The heart of tobacco country, south central Virginia near the North Carolina border, is not what one thinks of as a trout haven; it’s more the land of largemouth bass, pumpkinseeds, and catalpa worms. Lazy summer days spent with cane poles and worms along the side of small creeks, stock tanks, and golf course ponds. But most of the slow, lazy rivers that wind their way through this farmland start off as crystal clear mountain streams rushing down from the not-too-distant Blue Ridge mountains.
Leaving the flatlands, the Dan slowly winds back in time. The Dan gets rougher and starts to look “trouty”, but the beat-up old station wagons, 15-year-old Coleman tents, and unwelcoming glares suggest it is better to keep climbing. Besides, this part of the river is firmly Powerbait country. Lawn chairs are set up along the more promising pools, with cutoff jeans and trucker caps the standard attire. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an elitist. These boys catch trout, and big ones too. I just know they can be particular about strangers fishing their home waters, especially fancy out-of-towners with fly rods.
So we keep climbing, the river getting narrower and ever more becoming a stream. Somewhere about the power station, the locals drop off. From here, up to the Pinnacles of Dan and the first dam, it is rough and tumble trout water. Beyond this point, it’s flyfishing only, the state no longer stocks, and any fish you catch is likely to be small.
But it will be wild.
With deep pools, pocket water, many small falls, and only the occasional section of riffles, this area has been called the Grand Canyon of Virginia. It is rugged and spectacular country.
The trail and banks become a tangle of rhododendron, dogwoods and blackberry brambles. There are bears here, deer as well, though both are infrequently seen. Multi-hued butterflies are the more common sights. But the trout are the reason we are there, and they are sights to behold. Brookies and rainbows, both wild, but the rainbows are the likely descendants of stocked predecessors. A 13-inch fish is big on this stream; you’ll more likely find fish in the 8” range. Their colors, those inherent to wild fish grown in crystalline mountain streams, are what make them so striking.
It isn’t too difficult to catch fish on this upper section of the Dan. They see little pressure. In all my trips there, I have seen no other fishermen above the power station. But the close-in brush makes up for the willing fish, with rhododendron just waiting to claim your most recent elk hair caddis #16. Up here, the stream is frequently less than fifteen feet across and can usually be cleared with a strong leap. Getting your fly to the water’s surface, whether by dapping, slingshot, or roll casting, is more crucial than the actual presentation. I have caught fish on flubbed casts that I would surely have spooked had my cast gone where intended.
Some might argue, but I could not have asked for anything to make the day more perfect. A beautiful stream, a gorgeous woman, and perfect (albeit tiny) trout. It was Susan’s first excursion fishing for wild trout. In fact, it had only been a few days since she first picked up a fly rod. Susan and I had been married for about six years, but she’d never expressed any interest in fly fishing up to this point.
I had wanted to introduce Susan to flyfishing, hoping she would come to love it as I do, or at least gain an understanding of the hold it maintains on me. For the preceding couple of days, we had spent several enjoyable hours casting big ugly deer hair bugs and poppers to always willing bass and sunfish at the local golf course ponds. Susan learned about the basics of casting, experienced the thrill of a top water strike, learned to handle and release fish, and, most importantly, caught fish, and lots of them.
Now it was time to introduce Susan to a more difficult quarry, wild trout on a cascading mountain stream. We climbed the road to the top of the Blue Ridge, opting not to undertake the long hike up alongside the Dan. I knew from experience that the upper section, just below the second dam, held a good population of fish, as it was catch and release only. But most importantly, it held a fairly long stretch of riffle just right for honing a downstream cast without much fear of hanging up in the omnipresent streamside brush.
At the tail out of the dam is a deep pool that I have always been sure held fish, but from which I have never taken one. Imagine my surprise on arriving to catch a glimpse of a porpoising trout, easily twenty-two inches or longer. Heart pounding, I grabbed the rod from Susan’s hand and immediately tied on a streamer. After a couple of fruitless casts, my initial adrenaline now replaced with a growing sense of guilt (today was supposed to be about her fishing after all), I glanced over to see her patiently waiting for my distraction to run its course.
I handed the rod back to Susan and we stopped just below the pool to study the next riffle. I pointed out a small caddis hatch. We tied on a #16 tan elk hair to match and watched a few trout dimple the water, leisurely snacking on the smorgasbord drifting past their noses. Susan picked her fish and made a few false casts to get familiar with casting from her knees in the middle of a stream. She marveled at the regular rises of the feeding trout, and even more so at how the elk hair on the fly so closely mimicked the fluttering of the real caddis flies’ wings.
She refocused on her trout and cast about twenty inches upstream from the fish. Just as the fly drifted past, he shot up and snatched it. Trying to contain my excitement, I yelled to Susan to set the hook, which she did with a degree of enthusiasm better reserved for a 2-lb. bass than this 6-inch wild trout. The fish hung on, however, and Susan soon had it to hand. She gently held and admired her first wild brookie, flushed face and freckled grin reflecting the brilliant flaming orange and olive parr markings of a native trout.
She knelt to carefully slip the fish back into the water and smiled up at me as I fell in love yet again.
