Beaver Creek 3/25/2010

Kyle, Cameron, and I rallied at 5:30 Thursday morning for the drive to Beaver Creek. As with all my trips to Beaver, the excitement made it hard to fall asleep the night before. I tossed and turned dreaming about a mix of 'bows, brookies, mission chips, and that savory cow smell that is so uniquely Shenandoah Valley, Virginia. The anticipation culminated with the 5:58, then 5:59, and then finally 6:00 am phone call that got us through to the Ottobine Country Store to reserve the day's rod passes.

We started just before sunrise at the wooden bridge near the elementary school. The water was running a little lower than I expected with all of the rain we've had recently; however, this didn't stop Kyle from getting a fish on after about his third cast of the day. That would prove to be the story of the day for all of us with plenty of rainbows, a nice brook trout, and a few chubs by the new master (Cameron) himself. Interestingly, we spotted what we are fairly certain was a 4-6 lb. largemouth bass in the long pool just upstream from the footbridge. If it is indeed a bass I don't know how it got there, but either way it's a huge fish. If anyone out there can confirm this bigfoot sighting, please give us a shout-out. I would love to hear if anyone has caught that fish.

Now for the latest on the ever enthralling kreelex color debate. I do have to admit that silver/gold did produce just as many fish and the coppers, but I want to point out that silvers did bring in all of the chubs caught on kreelex... I'll let you all decide for yourselves which you'd prefer to fish with. We did throw some nymphs, and even a BWO for awhile but all to no avail. The only other flies that gave us luck were a green wooley bugger and a cool vintage fly from Kyle's grandfather.

Aside from the awesome fishing at Beaver, I highly recommend spending some time at the Country Store. Per the proprietor's recommendation we ordered "big otter" sandwiches for lunch, and man were they awesome. The big otter consists of turkey and ham stacked a generous 2 inches high and is covered with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onions, and banana peppers on a hot 8 inch sub roll. I had to catch my breath for a minute after eating it, but it definitely hit the spot after a hard morning of fishing.

Fishing Report: Beaver Creek in Ottobine, Va and Mossy Creek

Sorry for the dearth of posts from me recently, but as Cameron said, we have been soaking up the good life since exams ended.  Last Tuesday, in order to stop living in the library, my dad and I woke up early and headed for Beaver Creek in Ottobine, Va.  We could not have asked for a more perfect day on a spring creek in the valley.  It was overcast all morning with only slight clearing in the afternoon.  In my experience at places like Beaver Creek and Mossy Creek, if it's a sunny day you should reconsider fishing there.  The fish will be holed up and not taking much without tree/bank cover or clouds.

We started off the morning fishing with the old standard, kreelex.  Silver and gold was the hot pattern, and we pulled in 6 beautiful rainbows before 10:30 with them.  We caught most of our fish dead drifting kreelex from upstream into dense overhanging tree cover and then taking a few quick tugs on the line.  I would recommend bringing a net with you to beaver, because unlike Dad I left mine at home and landing some of these fish proved quite a challenge.  

After spending the morning fishing Beaver, Dad and I went on a recon mission to Elkhorn Lake on a tip of some good brook trout fishing there.  Unfortunately, when we got there we saw that the road up to the lake was closed for maintenance until June 30th.  During this detour we also decided to stop at Mossy Creek and try our luck.  True to form, Mossy was a tough fish.  We arrived right as the sun broke through the clouds, taking away our ceiling.  I managed to catch a chub (Dad took to calling me the "Chub Master" since it was so big), and he caught a small brown trout.  

At this point the afternoon was growing late and I decided to head back to Cville, while my Dad (more intelligently) returned to Beaver Creek to fish the evening.  Dad, being a more experienced angler decided to diversify his fly selection at this point.  He caught a few more 'bows and a brook trout on flies ranging from kreelex to parachute adams and bead head red squirrel tail nymphs.  This is how he managed to catch all three species of trout in Virginia in one day.  I call that "fishing the cycle".