PADDLING, FISHING OPPORTUNITIES ABOUND IN CENTRAL VIRGINIA

Thinking about plans for summer outdoor fun? Nothing says “summer” quite like a day spent on the river boating, fishing, or both. Luckily, moving water is a resource that Central Virginia has in ample supply. The James River, Virginia’s founding river, and the Rivanna River provide nearly 100 miles of floatable water in the heart of the Old Dominion, along with world-class smallmouth and catfishing that only gets better as the summer progresses. Several outfitters are set up on each of these rivers, too, working to provide you with an experience catered to your interests.

    The James River flows almost 55 miles through Central Virginia towards its mouth in the Chesapeake Bay. Along the way, its many riffles and long flats are lined with beautiful scenery and wildlife, and hold trophy-sized smallmouth and catfish (and other species) to keep the angler busy.

    Ashley Denby realized the boating potential of the James River in establishing James River Reeling and Rafting, an outfitting company based in Scottsville, on the banks of the River.

Two happy James River Reeling and Rafting customers. 

    Seven days a week, from April to October, Denby rents everything from tubes to rafts, and offers self-guided trips to accommodate every skill level, from beginners tubing a few lazy miles downriver, to trail-blazing river rats camping out on the river overnight. Rental prices include everything you’ll need on the river—a shuttle to and from your destination, a boat, life jackets, and paddles, and a map and cooler if requested.

    Despite the name, James River Reeling and Rafting doesn’t provide fishing equipment or instruction. If fishing is your activity of choice, you’re better off hiring a local guide seasoned on the James River and the personality of its famous smallmouth and catfish.

    L.E. Rhodes is a guide of nearly 20 years who specializes in fly fishing for smallmouth bass, and is intimately familiar with the James River.

    “The James River offers some of the best quality smallmouth fishing in Central Virginia,” said Rhodes. “You may not catch the number of fish in a day as you would years ago, but the average size of 14 to 17 inches, along with the fish up to and over 20 inches that you’ll encounter, makes for an awesome day on the river.”

    Rhodes, who can teach fishermen of all skill levels how to be a better smallmouth fisherman, is as easy-going and enthusiastic of a guy as you’ll encounter on the James River or anywhere else. And why shouldn’t he be, spending his days teaching others in one of his favorite places?

    “I love to share my experience and love of the James and it's smallmouth with all,” said Rhodes.

    Brian Bodine, owner of Razorback Guide Service, based in Scottsville, is another such character. Bodine has offered hunting and fishing trips on the James River year-round for more than 20 years, and has spent the last 30 years learning the intricacies of the River.

Brian "Razorback" Bodine with a citation James River smallmouth. Photo by Matt Reilly.

    Though Bodine also offers light tackle smallmouth trips, he also specializes in catfishing.

“Catfishing has grown in popularity over the last few years,” said Bodine. “Though the upper James doesn’t get the 100-pound blue cats like the Richmond area, we do well. We catch flatheads up to 50 pounds and blues into the upper 30's. Plenty of meat fish in the 5-8 lb range as well.”

    Want to experience the best fishing the James has to offer? Bodine offers a specialized trip starting in late afternoon fishing for smallmouth, and then switching over to catfish as the sun goes down.

    Dear to residents of Fluvanna County, Charlottesville, and beyond, the Rivanna River is a prominent tributary to the James, and also offers excellent boating and fishing.

    Gabe and Sonya Silver work to convince Rivanna visitors of the River’s boating potential through their family outfitting business, the Rivanna River Company. Based in Charlottesville, the Silvers rent tubes and boats, and offer both self-guided trips and guided tours and instruction on the River.

    Fishing on the Rivanna is similar to the James River, in that it has many of the same target species, though in a more intimate setting.

A healthy Rivanna River smallmouth. Photo by Matt Reilly.

    “The Rivanna boasts a wonderful smallmouth population, and can produce trophies,” said Spotswood Payne, fly fishing guide for TheAlbemarle Angler. “There are also good populations of big gar and carp, too, and even the occasional goldfish. The Rivanna also provides a bit more gradient than the James, and can be quite fun to paddle at higher flows.”

    Payne, who also guides on the James River, notes that the Rivanna is also steeped in a rich history, something that is strongly evident while floating it, and played a significant role in the settlement of Charlottesville and Monticello.

    Consider these backyard destinations for fun and relaxation this summer, and you may just discover something spectacular.□

*Originally published in The Rural Virginian

WHAT I ASKED FOR FOR CHRISTMAS

It’s remarkable to me that the society that I’m familiar with has gone and made just about every holiday about getting things, and stolen the attention away from their real meanings and the personal relationships that make these times special. Maybe it’s just my individual perspective, but it seems a bit backwards.

Photo by Matt Reilly.

    Even our most family-oriented (might I say, wholesome?) holiday, Thanksgiving, which is confounded by no Easter baskets or Christmas gifts, and which is intended as a day of thanks for the bounty of life, is immediately followed by perhaps the greediest day of the year, Black Friday. The premise of Black Friday is not necessarily greedy. In fact, it’s the opposite—to provide shoppers good deals on items they wish to give as gifts for Christmas, a religious holiday hijacked by marketing and turned into an occasion of exceptional decadence.

     The cultural standard of Christmas presents as materialistic is, in my experience, so strong that even the idea of gifting “quality time” is seen as “cheap” or a cop-out by many, though too many of us don’t spend enough of it with the people who count. After all, to those ni your life you can be either a do-er or a be-er. You can do things—buy presents, support financially. Or you can be things—a cherished fishing buddy, friendly company in the deer woods. If you can guess anything from the tone of this article so far, you might guess I prefer the latter.

     Nevertheless, I made a Christmas list this year. Some of the things I got. Some I didn’t. But, on the eve of another college semester, as I write this, the ones I got are more than enough.

     On the top of my list was a musky—that long, mean, toothed fish of my most recent dreams that I have yet to lay a hand on. And that musky was to be, by its very elusiveness, a team effort, put in the boat by one of a handful of fishing friends with which I have the pleasure of floating with just a handful of times in a year. After all, musky fishing is mostly hanging out with friends in a boat freezing your butt off and smiling and talking about the good times. It’s admittedly a miserable time, at times, but a mighty fine retreat any day.

    I’m not a duck hunter, at least not by upbringing. I’ve been meaning to get my feet wet in the sport of waterfowling, though, and that inaugural trip was second on my Christmas list. A long-time school friend of mine and I have long been wanting to hunt together over winter break. He’s a neighbor, and yet it never seems to work out. There’s a river—a small one—not far from our homes that is floatable by canoe and that flows through public land. A jump-shoot of sorts was the medium for the meetup, and the ducks the added bonus. The cherry on top.

     I am an upland bird hunter by upbringing, though you wouldn’t guess it. The poor situation of upland species in Virginia is partially to blame, but I’ve been known to saunter through a few riverbottoms following a beloved setter on occasion with an eye for woodcock. I’d heard of a local resident population of the birds, not subject to the seasonal migrations of the “mainstream” population, and resolved to take my dad, a woodcock enthusiast who’s not fired a shotgun at one in some time, and our Irish setter, Maggie, out one day in search. That was wish number three.

    Friend, magazine editor, and fishing guide, Chris McCotter, the man who gave me my first ever magazine assignment, and a character I haven’t spent time with in several years, reconnected shortly before the holiday season, and made plans to fish Lake Anna, where he operates a guide service, over my winter break. It was, of course, tentative, as all outdoor plans are, and so I hoped Christmas would bring me that chance to rekindle a friendship and see a part of the state I’ve been missing.

    Truth be told, a few of these Christmas wishes weren’t granted, but they are still valuable to me. In this hour of my life, when free time is relatively abundant (some may say) but seasonally available, I’ve come to cherish moments with those I see rarely, and the novel outings that I know I’ll remember for a long time. Those gifts, in my mind, are what the “holiday season” is all about.□

*Originally published in The Rural Virginian

MUSKY FISHING

The air was cold as we stood by the put-in on the upper James River at sunrise, rafts unloaded and tied off. Ten-weight fly rods rigged with sinking lines; leaders of 80-pound fluorocarbon; and foot-long, triple-articulated bucktail flies were strung and loaded, along with fly boxes, dry bags, and a net as wide as the boat. Smiles and adrenaline-induced trembles were all around.

Photo by Matt Reilly

    We hadn’t seen a fish in a full day of fishing, but there was another new day ahead of us. Maybe we would see a fish. Maybe we’d have one show interest in one of our flies. Maybe we’d catch one. Maybe we wouldn’t. That’s musky fishing.

    What’s not to love about a fish with the potential to reach lengths of over 50 inches; that sports a shovel maw of razor sharp teeth; and that chases down and eats full-grown sunfish, chubs, and suckers, best imitated by massive streamers?

    Perhaps their sheer elusiveness, their fickle stomachs, and their habit of following flies to the boat without eating. For Ben Rogers, in the raft with friend and Albemarle Angler guide, Spotswood Payne, it’s been five full days of hard fishing since he’s seen a musky. Not caught but seen. Almost 50 hours of casting heavy gear in cold, winter weather without seeing anything more than empty river. But that’s musky fishing, and that’s what makes the sport so infuriatingly addicting.

    “The fish of 10,000 casts,” they call the mighty musky, and though it’s maybe a slight exaggeration, the sentiment is effective. As I row downriver through the thawing December morning, both rower and fisherman in each raft is devoted to the bank and to his fly, to teasing mystery from the darkest, deepest corners of the river, in hopes that it shows itself as a fish. Every cast, every pass on a piece of structure, every day spent on the water is another attempt at striking the low odds.

    We dropped into a long flat of slow, deep water around 10 AM. My fly struck bottom and lodged on a rock. As we rowed closer to retrieve it, the long, wavering form of a musky backed off from the rock where the fly was stuck, back into the abyss. We were on the board. To get a follow—to have a fish take interest in your fly—that’s success in the game of musky fishing.

    In the tail of the same flat, Spotswood had a follow on his fly—had the fish to the boat, but not hooked. So we backed off and rowed back upstream, and hit the same bank with both boats in succession. It’s perceived that musky sometimes need a wakeup call. The second boat in the string, more often than not, gets the fish to eat. So second passes are necessary over fish that have been seen, though nothing came of that one. Two more sightings came in the tail, as we prepared to shoot the rapids to the next hole.

    After noon, we dropped into yet another flat, this one deeper, darker, and more promising, as the streamflow on the James is less-than-ideal. Low and exceptionally clear doesn’t leave much room for mystery and sulking musky.

    David Gregory, who rode in the bow of my 14-foot raft, had hooked a 46-inch musky on his first float on that very same flat. It’s been 12 trips for him, and one year, since that fish, and he hasn’t boated another. But that’s musky fishing.

    We worked both banks through the flat diligently, twice. David yelled “musky!” as I was figure-eighting, pointing to a fish from the rower’s seat that was deep beneath my fly. Because musky are ambush predators, they can often be triggered to strike by a side-profile of prey, which they can t-bone with their shovel mouths. For this reason, we strip our flies to a few feet from the rod tip, stick it several feet under the water, and stir the river in a figure-eight pattern after every retrieve. Evidently a fish gave my fly a look as I was doing this, but I didn’t see it in time to react, and the fish moved on. A chance missed. That’s musky fishing.

    We neared the takeout as the sun was retreating and the chill of winter night was reborn. I had another musky come out from underneath the boat and take a look at my fly, but moved on without consequence.

    Eight hours of fishing with six fish sighted and four follows was counted as a success, though no fish were boated. As we rowed the final stretch to the takeout in the dim evening, there was joking and light spirits, and plans of sticking it to the fish tomorrow, hopeful that then cast number 10,000 would come. That’s musky fishing.□

*Originally published in The Rural Virginian

BEAVERS, LOONS, AND OTHER POOR GAME FISH

I caught a beaver once. Rather, I almost did.

Photo by Matt Reilly

    One summer evening I was bass fishing a small farm pond when I eyed hopefully a beaver hut in a few feet of water. I delivered a plastic worm to the doorstep, let it sink, and gave it a small lift off the lake bottom with my rod tip. Animated resistance brushed the hook and jumped through the line into my hand, and I set the hook with gusto. The hook didn’t drive home, but an ovular, chocolate mat of hair breached at the end of my line and slammed the door with its paddle tail—communicating its lack of enthusiasm for my housewarming gift and sending water a story into the air.

    A similar thing occurred another summer while dry fly fishing a promising run on the Moosehead Region’s Roach River. My gaze hadn’t yet found the hut on the far bank when a coffee-colored submarine (that would have quadrupled the state’s brook trout record) rose out of the center of the run towards my stimulator as I stood by dumfounded and struggling to react. It of course bypassed my fly and headed for cover, but not before I had time to reflect upon its bizarre choice of behavior. Had I been nymphing, I surely would have had him.

    Both occurrences are memorable and, I often think, might have been more so had I succeeded in placing a hook in beaver flesh. But I’ve seen—and heard at midnight in a swamp—what kind of power those oversized rodents can command with their tail, in a pinch—not to mention their infamous caramel incisors—and I count my lucky stars it didn’t end up that way.

    Surf casters know a kindred issue, especially if they’re doing it right. Birds and predator fish both chase bait, rolling in a dizzying tornado of adrenaline that the surf caster is charged with threading a weighted object dressed with treble hooks through from a distance. Thus the star-crossed gull occasionally finds itself smacked into a downward spiral by the spoon-shaped hand of God and subsequently skittered over the surface and sharks onto the beach to be toyed with by a herd of bumbling humans.

    I’ve known a handful of individuals to have completed the feat and released the seagull to return to its position as bowling pin of the surf—an honorable accomplishment given the general temperament of a hooked gull. And though it’s a conversation starter in some briny circles, it’s hardly a pleasant undertaking in the moment.

    Likewise, loons patrolling the more heavily fished brook trout ponds of Maine have decided their role in catch and release. As accomplished swimmers, they’ll dive from a safe spectator’s distance to nab the struggling brook trout produced by a canoe and a fisherman’s bent rod.

    This understandably incites some frenzy in the fisherman, and though I’ve never personally been faced with the task of removing a fly from the gullet of a loon, I can’t imagine them to be ideal canoe company.

    The snapping turtle would argue its superior displeasantry. It’s my theory that the Old Man was in the beginning stages of snapping turtle sculpting when serpentina opened its beak with an aggressive hiss and was flipped down into the farm ponds of the world pissed off.

    I have a grandfather who caught one measuring over two feet long with rod and reel, once, from a john boat on the lake in Tidewater Virginia where he built his home. It was “landed,” so to speak, and the shell promptly spray painted orange so as to be seen from a distance, and avoided at all costs.

    I remember it vividly, as I do the evening I spent casting dry flies to rising rainbows and browns on a very low Pine Creek in north-central Pennsylvania. The sun was dropping below the horizon and I was praying for a trout to have a moment of poor judgement. As I reached out further, to another rising fish, my backcast tipped a shoot of broomsedge on the bank behind me. Only when I turned to take stock of the situation, the perked ear of a black bear was frighteningly close to that waving grass shoot.

    I counted my lucky stars as the bear cursed my foul casting ability, and pondered the consequences of landing a #14 brown caddis a job as an earring. Today I tell that story with pride, though it could have ended in tragedy. And I go on my normal way, casting to trout and smallmouth, avoiding the oddities at all costs.□

*Originally published in the Rural Virginian

A CHILDHOOD STORY: LATE WINTER BASS WINDOW

Every year, as winter fights a losing battle with the advances of spring and natural rejuvenation, Mother Nature’s actors stage for the opening act. Upon spring’s minor victories, the mercury ascends—into the 50s, 60s—and some of my favorite actors, in an aqueous, farm field gem, begin their own ascent.

    These charismatic, southern sporting phenotypes begin undergoing changes as water temperatures approaches 50 degrees. Their metabolisms ramp up. They’re inspired to move, to chase, and to earn energy in ambush games with larger and larger prey. More importantly, they experience a change in attitude—from the idle survivalism of the winter doldrums, to the procedural excitement of reproduction.

    The males move first, from the thermal refuges of deep water, finning the ridges of points, towards warming shallow-water spawning sites.

    As the sun beats down on the sparkling water, these shallow spawning flats become the most attractive habitat to awakening bass—but only by temperature. The rest of the set is a skeleton of its unhampered essence. Lily pads, bullfrogs, tall grass, dobsonflies—all are holding off for the security of the warmer months.

    Grasses, though, are on the way. When the right water temperature is achieved, they begin to sprout from the pond floor, and play an important part in the story that I have come to know.

    The ambient air temperature continues to fluctuate—from the high 30s to the low 70s—throughout the end of February and beginning of March. Likewise, competing warm and cold air masses created by the periodical warming of the Earth, and the subsequent radiation into the air, bring the lion out in March. She rages on almost every day, particularly the warm ones, representing the final variable in the annual production I’ve acquainted myself with.

    Humans are creatures of habit too. Outdoorsmen, I like to think of as seasonal junkies. Every week of the year can be designated a particular pursuit (or faction of a pursuit) that is ripe for the time. The late winter window, in which all of the aforementioned variables coexist, is one of my personal favorites, which has come to be acknowledged as “The Weekend”—for big, early season bass—by some of the more fervent of my fishing companions.

    It was my father who first introduced me to this happening, on a warm, windy day in March on the farm pond I return to every year, before I had become a full-fledged teenager.

    A bottleneck is formed by two facing points, which mark the transition between the main-pond and the shallow coves on the insides of the points. The area between the points is a kind of flat—shallow, littered with a few well-known stumps, and, in the late winter, tufted by the beginning efforts of lake weed. Moving deeper into the coves, the water becomes shallower, creating a gradient of heated water and, in following, grasses.

    On that inaugural March afternoon of my childhood, the wind was roaring parallel to the points—from the west, right into the face of the dominant point.

The author's father with a healthy late-winter bass. Photo by Matt Reilly.

    “Wind from the west, fishing is best,” they say, but this is sounder science. By the will of the wind, the food chain was moved into the grassy flat between the points. First, phytoplankton. Then, baitfish. Then, predators. It was all explained to me before the first cast, and I believe it was on the first that my father stuck a respectable largemouth of about five pounds.

    Looking back, I am excessively proud, and thankful, of my father for that moment of genius.

Since, I have taken many a fish, always returning to the same setting, chasing the same memory, with the ambition of having a brush with an early-season trophy.

    Indeed, the pattern has produced well, over the years, resulting in several fish over five pounds and up to 10, by student-friends, myself, and others. This story is a testament to the dimension of fishing that is all too often dismissed, and that is hardly quantifiable by one who does not practice it and know its benefits—that is, observation and critical thinking.

    These days, I don’t get to watch that childhood story play out in front of me, often. The farm ponds of those years I left behind in search of an education. Still, change is in the air, and it brings memories to mind, which might compare for enjoyment. Then again, perhaps it’s merely the continuation of that story I’m after every year, on the bank of that farm pond, chasing fish I caught long ago. Perhaps nothing is lost.□

*Originally published in the Rural Virginian

FEBRUARY IS A HARD MONTH TO LOVE

February is a hard month to love. The most ardent endure her harsh temperament--her changing moods--with some success, rarely without sacrificing self, in the form of numb fingers or wind-chapped cheeks.

Photo by Matt Reilly

    February is a time of change, one without which the climactic arrival of spring would be of muted contrast. Snowmelt, under the typically warmer-than-winter closing days of the month, floods rivers and streams with cold, dirty water, while small game seasons peter out. But if February offers any consolation, it’s that taking it by the horns and experiencing the true end of the outdoor year makes spring all the more grandiose.

High, Cold, and Dirty

    Six inches of snow fell over the weekend, and promptly melted, unleashing inches of 36-degree, muddy water on the landscape. If there’s a type of water that warrants hanging your hat up for, it’s this—but when the going gets tough, I find it unacceptable to accept defeat.

    When I arrived at the roadside pull-off, I could hardly recognize the creek that brushes the road. Under normal circumstances, a well-defined run-pool complex passes tranquilly under the shadow of a hemlock-lined bank. With the right angle of sunlight to facilitate, a half dozen or so dark, elongated forms can be seen waving in place like submerged grass in the lucid blue belly of water, fins grazing cobble below.

    This time, however, the scene looked and sounded of chaos. Green-brown water capped with foam rolled and chopped like ocean waves, ignoring the serpentine borders of the creek, and challenging the quiet forest highway adjacent to a contest in violent white noise it was sure to win.

    I learned a lesson in high-water trout fishing in western Maryland three years prior. That river was running roughly four times its typical flow. Wild brown trout filled the river, and I had considerable success fishing soft water behind big boulders along the flooded bank with a large, dark fly. That was mid-June.

    A third odd was stacked against me on that February day—cold water. I knew I’d have to fish slowly, and very thoroughly.

    When a creek jumps its banks, holding and feeding lies are tossed in the air. The food chain scrambles to reestablish footing in the changing system. Small fish are tossed around, and large, predatory fish cruise harsh current breaks, looking for a feeding opportunity.

    A few hundred yards upstream, I found the setting for the scene I prophesized in my mind. A long, hard run ran over chunk rock, tossing water in crests and pits. An abutting slab of bedrock calmed the churning, and pooled a few feet of calm water.

Photo by Matt Reilly

    Several casts with a heavy crayfish-imitating fly into the seam ended with a hard stop and the turn of a massive female brown trout that ran downstream, broke me off, and became my latest heartbreak.

Two Triples

    A crisp, sunny afternoon in February beckoned me to the squirrel woods, amped with adrenaline, 20-guage pump shotgun in tote.

    Late season bushytail hunting, in my mind, speaks of delicate walking, skittish squirrels, and quick shots—a game tailored to the indiscriminate, somewhat forgiving reach of a boom-stick.

    Just barely inside the treeline, as I stood mid-way up a hardwood ridge, sun to my back, three squirrels busted from cover, nervous from my prolonged pause, and darted for independent cover. Swinging, and operating the pump-loading mechanism instinctively, I dropped all three on consecutive shots—a triple, for half a limit.

Photo by Matt Reilly.

    Another 45 minutes of still hunting landed me in position to take another bushytail. From a creekbottom, I closed the distance between me and the rustling I could hear near the top of the ridge, hopping and skipping in bursts, imitating the sound of a pouncing gray squirrel.

    The first shot was presented when an alarmed gray pounced from the trunk of an oak tree into the branches of another. As it was scrambling to establish footing, I dropped it with a swinging report from the 20-guage.

Photo by Matt Reilly.

    A second bushytail peeked out from behind the trunk of a neighboring oak, curious, presenting a headshot that didn’t go unclaimed. Down went another batch of meat for the pot.

    A third held tight to the forest floor for 30 seconds before making a mad dash for a nearby hickory tree. I ran forward ten feet as the squirrel began its ascent of the trunk, and interrupted it, taking a quick knee, and firing a rising snap-shot—a second double, for a limit of late season bushytails.□

 *Originally published in the Rural Virginian

REDISCOVERING THE HOLIDAYS

The holiday season, among other things, reminds us of the intrinsic values of the finer things in life—friends, family, health, peace. However, alongside that humble tradition, we’ve incorporated a more destructive cultural practice.

    America writes its shopping list in the weeks preceding Thanksgiving and Christmas, and the floodgates are opened the Friday following Turkey Day—Black Friday, a marketing ploy both loved and hated to a high degree.

    The infectious lifeblood of frenzied consumerism that courses through our country’s veins is unleashed, sweeping away Thursday’s reminders of the importance of the simpler pleasures with sale prices and limited time offers. You should take this description with a grain of salt, though. I never was much of a shopper.

    Particularly these days, as a “financially limited” college student who spends the majority of the year a few hundred miles from family, long-time friends, and all the aesthetic features that characterize home, when I am granted an opportunity to revisit and enjoy those things, there is little more on my mind. I have a lot to be thankful for—among them, family, friends, opportunity, and passion—and I believe it essential in recognizing that to control zeal and further material gain.

    Last year, somewhat on accident, my older brother, Phillip (whom I used to write about more frequently), and I established what is becoming a tradition of spending Black Friday on the water together.

    Black Friday, 2014 was an absolutely frigid day. It was easy to question whether or not we were actually behaving in a more sensible manner than the shoppers of O-dark-thirty. Nevertheless, we convened in a frosted parking lot in Charlottesville at dawn and made tracks towards a trout stream over the mountain.

    As the first day in a steep cold snap, the fishing was slow, though I did manage to seal the deal on an 18-inch brown, while Phillip capitalized on a few of the stream’s smaller residents.

    Noon arrived, and the mercury hadn’t evaded the biting 20s, so we called it a day and found comfort a few centimeters in front of the car’s blasting heat vents.

    2015 brought a more temperate day. After a hearty Thanksgiving dinner, I passed out on the couch to rise early the next morning and place a bead on the Highlands. The drive was colored with meaningful, spirited conversation (as we no longer get to spread it out throughout the year) and was far from exhausted when we reached our destination.

    Recent rains had the creek running strong, though not high. Taking turns on pools and pockets, we passed the morning and afternoon casting dry flies and nymphs to native brook trout and telling fish stories from our time apart not yet relayed.

    Though our fingers are numb and our feet frozen from standing in barely-above freezing waters, these days end warmly. It’s a feeling fueled by neither greed nor desire, but by the feeling of progressive nostalgia that comes with practicing classic things, by the idea that family and memories and passions will continue to be perpetuated, year after year, even after the last of the flatscreens have been purchased and the Christmas music fades into the background for another year.

    This is what the holidays are about.□

*Originally published in the Rural Virginian.

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

SOMETHING DIFFERENT

“Just show ‘em something they’ve never seen before.”

    When it comes to traveling and fishing, this is a piece of timeless advice that I increasingly give, am given, and practice. Local knowledge imparted by fly shops and marinas across the country is invaluable, but the very fact that it’s accepted knowledge implies the idea that such patterns are widely and frequently implemented. The same goes for fishing your home waters. Patterns that fish see time and time again eventually lose effectiveness as fish learn. Yamamoto grubs and Wooley Buggers will always take fish, but not like they used to.

    About two years ago, one of my high school teachers who lives on the lower Rivanna River found a fly box full of rusty flies washed up on his island after a substantial rain. As I was the only one he knew in the area that could put the flies to use, he brought them to me one school day.

    Inside was a collection of streamers, foam dry flies, and poppers—all unique. At least I had never seen the likes of them before. Most had rusted hooks, but all found their way into my fly boxes, nevertheless.

    The following winter, sometime in late December, my brother and I headed over the mountain to fish a well-known trout stream. We fished hard from late-morning through early afternoon.

    The upper boundary of public water was in sight, when I got into position to fish what would be the last run of the day. Feeling the need to switch up tactics, I was excited to tie on one of the mystery streamers that washed up on the banks of the Rivanna several months earlier.

    It was essentially a Woolley Bugger, tied with a webby hackle, lots of flash, and mottled marabou. In no way was it a revolutionary design or concept, but I would not be able to reproduce the complimentary rusty and dirt matted in the fibers of the fly at the vise, nor could a replacement be found at the fly shop.

    In about twenty minutes, 12 stocky rainbows fell prey to the mass of feather and dirt. The rusty hook posed no issue upon hookup.

    Also in one of the weathered corners of that washed-up fly box was a foam grasshopper pattern, complete with realistic rubber legs, eyes, flash, and wing. Of this fly, however, there was only one copy, and I could not, no matter how much I searched, find a replica for sale.

    Because of its density, and therefore the splat it made on the water when it landed, I am convinced, this fly is extremely effective on larger brook trout during the terrestrial season, which typically runs from mid-summer through early fall.

    On one particular night, while fishing a well-known brook trout stream near my home, I came upon a large pool edged by grass that hinted at the presence of grasshoppers. I lost no time in clipping off my attractor dry fly pattern and swapping it for the meatier foam hopper.

    Splat. On my first cast, a healthy 10-inch native brook trout rose from the depths and hammered the fly. Upon landing and examining it, I discovered the remains of a large ant and a five-inch centipede in the fish’s gullet. An ambitious fish, no doubt about it.

    A few plying casts later, my fly landed at the head of the run leading into the pool and was gulped down and pulled to the bottom by a brute of a fish. A few tense moments later, my biggest brook trout to date was hanging heavy in my net.

    Over the course of its two-year life in my box, this fly has caught several species of fish, and big ones at that. It is a go-to when fish are feeding on the surface, and continues to reproduce, even after losing legs and chunks of foam. I guess some flies are just “fishy.”

    Both of these patterns have often placed me in (in retrospect) dangerous positions I probably shouldn’t have assumed to retrieve them. I have chased the hopper downstream after breaking it off on multiple occasions. And when these patterns are finally gone from my box, they will be just that, never to return. Perhaps that is why they are so effective, because they are irreplaceable, unique. I can only hope I’ve harvested some new good luck charm from the bank of some river or branch of some snag when that time comes.□

*Originally published in the Rural Virginian

SUMMERTIME MOONDANCE

Dusk.

    The world that bustles on, even along the rural county road, winds down. Though the rolling meadow and white pine veil surrounding my favorite farm pond shield the view of the paved artery from the confines of my canoe, my ears subconsciously monitor its heartbeat. The frequency of passing cars shrinks, replaced by the coming-alive of night sounds.

Photo by Matt Reilly

    Whippoorwills, peepers, and crickets announce their presence as my fly rod flexes. The canoe rocks slightly. Fly line exits the craft from my feet, towed by a popping bug that lands with an intentional splat on a lily-padded edge.

    As light fades from the summer sky and the temperature begins to drop, bass “go on the feed.” Their sensitive eyes, devoid of eyelids, find solace at dusk, inspiring them to venture from their tight holdings in the grass and erupt upon frog-esque offerings on the water’s surface. 

    The tell-tale sploosh fulfills that prophecy. I set the hook in reaction, bending the long rod in my hand. After a short battle, I place a thumb in the mouth of a chunky largemouth and hoist him from the water to reclaim my fly and admire my prize. 

Photo by Matt Reilly.

    "Golden light," as it’s called, is a magical time. Wildlife of all species experience an awakening, and go in search of food and fun in the open. The fishing is good and so is the thinking. Experiencing the disappearance of the sunlit day helps to focus the thoughts on the big questions—purpose and place. At dusk, we celebrate something bigger than ourselves. 

    Darkness.

    There is something special about a summer night, something that you don’t find in the autumn nights leaving or following a deer trail. In it there is comfort. No impending threat of chill hangs. No undertone of the end speaks. But there is reassurance in the cool of the night air of a middle-aged year, and it stimulates the senses. Time slows down in summer in the South, and the day runs into night.

    I’m still on the water, casting away at fish I know to be hungry and hunting. Despite some canoe difficulty, I am deeply pleased to notice a growing night breeze twiddling the shoots of long grass around the water.

    I am lucky. On this night the moon is rising early. I have a new lease on light, but with no sacrifice of the stars. 

    Taking advantage of the cool breeze filtering through the pond’s beaver pond origin to the west, I paddle to the westernmost bank, distance myself 40 feet from the lily pads, and store my paddle at my feet. Good balance and practice has blessed me with the ability to cast upright from a canoe, and I assume that position as I’m pushed slowly eastward along the edge.

The Tycoon Tackle Flats King under pressure.  Photo by Matt Reilly.

    Though I am utterly alone in the darkness I don’t feel it. The moon is a welcome fishing partner, as the canoe and my path are illuminated by its light, and the stars reference the county road passersby, now mostly safe in their homes. We’re all alone on this star together. Our troubles are insignificant, and nothing matters, if not the chugging of my popper through the stillness of the night.

    Sploosh! The moon is bright, but fails to eliminate the end of my cast to the foot of a bush. Still, I can hear the progress of my popper when it is interrupted by the ball of unseen energy that I know to be a hefty largemouth.

A hefty largemouth, caught after dark.  Photo by Matt Reilly.

    The stern of the canoe where I am standing swivels tightly and points towards my opponent as my rod bends deeply into the cork. I make gains on the reel only to have the fish sound at the boat and explore the water on the opposite side of the craft, forcing me to turn and guide the rod tip around the stern. 

    Again we’re in direct competition. I can feel my leader approaching as I crank the reel. The fish is not exhausted, but losing hope. A swishing sound just feet away tells me that the fish is approaching the surface. Feeling the leader with my net, I find the water and scoop.

    A largemouth of six pounds lays cradled in the net, silhouetted in the moonlight. After freeing my hook, I lip the fish and lower him to the water by the side of the canoe. There’s just canoe, water, fish, moonlight, and me. Nothing else matters. When these ingredients come together I emerge with a clean pair of eyes, and it is then that I realize that even that fish and I are in this game of life together.

    I release him from my grip, and a flick of his tail and a spray that soaks my forearm concludes our summertime moondance.□

iDROPPED IT IN THE CREEK

Water and technology don’t mix—you would think I would know that by now.

    When I was younger, in my last year of middle school, I acquired a hand-me-down flip phone—a Motorola of sufficient capabilities.  The gift was supposedly meant to provide me a method of communicating when I was away from home—to keep me safe.

    However, I quickly learned that phones are extremely dangerous.  From that moment on, the potential harm that loomed over my everyday operations was magnificent, and I was required by special edict issued by my parents (bless them) to carry the salvational device wherever I roamed, regardless of the availability of cell service—especially if I was going fishing, as I did most frequently, alone.

    Now, much of my childhood was spent wet-wading my home river—the Rivanna—even well outside of the traditional wet-wading season.  I had not yet acquired waders, and my too-eager-to-care childhood-self pushed on undeterred.

    One sunny spring morning, shortly after inheriting the phone, I made the bike ride and hike to the riverbank and rigged up my fly rod.  Keeping my phone in my shorts pocket had become a habit, and I dared not remove it.

    The river ran with the voluminous, blue-green lifeblood of spring.  The red maples were blooming; samaras twirled in the breeze.  Dogwoods and redbuds lit up the understory.  The smallmouth were pre-spawn, and hungry. 

    That day I caught and landed several large smallmouth on flies of my own creation.  I was satisfied to the core as I closed the book on the day, wading towards the bank as dusk settled.  Contentment met horrified disgust in a blind alley when I felt the blocky form of my phone clinging to my thigh in the right pocket of my soaked wading shorts.

    My immediate thoughts were “It’s broken.  But what?  I was being obedient!”  I dried the phone out after its four hour swim and used it to its full potential for another couple of years, marked by the occasional swim, before it was finally condemned.

    Midway through my high school career I graduated—to an iPhone, which proved to be just as dependable a fishing partner as my first.

    I woke up to a fiery sunrise and the chattering of birds one crisp November morning amid an upland tract of land in Georgia’s Okeefenokee swamp.  The night required no fly—a pleasant coincidence, as I was due in southwest Florida by nightfall and the mesh canopy of my tent allowed in enough dawn sunlight to awaken me sans alarm.  I packed my things, shouldered my kayak, and trudged towards the swamp.

    Nine miles into an early-morning paddle I was still relatively alone.  The birds were awake, but the alligators had yet to be lured onto land by the sun.  I snapped some sunrise pictures with my phone. 

    The swamp channel constricted, and out of the cypress trunks and wildflower backdrop emerged a shelter, with stairs and a deck, for the stretching of cramped legs.  As I planted my feet on the steps above the tannic water, my phone slid out of the unzipped pocket of my PFD, fell, and landed on its side, perpendicular to, and on, the stair stringer.

    I took several moments to calm my pulse and regain control of my trembling extremities before wiping sweat from my brow and thankfully retrieving the device, sliding it tenderly into my pocket.  It was on borrowed time.

    Just a month later, while emptying my pockets after a day of brook trout fishing, I fumbled the phone, and its screen shattered on river rock.  It remained usable.

    All of these incidents breathe positivity into my most recent lapse in technological competence.

    I stood knee-deep and wader-less in the cool waters of a foreign mountain brook trout stream.  Really, wild rainbows outnumbered brook trout.  So when I landed the first brookie, its picture was taken. 

    A half hour later, I came upon a picturesque waterfall and reached for my breast pocket.  Empty.  Contentment and disgust were up for round two. 

    I returned to the scene of the last photo to find the device face-up, wedged between two rocks in the tail of the pool, water rushing over it.  I retrieved it, sent a few warning messages to those who might be worried, and was then greeted by a black screen.  Three days later, it’s alive and riding shotgun.

    Looking back, I may need to make some adjustments.  I hear there is something called “adventure proof;” and although I have fortunately escaped a debt of several hundred dollars to the Apple and Motorola companies, I believe the concept worthy of my research.  My luck may be in short supply going forward. 

*Originally published in the Rural Virginian