Natural Resource Withdrawal

Yeah buddy it was that cold on Green Mountain in The George Washington National Forest. At one point my rod tip got wet, a few minutes later I went to cast and I got this horrible backlash - I thought my line had wrapped around the rod tip, but instead THE LINE WAS FROZEN TO THE ROD TIP. Damn I wish I had brought my gloves.

This is a view down stream of one of the better holes on Peters Mill Creek in GWNF, The biggest holes are only 8 feet across and 2 feet deep - most places it is only inches deep - Fly Fishing would be better for this spot. I was too busy staying warm by hiking and fishing to take a bunch of photos, sorry guys.

In trying to curb my "natural resources withdrawal", I decided to get up at 5 and roll out to the Blueridge. Who else, but someone trapped in the city would actually go fishing when its 30 degrees outside? I started out by driving to Hawksbill Creek in Luray, got there around 8:30 and it was overcast and chilly (mid to upper 30's) - It seemed like there were a bunch of cars in the lot, but it really wasn't bad at all. Cool medium sized stream - very clean, I fished the lowest part downstream from town and was impressed with the cleanliness of everything else too - the stream has its own park that runs through the town - a few riffles, lots of runs. I fished downstream from the town and did well. 3 small rainbows on the stringer and I caught my first Brookie, but he was tiny so I carefully returned him to the creek (he was pretty cool looking). I lost a few fish as usually, including the biggest rainbow I saw there of course. By lunchtime I was cold and needed a break (my thumbs couldn't squeeze my clippers anymore, but my finger tips were not cold ). Halfway to my limit and feeling confident, I decided to leave the Massanutten Valley for Green Mountain in the George Washington National Forest.
REMEMBER THIS RULE: Never leave a place that you know currently is holding biting fish for another spot - you ALWAYS get busted - and I did. It was an amazing drive - Gorgeous! I also scouted Lower Passage Creek - which looks like a real Beaut, ideal really (sorry, no picks) - I'm going back there the next time it is stocked - its near the trail head for the Massanutten/Tuscadora Trail.
I took the Scion up the forest roads with no problems, although I was the only guy up there not in a pick-up. I had consulted my guide, and it warned that the stream was small, but could be fished with ultralight gear; what it didn't tell me is that Tower road (a state maintained dirt /gravel road) is closed in winter before you get to the highest elevations, so I missed probably the best pools. The lower parts were too shallow and I'm sure I could find more than the 6 or so little (4x5' to 7x15') pools if I had the entire day to hike and look. I did find two large rainbows hiding in a pool, and I snuck up on them from behind, but they wouldn't take my lures. If Greg was there, I'm sure he'd try to snag them, but I'm more of a sportsman than that. So I hightailed it and scouted out passage creek until it got dark. I drove home, cleaned my fish and overall, felt like I got a pretty good dose of the outdoors, but all I could think was.... hmmmm backpacking, trout, good friends, campfires and a little of the "Turkey" - I can't wait. I have even talked Rochelle into a backpacking fishing/photography safari in Shenandoah (she of course will take care of the Photography and eating all of my fish). Tight lines.

Twist and Trout

I headed out to the Shenandoah Valley yesterday morning to meet up with my buddy Mike to do a little trout fishing, and we had tons of action on a warm January day. We caught all of the fish on small panther martin spinners - I was using my ultra-light rod and it was a ton of fun. There were tons of people fishing the deep holes on this creek - so we hoofed it up stream to fish any structure we found in the more shallow runs and little holes here and there. Within my first 15 casts I hooked in to a fish (which is so much more fun because they are only 10 or 15 feet away, and sometimes almost at your feet) but lost it before I got it to the net. Two casts later, I had my first Brown Trout ever in the net - good fight!

As you can see by the cooler of Browns and Rainbows, we had a great morning (we fished from about 8am until 11:30am) as I said earlier. There were a ton of trout - I was getting hook ups back to back sometimes (but I lost 7 or 8 fish), and I went for no more than 10-15 minutes between hits. Drift-fishing for floundercan be tricky, but I have learned that trout can be just as hard or harder to get from strike into the net. It was great because I could see every hit and the trout just seemed to materialize from nowhere - an extremely fun way to fish. I can't wait to do some more of this kind of fishing.

We headed back to Mikes place and decided to smoke some of the trout for lunch - that's Dakota in the lower left hand corner - waiting for me to give her a trout - no dice girl.
This is Mike homemade smoker - it works well!

Mike stoking the smoker - Oh man were those trout good!

Happy New Year!

New Years Eve on the lift, yeah it was fun, obviously. Does anyone have a good group photo with the girls too?