A MORNING WITH THE VILLAGERS

Mountains are the world’s best hiding places. They can shield you from what’s immediate and threatening and place you closest to what’s most important in a single breath. This, I am certain, was God’s intention; to move or alter one should be a sacrilege. The communities and cultures that emerge at the end of the roads that navigate the folds and ridgelines, and cross the creeks that animate them, are, by design, strongholds for old-world values and charm. Thus my soul is pulled down secondary roads that lead up and away.

Photo by Matt Reilly.

    For a few hundred miles, as they dive into the southwest corner of Virginia, the Appalachian Mountains find girth. The highlands to the west begin to expand from the narrow crest that mounts in the central part of the state, and continue to do so as they roll into western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee—the Great Smokey Mountains. Ridges and fertile valleys take turns striping the land to the east, giving rise to a number of small mountain towns that once dotted a railroad that wandered the valleys and hollows.

    Taylor’s Valley is one such destination. Nestled in the palm of the southwest Virginia highlands, the village is as far removed as you can get in just a 15-minute drive from Damascus—affectionately dubbed “Trail Town USA.” Fork Mountain, which separates the two populations geographically, pushes the traveler south into Tennessee along a mountain highway before a ramshackle, faded, wooden sign directs him northward along a pot-holed road back into the state from whence he came.

    While I refrain at all costs from writing about secrets, Taylor’s Valley is none such. In fact, visitors—hikers—en route from Springer Mountain, Katahdin-bound on the Appalachian Trail, pass through shortly after making their collective favorite stop in Damascus. Perhaps Virginia’s most popular bike trail, the Virginia Creeper Trail, drives dozens of bikers through town daily. A single-lane bridge spanning Whitetop Laurel Creek—arguably one of the highest quality trout streams in the Southeast—is the town’s welcome mat.

    Gardens are plentiful; gas stations, nonexistent. Churches outnumber restaurants, which are few; and on a pleasant fall morning it would not be a surprise to find the majority of residences vacated for the comfort of nature. The Game Department’s regular stocking of the creek throughout fall and spring makes the retired man sporting hip-waders, creel, and limber spinning rod a common character—canine companions are optional, but largely endorsed.

Photo by Matt Reilly.

    It’s a homey place. That’s the impression I got when I opened my car door in a small gravel shoulder by the creek to find my very own dog waiting for me, like a housewarming present for my sojourn. Perky ears and friendly eyes stared me down, a wet nose implored my hands for attention, as I shouldered waders and strung my fly rod, intent on sampling some of the Valley’s aquatic villagers, but not without satisfying its four-legged one.

Photo by Matt Reilly.

    Golden leaves barreled down the creek pecking at my fly line, catching my fly on occasion. Patience and persistence payed out, though, in the form of four chunky brown trout, flamboyantly adorned with spawning garb.

Photo by Matt Reilly.

    I released the last fish and looked up to notice an elderly man fishing a good way above me. I stepped out of the river to explore upstream and give the man some space to enjoy the morning, but happened upon him leaning by his aged red pickup, retired from fishing.

    “Seems every time I looked you were doubled up with one of them!” he exclaimed.

    “The jury’s still out on the luck part of it,” I returned politely.

    “Any browns,” he inquired?

    “All browns,” I replied,

    “Huh,” he returned, hoisting a stringer of four rainbow trout. “They looked pretty good sized. Last year the state did a questionnaire asking people if they’d have lots of small and average fish or fewer bigger fish, and I think they settled on bigger. Works out good for me. I come down here when I can, but I don’t fish any of those other creeks. This one is the prettiest.”

    “There’s something to be said for that,” I said. “They say ‘trout don’t live in ugly places.’ Those are some nice fish.”

    “Tell me, are you a Christian?” he asked.

    “Yes, sir,” I said.

    “I thought I could tell it on your person,” he replied, smiling. “Most folks here are. Some of ‘em opened up their home as a café for the bikers. Their chocolate cake won some award in one of them southern magazines.”

    Talk of family and fishing petered out after a snack and a wave. I moved upstream to explore, caught a dozen more trout, exchanged waves with the bikers and hikers, and thought a familiar thought: These hills are home. And everything in them.□

*Originally published in the Rural Virginian

THANKFUL FOR THE WEALTH OF VIRGINIA SPORTING OPPORTUNITIES

Strolling along a beach after a morning of casting to bait-busting seatrout, the sun warms my neck and I squint into the sun sans shades, trying hard to even out a harsh sunglasses tan.  It’s hardly 9 o’ clock, and even as the wind whips through my loose clothing, the temperature rivals that of a Virginia summer.  One thing is clear—Southwest Florida is a far shot from Virginia in almost every aspect.

    Over the past week, I have saved several such moments in my mind.  Still frames standing and casting to fish in backcountry mangroves from my kayak; pushing over oyster beds and through tight cuts of water miles from the big bordering city; jumping tarpon and unhappy alligators; slicing patterns in the sky, casting to fish amid calm blue water crowned with a fiery sunrise, fighting fog and darkness—all are cataloged with thankfulness for the experience.

    The past two months have provided me with even more treasured memories.  Memories of gurgling Catskills trout streams at dusk, leaping salmon of magnificent proportions, casting dry flies after dark to skinny-water brown trout in “Pennsylvania’s Grand Canyon,” guiding a kayak through the Okefenokee Swamp dodging alligators and cypress trees, of lifelong friends made—all leave me humble and anxious to return.

    But here I am, on the front end of Virginia’s firearms deer season; in the middle of the trout’s fall feeding frenzy, when the brook trout dress up in their most colorful garments and flaunt them about the state’s most beautiful waterways, when an elderly New Yorker approaches me on a beach and inquires about the Rapidan—undoubtedly the most well-known stream in Shenandoah for President Hoover’s appreciation of it.

    “It is a wonderful stream,” I replied.  “But there are many more like it, if you’re willing to look.”

    And it was then that I began to daydream, of the miles of wild trout streams of the Blue Ridge and of my beloved brook trout, of the way the almost-gone leaves look on the trees and how the crisp chill in the air brings out the fragrances of the forest and the mountains, of the humanity and sense of closure that November cold brings to the Piedmont, when we go to the woods and the water bundled.

    With that, I found myself eager to revisit those cherished back-home memories, all the more appreciative of the varied sporting opportunities Virginia has to offer.

Originally published in the Rural Virginian

VA ELK RESTORATION UPDATE

    In May of 2012, the VDGIF and Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation partnered to pioneer an elk restoration program, making the first of many planned releases in Southwestern Virginia.  Now, a year later, another delivery is scheduled to arrive in the state.

    

    After a thorough health exam at the Kentucky transfer site, the original 18 elk brought to the state in 2012 were fitted with GPS telemetry collars and released at a reclaimed strip mine site in Buchanan County, near Vansant, Virginia.  By September of the same year, four calves had been born, and the monitored population of elk grew to 22.

    

    As the second installment of what is to be several relocation efforts, another batch of elk are currently in quarantine in Kentucky, awaiting a second round of disease testing.  VDGIF Terrestrial Wildlife Biologist, Allen Boynton, expects to begin moving the animals to the Buchanan release site by the end of May.

    

    Though elk are making headlines today, the notion of a restoration effort is not foreign to Virginians.  The eastern woodlands elk was a species native to Virginia, and much of the surrounding area, until around the time of the Civil War.  The last recorded elk harvest in Virginia came from Clarke County in the mid-1800s.  Since then, two independent releases have been made in Giles and Bland Counties, attempting to reestablish the species to Virginia’s Appalachian Slope; but by the 1960s, the herds were obsolete.

    The restoration cause gained headway in the state department once again in the 1990s, and boiled on the backburner until a motion was finally passed in 2010 to develop a management program aimed at reintroducing the native animals.

    Coincidentally, 2010 was a significant year for cervids in Virginia for another reason, too.  The discovery of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in western Frederick County made wildlife disease a chief concern of the game department and those outlining the program.  This concern was elevated when the lineage of the Kentucky elk was found to be already tainted by CWD; for Kentuckians too suffered the loss of their native elk herd, and acquired animals from an area in Kansas known to be contaminated with CWD for their own restoration efforts.

    Thus, elk captured in Kentucky for relocation remain in quarantine on site for several weeks to undergo disease testing before being introduced to Virginia’s ecological system.

    Once the disease barriers were worked out, biologists finished the pilot program, and marked 2012 as the initiation.  Several individual relocations totaling about 75 elk were proposed, hoping that this number would reproduce naturally to a goal of 400.

    Currently, the 18 animals—16 of which are adults; two are calves—are alive and well, and reside within three miles of the release site.  With good fortune, the 11 cows will all fatten up and show signs of pregnancy within the month; and with the arrival of another batch of transplants, we can hopefully expect the population to grow significantly into the fall.

    The course of future actions is founded strongly in public opinion, so contact the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries for details on public comment periods, elk management issues, or to view the specific plan outlined for the future of the restoration project.  Visit the RMEF’s website, rmef.org, to learn how to donate, support, or volunteer for the local cause.

*Originally published in the Rural Virginian