Cranberry was as beautiful as ever, well almost. Its a wet place, tons of moss, and so it does get its share of moistures, so it rain, rained, and rained some more. It was wet for more than half the trip, but we made the best of it and got some good weather too. Here is a nice shot between our second campsite and what became my favorite fishing hole of the trip.
A down stream shot of the lower end of my favorite hole on a sunny Tuesday. I can't count how many times I saw the flashes of large trout chasing my spinner, and every once in awhile I would catch one.
This is the upper end of my favorite hole, its early as you can tell by the shadow of the mountain.
Campsite 1: We arrived at the crowded cranberry parking lot about 4, much later than I hoped. We had stopped at Aaron's in Lewisberg, WV to stretch our legs as well as catch up with Aaron, and Jason Walker. Sean, Mike and I strapped on our over sized packs, loaded with fishing gear and our affects, and hiked as fast as we could to our campsite, many people were on their way out, but the first few campsites were occupied. It was a long 3 or 4 miles. We arrived at a comfortable camp complete with a rustic fireside bench around 5:15, set up camp quickly and Mike and I were fishing by 5:35. Here is our first camp.
The pressure was on to catch dinner before dark, Everyone wanted fish for dinner. Within 15 minutes I had landed my first wild brookie! It was gorgeous, with red spots and orange fins, so cool! the only problem was, he was only about 4 inches long! I was amazed he had gone after the spinner I had tied on (which was the size of his head). I admired him for a few seconds and carefully released him. I was optimistic we may have dinner soon. A few minutes later, another strike! Another tiny brookie. Minutes later, same thing. Then again. I was surely glad to be catching fish, and these were some of the coolest fish I had ever seen, but I did want dinner! Mike caught a brookie and then went back to help Sean look for wood. I was on my own - further downstream, I hooked into a big rainbow, but two jumps later and my line went slack. Crap, no dinner for me. I was sure we were screwed, but as anyone I have fished with will tell you, I am a persistent MFer. When fishing, that pays off. I hooked the guy in the photo a little before dark and he fought HARD, nice 14.5-15 incher, but I had covered a mile or so quickly that evening, so I hoofed it back to camp with fish in my vest. When I got back they said "ah, no luck?" Then I whipped out the fish and we all started laughing - Mike said - "See I told you he wouldn't come back without a fish" Damn right, its dinner time. We cooked it up with some potatoes on the fire.
Well , it started raining Saturday night and rained all night, the next day and that night too. The fishing sucked, Mike and I each caught two tiny brookies on Sunday, thats it. No fish for dinner that night. Trout fishing was new to Sean and the fishing was rough on this trip, so he didn't have any luck. We found out the river had missed 3 stockings due to snow, things weren't looking good. Monday we got up at the crack of dawn and broke camp, hiking further in. A mile or so down the trail we heard a noise, I said it could be the stocking trucks, but Mike said in a hilarious voice "Aw its the horses, its always the horses John, its never the trucks" A minute later we heard the noise slow, and a big splash! - It was the stocking trucks, and we high-tailed it to the next good campsite, set up our tents and headed out. Mike caught the first trout - a nice 14 incher, within five minutes of us getting to the hole. It took me twenty more minutes to hook the biggest trout of the trip - the 15+ incher on the right. We fished on and off for the rest of the day, catching 6 fish total (mike caught two of the ones I'm holding in the afternoon photo above) by 3pm. I cleaned my share and went to meet Aaron a few miles up the trail, he was hiking in from the top of the mountain, and was an hour late...
I changed out of my waders for a hike, and I left my fishing gear behind. I figured if I brought it, I end up stopping before I had finished the two mile hike through the catch and release area. I would have been really late to meet Aaron. Sure enough it was beautiful, full of good water as you see above and of course Aaron was an hour late (well, in his defense he did have to hike a really rough 7-9 miles across the top of the mountain and then descend almost 2000 feet to the river very quickly), I should have brought my gear, damn it, the weather was beautiful and no one was there fishing. when he got there, he told me he hiked through a snowstorm on top of the mountain. I called it BS, it was over 50 degrees down by the river! Aaron promptly produced a large snowball. Cranberry weather was crazy, it had rained a little earlier, and I could see clouds near the top of the mountains, but I guess that was snow!
Aaron and I hiked back to camp. Mike, Sean and I went out fishing again and I landed 3 more trout in the last 1.5hours before dark - here is a smaller one I landed as the sun was going down. I caught so many jumpers that day, some clearing the water by 3 or 4 feet! Some of these fish were the weirdest jumpers, they just came straight out of the water like a rocket and dropped straight back down, tail first! This one jumped a boulder 3 feet wide from one pool to the next, it was so cool. We feasted that night, I had landed 7 trout that day - it was awesome!
After a late night trying to eat and drink most of what was left in our packs, Mike and I got up early to fish. I had forgotten my net but didn't realize it until I had a good 14 incher on the end of my line, so I landed him by hand and realized I didn't have my stringer (it was early I tell you) so I stuck him in my vest. I got so many strikes that morning, but we were down to our last lures and I missed quite a few. I landed another good fish and after removing the hook he slipped out of my hands and and Mike almost fell in the river laughing as he saw me drop to my knees and flounder around trying to catch the fish by hand in the shallow water. For the record, the fish won, and Mike was smiling big time. around 8:30 we went back to camp and started cooking a big late breakfast, coffee, trout, fresh eggs from Aaron's chickens, and a bunch of ramps (a delicate, garlicky wild onion that grows on steep inclines in mountainous soil near flowing water). We slowly packed up and broke camp about noon, leaving behind the moss and all the trout for every other redneck that was still camping in the wilderness. Good times.If anyone has any photos from the trip to add let me know, I'll put them up. - Fish on.
