Beaver Creek - 3/31

After a long time away from Charlottesville I finally had the chance to get back out on

the water during my free weekend on surgery. My roommate, David, and I were determined to finally hook into a good sized trout after chasing brookies all last fall. We took to the road at 0500 with some high octane gas station coffee to make absolutely sure we got the much coveted Beaver Creek passes. We made it to the store just as it opened and were

at the water as the sun was coming up.

We crossed the bridge and took a right to the first calm, deep pool. We split our strategies initially with me trying a dry dropper rig and David working a small streamer. We weren't having much luck, but as the sun came up we started seeing more fish rising. David made the wise choice to switch to a #14 Adams and immediately hooked into one of the fat rainbows that beaver is known for. Right after releasing the first he caught another beauty on the next cast. I'd seen enough of David catching fish and quickly tied on the same pattern and after a few casts close to the cut bank I caught the biggest fish of the day. It was my third trip to beaver and my first time landing one of these beauties who seem to have a knack for throwing hooks.

After a successful morning we grabbed some sandwiches at the Ottobine Country store and quickly got back on the water. David and I roped in one more each, but the winds picked up in the afternoon and we were hooking more shrubs than fish. I switched to a wooly bugger and false-hooked one more good sized rainbow. He really didn't enjoy the hook in his side which made for a great fight on 6x tippet. We tried a few more spots before

the wind drove us out.

All in all it was an incredible day to start back into spring fishing. We didn't see anything hatching, but this was my first day of real dry fly fishing. Who cares if they're stocked fish if you can have this much fun for this cheap.