish in the weeds, so it’s a double battle. I had on 6x tippet since the water was so still. I was concerned about keeping the fish on without horsing him too much against the light line.

I soon brought him toward me and Ken scooped him up in his net. I’m trying to get to the point where I don’t feel the need to capture the fish I catch on film (exploitive, and all that). And he was big. I’m also trying to get over the size thing, so I won’t report his size. Okay, that was a lie, he was a good 20″. I can do this. He was the biggest Yellowstone cutthroat I have ever caught. I have given up the “hero shot” some time ago, and my need for reporting its size, but I still like the occasional picture for purely aesthetic reasons. And this one was gorgeous. Some of the fish in Chalkstream are rainbow and a few cuttbow, but this was all cutthroat. Dark, greenish back. Golden, buttery, pinkish belly. Slash of orange-pink on his throat.

It really doesn’t get much better than that. Except catching another one nearly as big a short time later from nearly the same spot. But that one was a rainbow. It was still a nice fish, but not the beloved cutthroat.

It’s amazing how one’s fortunes can shift so rapidly within a 15 hour time span. I plan on fishing Chalkstream again on Wednesday. Or am I better off leaving it alone with the memory of this one perfect day?

I enjoy history and visiting historical sites. I don’t necessarily like seeing all of the museum type pieces (once you’ve seen one Civil War era gun, or button, or fork, you’ve seen them all), but rather soaking in the ambiance of the period—it may sound odd, but I like to put myself in the time and place of the event, trying to “channel” the original experience. It’s a bit naive, but there it is.

One year my wife, our two children, and I traveled to the east coast with my parents and two nieces. My father is also a history buff, so on this trip we had a fair number of historical sites on the docket. After visiting several of them I became a bit disillusioned because some of the places had become Niagara Fallen. (If you’ve been to Niagara Falls on the Canada side, I think you’ll know what I mean. The gaudy commercialization of so many places flummoxes me.) Visiting these historic sites where I expected to be swept back in time so I could relive the event in a 200 year later afterglow. Instead I saw plastic trinkets and bobbleheads of famous people heads. The same thing has happened when I’ve visited a natural feature where I expect to “commune with nature” but get diesel fumes, cheap shirts with tacky iron-on depictions and too many people.

Dan and I flew in to Nashville, Tennessee and drove straight to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Or tried to. We had to make our way through Pigeon Ford and Gatlinburg first.

I remember reading Harry Middleton’s book, On the Spine of Time, where he describes these towns in the following way: “Gatlinburg’s sudden unorchestrated splatter of neon hype and glitz, the cheap and the tacky…” I had to look up that quote right now, and interestingly enough, I came up with my thoughts about the place, as noted in the title of this post, well before finding that quote. The towns are further described by Middleton: “It was all here: God and the mountains plus indoor skydiving…something for everyone—beer, pancakes, even God. The sign said so. CHRISTUS GARDENS. AMERICA’S NO. 1 RELIGIOUS ATTRACTION. …I saw another sign advertising something called HILLBILLY GOLF…”

Since Middleton wrote this, there have been some changes, or maybe he was too polite to mention it, but there is now a preponderance of shops selling sex novelties and apparel. Pairing these shops with the neighboring religious centers makes for an interesting juxtaposition. Throw in Dollywood (a mere 17 miles from Pigeon Ford), and you can make a great mental picture of the place.

However, it might be the pancakes I’m most fascinated by. What exactly is the attraction to the pancake? For an area with a population of 6000-10,000 (some estimates put the number up to 50,000 during tourist season), they seem to have a high number of pancake restaurants per capita. Here are some: International House of Pancakes – IHOP (2 of them), Little House of Pancakes, Log Cabin Pancake House, Red Rooster Pancake House, Flapjacks Pancake Cabin, Smoky Mountain Pancake House, Parkway Pancake House, Lucy’s Pancake Grill, Pancake Pantry, Pancake Cabin, Aunt B’s Pancake House and Grill, River Road Pancake House, Atrium Pancakes and All American Pancake House.

The entire mix created a carnival-like atmosphere—the worst kind of traveling carnival that stalks America with the worldly pleasures only carnies can provide small towns. For Dan and I, this was the gateway to our worldly pleasure too: Salvelinus fontinalis, the brook trout. Specifically, the southern Appalachian strain.

Our goal was relatively straightforward: drive 80 miles from Logan to Salt Lake City. Fly 1500 miles from SLC to Nashville. Drive 230 miles to Great Smoky Mountains National Park and catch some southern Appalachian brook trout. Drive 420 miles to the Rapidan River in Virginia and catch some northern Appalachian brook trout. Drive 580 miles back to Nashville to meet up with Dan’s brother (an ICE agent who was transporting his private gun collection from Virginia to Utah). And finally, successfully transport the guns the remaining 1660 miles from Nashville, Tennessee to Logan, Utah nonstop.

When things work out as planned it is both satisfying and a little surprising. In planning for this trip our main concern was the amount of walking we might have to do to reach our targeted fish. Walking in and of itself wasn’t necessarily the problem (we’ve put in plenty of miles for fish), but rather the ratio of driving to walking to sleeping. More walking meant less sleeping. Less sleep meant that our already scary presence on the freeways would increase in danger.

To help reduce the amount of walking we would do, I sought out help from Chris Shockey, an expert on finding brookies in Appalachia. When asked, he immediately replied that he could put us into brookies 15 minutes from Gatlinburg with minimal walking. And he delivered. (Traffic being what it was, it was more like 30 minutes.)

This was a wet wading stop, so it was only minutes after parking that we were on the trail. Within a few hundred yards we were at the bridge Chris told us about. In we went and within a couple of minutes I pulled in a little rainbow. A couple more followed. Within a few pools we began taking brookies. We fished for about an hour, pulling in mostly brook trout with the occasional stocked rainbow.

The next creek was about an hour north. We pulled in to a trailhead parking lot at a campground, walked less than 100 feet, entered the creek, and Dan immediately pulled out a brook trout (a feat he repeated on the next river as well). He caught a few more before I caught my first one. We caught a dozen more between the two of us before moving on.

Even with the help of pinpointing the trout creeks, and hardly any walking, Day One proved a long, sleepless day. We left Logan Sunday night at 10:00PM, flew out of SLC at 12:50AM Monday morning, arriving in Nashville at 7:30AM Monday morning. In theory we had three hours of sleeping time from SLC to Atlanta (then a connecting flight to Nashville). As with most theories, reality didn’t meet its end of the bargain and I garnered about 20 minutes of sleep, and I’m sure Dan got about the same. We wouldn’t get any substantial sleep for another 15 hours.

days 2 – 5 to follow

Saturday we rode to southern Idaho for a look at the wild and scenic Bruneau River. We only fished about 45 minutes there and didn’t raise a thing. The water was a bit high and off-color. But it sure was beautiful at the overlook in the gorge section!

Here is a Google Earth view of the area. The overlook is the blue box on the right. The Matterhorn in the distance. Notice the discolored circular area to the lower right? Bombing range for the air force base at Mountain Home, Idaho.

[The following video requires MS Silverlight.]

Play Video

The gallery below contains more pictures from the trip (including a “cartoon” version of many of the pics—apparently someone was a bit bored).

music by Andy McKee

the end of the leaves signifies the end of fishing

Periodically (every few years or so), I find my passion for fishing wanes temporarily, and I actually worry about whether or not I’m all that interested in fishing anymore. It’s kind of weird, but why should I worry about it—if I no longer am interested, so what? But that usually only lasts a couple of months, then I’m ready to hit the water again. I’m not really in one of those phases right now, but with the onset of winter, my preoccupation with school, etc., I did have to take a couple of minutes and reflect on whether or not I was going through a little phase.

It’s been a few weeks, but the last of the fall fishing was a great few hours on the Cub River. Dan and I got into a fair number of cutthroat. The river was quiet. With most of the leaves having dropped it opened the river up, making it feel more expansive than summer fishing. Hardly any canopy and a nice sunshine kept the river well-lit with that sparkle a low-slanting sun provides.

Bonneville Cutthroat Trout

I find myself taking fewer and fewer pictures of fish when I go out. I usually try to take a shot of one fish (just to prove I caught one?). If it is an exceptionally colorful fish, I’ll snap a shot, but otherwise, I’m just not that interested in taking the time to photograph the fish. I find myself taking more shots of the river and surroundings (although I didn’t this last time). I wonder if this says something about me as an angler? I really don’t need to prove anything to anyone else, so why even take one? I’m sure if I caught a “big” fish I’d want a memory of it. Or something unusual about a fish or the catching of one that I’d like to remember I’ll take a shot. Although I have also thought about taking a photo of every fish I catch, but I’m not sure why I’d do that.

So, for those of you who take pictures of the fish you catch, why do you take pictures? And for those of you who don’t, why not?

Bonneville Cutthroat Trout

As we drive the dark road east, I look up where stars dot a narrow path through the morning. I feel the press of hundreds of feet of sheer canyon walls more than see them. Ahead of us the dawn unwinds its hours, slowly unveiling the skyline—a jagged, ancient silhouette stretching for miles.

Today our goals are lofty but we are under the press of time: drive a total of 680 miles; find an undisclosed creek and catch one rare fish discovered in only a one mile section; who knows how many miles to walk; see incredible sites, ranging from redrock sandstone to alpine meadows. And 17 hours to get it done.

Details gradually emerge as time peels away the dark: layer upon layer of vermilions, ecrus, ash, blues. Sand and mud pressed by the weight of one another wait out time, who solidifies them. Thrusts them up. Weathers them down.

The dirt road takes us over the streambed which is surprisingly dry. Do we go up the mountain, where the water may still run, or has it percolated down only to rise again as a trout-bearing creek below us? We go up.

Stands of aspen, scrub oak litter and pine duff, fill the ravine a mile further up. The ravine is steep. An old fence cuts through it marking the forest boundary. An old skull lashed to a wooden post mocks us as it overlooks the bone-dry creekbed. Dan hikes up the far side and into the next, also empty, creekbed, then returns.

How does such a creek support a rare fish? How long does this bed hold water and how often? If there were fish here, where are they now?

A couple of miles further up, after driving an ATV track cut through dense trees in a pickup truck, we hike a mile through healthy, white aspen. Thick-boled, they grow in gentle arcs, this way and that, giving a motion to the trees, as if they are dancing, keeping time for the seasons.

Small seeps feed nearly imperceptible trickles. Taking their time to build to anything substantial, and only two miles above the last dry place, we’re fooled into thinking we’re in the wrong place.

Time to cut our losses, we pack up and head down the mountain, shaking our heads.

It kind of worked. Except for the slackers who didn’t show. And those who were too lame to stick with the hopper the whole time (ahem—more on that later, and I’m naming names).

Dan and Doug from Canada (BC) were there to fish with us. I met Doug through Angler’s Life List and Native Fish Network forum. They were doing a two week native fish extravaganza through the desert northwest and Rocky Mountains. They were coming through Utah at the time of the event, so they joined us.

And there was Robert and me. It was great finally meeting Robert face-to-face since I’ve been harassing him for a year to fish together. Robert’s a good man, tying and supplying all the hoppers we’d need (he must have brought three dozen or so). But he’s also a nice guy to hang with. Actually, we still haven’t fished together since I spent the whole time fishing with Doug, and Robert fished with Dan. So you’re not off the hook yet, Robert!

I rode the motorcycle through the canyon, enjoying the bracing air and swooping glide of the corners. We met at the Temple Fork parking lot at 9:00 AM, made introductions, warmed up (I think I’m the only one with that need), then headed up the canyon a couple of miles to divide up and fish. Doug drew the short stick and got stuck with me for the day.

I fished the week before, just a half mile below the Temple Fork turnoff, and had no success with the several grasshopper patterns I tried then. And it seemed to be a repeat on the Hoppertunity day. Although I had never fished the stretch Doug and I were on, the river was familiar enough that I knew we should have been into fish after a good 45 minutes or so of trying. So I made a snap calculated decision to ditch the hopper and go with the fly that brought me luck the previous week: the foam-bodied elk hair caddis. Bam, fish on!

So, Robert, my lame excuse scientifically-sound reasoning is that the fish were taking caddis, not hoppers. I believe the experiment was testing the different hopper patterns, not testing whether the hoppers were enticing enough to get them to take those instead of taking something else. That being the case, I decided to wait until a time when the fish were actually taking hoppers to test the three patterns (which I actually did yesterday fishing the Cub River—more later).

It was interesting to talk with Doug who spends a lot of time steelhead fishing. He asked me several questions about small stream, pocket-water fishing, which is very different from steelhead fishing. I mentioned to him that fishing in front of rocks was a good location, which surprised him. Also the speed of the hook set. After I launched a fingerling over my back because of setting the hook, he asked about how quick he should be striking. I said that it depends on how the fish are taking: sometimes they take sow, but other times they take quick. Usually around here they take quick and the second you see the fish touch the fly, strike! He said that with steelheading, you let the fish take the fly and settle down with it, then strike. Those who strike too soon are the ones who lose the fish.

After a couple of hours, and picking up a handful of fish, we moved up to Franklin Basin and picked up a few more. The leaves were just starting to change colors, which is my favorite time to fish, which was a nice bonus. Although we didn’t really get to test Robert’s flies, it was a good day fishing and an excellent time making new friends.