Greg Smith, a resident of Ohio, accompanied me on a rather productive full day brook trout outing. I’ve seen a bear or two near this particular stream, most of the time as we descend off the mountain tops into the brookie filled waters below. The bears are completely harmless, and are very shy and afraid of humans. (This is true except in the case of a “fed bear,” which results in the bear losing its fear of humans and associating humans with food. A fed bear is a dead bear.)
We didn’t see any bears this day, but we did commence to having some of the best brookie action I’ve seen in several months.
Greg landed somewhere in the ballpark of 40 brookies, many of which were in the 6-9 inch range. We could have stretched out an additional two more to 10 inches or better. The best bite of the day occurred in the late afternoon, as the terrestrials were fired up and the aquatic insects were ever present. Midges, crane flies, caddis, sulphurs, giant black stoneflies, and Light Cahills were seen flying about. We caught most of the trout on attractor dry flies. The surroundings were breathtaking, and the weather and water levels this day were picture perfect.
| Su | Mo | Tu | We | Th | Fr | Sa |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | |||
Last week’s scattered thunderstorms had a relatively short impact on the local trout streams. The streams receded just as fast as they rose, currently leaving us with normal to low water conditions. The upper Greenbrier has been way too low to float in a raft or drift boat in the last several weeks, and canoests and kayakers will find several riffles that will require portaging in the late summer like conditions.
For those willing to wade fish, the river has been on fire recently, producing many average-sized 8-10 inch Greenbrier River smallies. The larger fish are there, but you’ll be hard pressed to get one to bite during the daylight hours. The New River always has enough water to float, and this is where we’ve been spending the bulk of our float fishing this spring and summer. Water conditions are clear, which requires long leaders and often, subtle presentations and approaches, especially in the low water flats.
