Blue Brook Trout in Early Spring

Today, I was able to get away for a few hours to wet some flies. I picked a familiar stream that I had fished over the summer, on that trip I caught a couple of nice brook trout and a feisty little brown trout. I had also shocked this stream during a summer internship with the Forest Service a couple of years ago. It's a class two tributary that holds good populations of brook trout, brown trout, and rainbow trout... there's always the possibility of a 'grand slam' there. It has a pretty steep gradient at times, with overgrown hills on both sides of the channel. This makes for great trout habitat because it keeps the stream cool all year around. There was even snow still on the ground, and it hasn't snowed around here in over a week.

I fished a nymph for the majority of the day. On one of my first casts, I hooked into a small brook trout. I can usually tell what type of fish I've hooked into once it rolls over in the water, but I wasn't really sure what I had. This brook trout was abnormally dark, with a very blue tint; a very pretty fish nonetheless. The color variation is most likely due to the chemical properties of the stream. If I remember correctly, I believe this stream had a very high conductivity for electro-fishing. This means that there is a high amount of dissolved solids in the water. Just a guess, I'm not sure how much research has been done to determine why they vary in color.

I fished on, encountering some truly beautiful sections of stream. There were several rock cliffs along the stream with large icicles hanging from them. There were lots of nice holes that I couldn't even fish due to downed trees that had all collected over the stream from flooding events. I made my way to a very deep hole with several falls contributing to it.

I hooked into a good sized fish - huge for a stream this size. My best guess was that this was an adult brown trout that had made its way up the stream to prepare to spawn in a few weeks, I had seen several fish nests in slower moving side-channel pools. Unfortunately I didn't get a great look at the fish. During the fight, my reel came loose from my reel seat... dropping into water and releasing all the tension from the line. The fish got off while I was trying rescue my reel. Not my most graceful angling of all time...

I called it a day shortly after, giving myself plenty of time to climb the steep embankments to get back the road bed. Overall, this had been a challenging trip but I enjoyed it. Though it's technically Spring now, I can't wait for some warmer temperatures and some increased fish activity.

A Sunday Afternoon Well Spent

Today I had plenty of time to fish so I checked a stream off of my list that required a pretty long hike in. Round trip, I think I put in around 7 miles on foot. This stream is located within the Mountain Lake Wilderness area. This is the largest designated wilderness area in Virginia, encompassing 12,375 acres of forest in Virginia in Giles and Craig counties, and another 2,721 acres across the border of West Virginia in Monroe County.

The trail I took paralleled the Appalachian Trail for about a quarter-mile before veering off to the left and over a ridge thick with mountain laurel. My map said that this trail was unmarked, however it had yellow blazes that seemed somewhat fresh. As I made my way further down the trail, the yellow blazes were a life saver. The trail itself seemed like no more than a wildlife trail, becoming rougher as I went along. I found myself having to stop and re-trace a few steps just to make sure I was on the right track.

I flushed out a grouse that had been nesting in a dried up stream bed, I'd hear that fluttering sound a few more times throughout the day- evidently its great grouse habitat! The trail eventually dropped me down on an old forest service road, also marked with yellow; that was much easier to navigate from that point on. This road had a muddy wetland feel to it, with little puddles full of frogs... more on the frogs later.

The sky had been cloudy for the most part on the hike in, but as soon as I reached the stream, the sun was shining down on the riffles of the stream and there were hundreds of insects hovering over it, absolutely gorgeous. As you could have guessed, dry flies were the way to go.

The water was crystal clear and the stream was filled with cascades over fallen trees, followed by slower runs with lots of fish activity. Schools of dace could be seen racing through these runs, I saw both blacknose dace and mountain redbelly dace. One of these runs produced my first brook trout, it was definitely a fighter, an orange-bellied male in the 6-7 inch range.

My second fish was about the same size, emerging from the white water of a shaded pool.  I fished a few more runs and decided to call it a day when I found myself casting a line devoid of a fly... so smooth, I guess my monofilament wore out from a long day of fishing. It was about 5pm and I decided the 3 mile hike back wouldn't be too much fun in the dark. Rising out of the stream channel, I spooked some turkeys! I counted seven but there could have been more. Not too much further along I saw two does drinking from the stream.

When backtracking through the marshy old forest service road, I came upon something I'd never seen before. Frogs breeding, I guess you could say I got a biology lesson today. Apparently the males outnumbered the females in this puddle because they were in a moving mass, fighting for position to get to the female; which was about twice the size as these feisty little males. They let me approach them and take a picture from about four feet away. Contrary to to common frog behavior, they didn't flee or even swim away from me - clearly they had other things on their minds! I'm studying fish in school, not amphibians, but trust me amphibians are some weird creatures. haha. It's unbelievable how many of these frogs were in that one puddle...

A few miles and a few horny toads later (haha), I was back to my truck. This had been one of my best back country trout fishing trips to date. The amount of wildlife I encountered was incredible. Going to pretty places to catch some pretty fish, you can't beat that. It was one of those days that made me thank God I was from the mountains of Virginia, and its quite easy to talk to him in the peace and quiet of the wilderness.