Here's a great trip Angus, Harold, and I went on to take both Angus and Alice's boat the Sea Gal from Norfolk harbor up to Reedville VA for a rail hauling that includes bottom painting and repairs. Seas were a nice 2-3' with winds 10-15kts sustained. She's a GREAT riding boat and one of kind that you just don't see to much of on the bay anymore. She was built in Reedville in 1960(?) by a local boat builder. All three of us took turns at the helm throughout the 8hr trip:
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Ok Greg - this is the best I can do with photoshop. The image you text me was so dark i could tell what or how big it was - I thought it was a flounder. Dude- you can get an ok point and shoot camera for 100 bucks and a pretty darn good one for under 300. Think about it - you have too many fishing adventures that go unshared because of the cell phone camera.
This was my third backpacking trip to Cranberry Wilderness (but the first time fishing there). Every time we go, we take a photo in front of this bush at Aaron's right before hopping in the car. The reason Aaron and I look so excited is because his 5 year old Daughter was taking the photo, and it took her nearly 5 minutes to find the shutter release! When she shot it, she went into rapid fire mode and I guess this was a secondary shot. Left to right - Jason Walker, Mike Brandt, Sean Flaherty, Myself, and Aaron Coleman. Photo courtesy of Maya Coleman.
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.Well, I took my neighbor out fishing this evening to Amoco on the York. Under a full moon and glassy seas it was an AWESOME night. John, I'm sure you are having a blast up in the mtns with this moon. At any rate, I figured we wouldn't do much but all lanty hell if I was mistaken! 30 minutes into fishing I NAILED, what was at least, a 25-30"er' that had to have been a solid 8-9lbs! He fought his ASS off the entire way up to the boat - taking out line and diving deep to avoid being caught:
I was blown away at the size and ferocity at which these fish fought dudes! I boated another one that was of equal size and he took even LONGER to bring in. Davy was using 8lb test line and lost a huge fish who took his line and the bucktail straight to the bottom. Incredible folks and I can't WAIT until the season is catch and keep. These fish were all released. A total of 5 were caught with 3 schoolies and two whoppers!
Blair called tonight and told me that on the spring equinox you could balance an egg on end. I got off the phone and tried it - Here is the magic of spring Blair. I'll see the rest of you on the mountain in a week and a half.
I made an after work quick trip back to Passage Creek to fish the last few hours before dark. I found the current flowing hard and full to the banks, but not too muddy. Mike came for a bit but we had no luck early on, so he headed home. As it got darker, I hooked into a good rainbow right above (upstream from) that channel up there. He bent my rod in half and fought an excellent battle, using the current to his advantage. I love these guys in a good creek or river,
Here is the little tough guy. Seen you soon on cranberry. | Nuff said about this trip. Had about 7" of powder the 2 days I was there and had a blast. Focused on the 100yd hip at Silvercreek terrain park and pretty much have frontside 360s down to a T. |
Well fisherman, the winter for me is playing in the snow so I thought I would post a few pics from Snowshoe from the 4 trips I've been on up there this season WITCH, BTW, has been AWESOME for boarding
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 | The skiff pic is from a lunar low tide in the dead of winter. Usually in the winter, the bay has lower than low tides due to stronger lunar cycles |
This was my creel - I should have had one more fatty on there, but somehow the second fish I caught came off the stringer when I went to put the fourth one on. Who knows - I guess His magic was too strong and I wasn't supposed to steal his big fish "medicine". Ha - whatever - it was a great day.
Yes Greg notice I caught them on my hand tied jigs (orange was hot that day), with my new St. Croix rod. It is sweet!
This fish was from Friday - I stopped by the local creek for an hour after work and caught him on a white micro jig I tied. Check out the colors, probably the best coloration on any rainbow I've caught - beautiful stuff.
So what do you do if one of your buddies gets out of the hospital for stay longer than he would like? You talk him into driving HIS car into George Washington National Forest on a sketchy 4WD only road covered in ice and snow. We saw a bunch of rainbows and a brown or two, "tickling the ice" as I like to call it - Mike hooked into a small rainbow, but lost it. We got skunked, but the "ninja" image of Mike was worth the post - Fish on Mike!
This is a sample ninja fishing hole in Passage Creek - normally, all of the flat area you see without trees is flowing water, and I am standing on the ice while taking this photo (don't worry - I'm wearing waders and it is less than 18" deep here.
Warmer days on Linden Pond, a slab of a sunfish on a 3 inch popper.
(*Rochelle has pointed out that I shouldn't really call this a Bachelor Party: 1. because there are no strippers involved, 2. even if we weren't getting married, I still would be planning this trip and 3. every time I want to get together with my guy friends to be manly, have beers, catch something and eat it, I call it a Bachelor party. I guess she has a point, but I'm still going to call it that, and you can too if you want)
There are numerous large campsites for 2-4 tents like this one near the river - and obviously, campfires are permitted (but they don't have to be that freakin big).
A view upstream of the North fork of the Cranberry - as you can see, plenty of room to cast and this river is full of Rainbows and Brown trout. It is a cold water river that holds trout all year long. (But it is also stocked in winter and spring)
A view down stream of the Cranberry, in a more wooded section - I've seen guys filling up their stringers in sections like this!
This is one of the larger tributaries that holds native brook trout for you purists, certain areas are open to harvest if you are interested in keeping some for dinner - I hear they are the tastiest of the WV trout, but much smaller.
For those of you more interested in Hiking, day hikes can be planned and the environments are AMAZING! The river flows through the heart of the Cranberry Wilderness, with well over 100 miles of trails - at this time of year - you can be the first person to be up on top of some of those mountains this calendar year- there are Alpine forests with fairytale moss a foot thick and trees growing right out of it on top of rocks like this. Cranberry also has the southern most Tundra environment in North America - Unusual wildlife like carnivorous plants are located there! Circuit hikes of 5-35 miles can be made from our base camp. Its a great place to hike and take photos.
