STOCKED TROUT ON THE ROSE RIVER

It's not often that I fish for stocked trout, or rainbows at all even, here in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia; but with the parental units gone until later this month, I've been rolling on a wild game/fish diet to save on groceries, and have some fun, too.

    So after checking the VDGIF stocking schedule, I loaded up my Golden Retrievers and my creel and headed northwest to Madison County, to the Rose River which had just been stocked on the 14th.

    The Rose River parallels the road that runs through Criglersville for much of its length, making it easy for the stocking truck to disperse fish throughout the river, rather than concentrate them in one or two holes nearest the best access point--supposedly.  So without much thought, I picked a pull-off, parked, and rigged up.

    I passed several pickup trucks parked along the river below me, and there was a mini van taking up the pull-off just upstream.  So I was mentally prepared to have just one pool to fish and make the most of.  This wasn't the case, however.  A friendly fisherman (a fly guy too) stood in the pool just above me as I slid into the crystalline flow, running high from a full day of rain two days prior, but clear as ever, filtered by the limestone bed.

    The cover was tight; but I didn't skip a beat.  My new favorite rod, the Tycoon Tackle Scion Series graphite rod, roll casts like a dream; and with a flick of the rod tip, I turned a sliding D-loop into an airborne cast.

Photo by Matt Reilly

Photo by Matt Reilly

    After casting to the belly of the pool, along the current seams, and to the head of the pool, I had succeeded in fooling seven fallfish and one redbreast sunfish--fine, native fish in their own right, but I was searching for the slightly less-sharp non-natives for a change.

    The next cast was claimed by a fiesty rainbow, who immediately took to the air, thrashing and trying to break free.  I guided him to my hand and admired him.  His rosy, spotted flanks marked him as a holdover--a welcome indication in those waters.  With dinner on my mind, I slipped him into my creel.

Photo by Matt Reilly

    I returned to my car to shed my sweater and came upon a friendly man looking to do some bait fishing in the same pool I had just pulled the trout from.  He insisted I continue my fishing; and so I did, for a short while, before wishing the gentleman good luck and moving upstream to seek better fortune.

    I continued fishing upstream, hooking the occasional fallfish and sunfish, but managed one last trout, larger than the first, but obviously a recently-stocked fish by appearance.  He too met the bottom of my creel.

Photo by Matt Reilly

    By then the sun was almost at its pinnacle in the sky, and I had work to do--a deck that needed staining--and so I made my way back to the car with a few stockies in tote.

    Given the choice in sport, I typically forgo fishing for stocked rainbows for blue-lining on the upper reaches of the same streams for native brook trout; but if you're in the mood for trout for dinner, following the stocking truck can be a fun way to grocery shop!□

50th ANNUAL SEOPA CONFERENCE

Last weekend I had the pleasure of being invited to the 50th anniversary Southeastern Outdoor Press Association (SEOPA) conference at the beautiful Fontana Village in the North Carolina Great Smoky Mountains.

    The occasion?  Back in July, I was awarded the Lindsay Sale-Tinney Award by the Outdoor Journalist Education Foundation of America (OJEFA), the branch organization of SEOPA dedicated to recruiting youth to the profession of outdoor communications.

Photo by Matt Reilly

    Stu Tinney, founder of the original Striper magazine, established the award in 2010 in honor of his late wife, Lindsay, as a way to promote the youngest generation's presence in outdoor media.

    The winner, as selected by the OJEFA committee, is selected from a pool of applicants between the age of 12 and 25 who complete an application and essay demonstrating a strong desire to pursue a career in outdoor communications.  The award provides one free conference registration, four nights lodging, and up to $750 in travel expenses to attend the annual fall conference held by the organization.

    The real blessing provided by the award, is the opportunity to meet and network with over 500 of the country's most prominent outdoor communicators.  These conferences are where careers are born, shaped, and grown; and anyone interested in the field would be doing themselves a disservice to not attend one.

    So if you are an individual that fits the aforementioned criteria, I urge you to mark June 1, the deadline for the scholarship application, on your calendar for next year.  It very well may be the best move you ever make.  I know it was mine.

OJEFA Announces Recipient of Fourth Annual Lindsay Sale-Tinney Award

SILENTLY AND SLOWLY--SHIPWRECKED

Summer is stagnant and never-ending in the South.  And when the sun seems to melt the passage of time, and willing-to-eat, enthusiastic fish fin the waters of farm ponds with water cooler than the air, it's not uncommon to find me at my favorite local arena several days a week.

Photo by Matt Reilly

    It's this place that continues to teach and reteach me a valuable lesson:  In nature, it seems, the more you get to know a place the more mysterious it becomes.  There's something special about the unknown, which I believe is central to the sport of fishing as we all know it.

    I was in the midst of a particularly productive summer season on the banks of said pond, with a long rod in hand and a popping bug tied like a bad habit to the end of a staunch, level leader.  On many separate occasions I had taken respectable largemouth bass from the surface of the pond, along the heavy lily pad breaks and grass pads, and I was fairly dialed in to the fishery I was targeting.

   Though fish tend to be more willing to break the surface in overcast conditions, it is not a rule on that body of water; but regardless, the heavy-gray morning sky leaking an intermittent drizzle boosted my chances considerably and made for a pleasant fishing atmosphere.

    Fifteen minutes into waving my 8-weight, a gaping mouth intercepted my popping bug's chug-chugging course towards the edge of the pads and closed, spewing an air bubble the size of a softball into the atmosphere in what sounded like an earth-bound meteorite breaking the water's surface.  The fight was on.  The fish made consecutive runs, right, parallel to the weedy edge, then left.  When it's fighting energy was depleted, it sounded and buried itself in a thick subsurface wad of grass.  I edged out into the water, chest-deep, and found the fish's mouth at the end of the leader and lifted.  Another trophy was added to my season's tally.

    It wasn't long after that morning that I returned to my favorite playground.  The ground where I had fought and landed the storied fish of a few days prior was taken by another.  Not a fisherman, but an allusion to one--a sparkle-finished Champion bass boat, anchored in place and devastated.  Paint chipped from the finish, remnants of fishing tackle and days of relaxation and drinking colored the deck, where carpet was shedding from fiberglass.  The seat cushions were dilapidated, the electronics obviously shot, and the steering wheel detached from the console and riding squarely on the deck.  Grass and weeds gripped the craft naturally, as if shipwrecked long ago and left unsalvaged on the banks of a timeless ode to summertime in the south.

    It remained for months, and still does remain motionless and unmolested.  No one seemed to know where the boat had come from or why it was so weathered and beaten.  But somehow it didn't remain a mystery for long, but was accepted shortly as a wild and simple act of nature--of human nature, even.  Though one could raise a fuss about littering and degradation, the boat grew quickly to be seen as a feature of the landscape, a casting platform from which to ply the waters of the pond with greater reach, until the air turns cold and the fish abandon their fondness for surface feeding, and the craft is out of season.  Then, I will not be surprised if it should be gone.□

US FOREST SERVICE PROPOSAL CAUSES STIR

The US Forest Service has issued a proposal to require an expensive and extensive permitting process for anyone poised to photograph or film on federally-designated wilderness areas for “commercial gain,” triggering outcry from professional and amateur photographers, reporters, outdoor writers, and First Amendment supporters in mass.

    According to the controversial proposition, photographs and film, even if shot with a smartphone, would be subject to approval by Forest Service administration, following a detailed application designed to verify the intent of the media.  Upon approval, acquisition of a permit would cost up to $1500.  Those apprehended for violating the act could be hit with a fine of up to $1000.

    Now, before you dismiss this, readers, with a confident “Ah, that will never happen,” let’s take a look at the details.

    The proposal first gained public attention when the governmental agency posted a notice on the Federal Register on September 4 seeking public comment.

    In response to the outcry, the Forest Service has since spoken up to clarify that such an implement would not interfere with reporters or recreational photographers, one with commercial activity.  The regulation, the Forest Service states, has been deemed vital in honoring the 1964 Wilderness Act, which requires that the nearly 110 million acres set aside by Congress as “wilderness area” be preserved in their natural state.

    Moreover, the Forest Service wishes to direct attention to the fact that this measure has been effective since 2010, though with minimal enforcement.

    But even during a period of minimal enforcement, and with the Forest Service claiming to side with reporters and only oppose commercial motors, in 2010, the agency denied a public Idaho television station access to a wilderness area to film student conservation workers, according to the Oregonian.

    This exemplifies governmental overreach to a T.  In what started out as, and may still be viewed as, a beneficial measure in preserving America’s wildernesses, this government agency has slowly slipped a collared leash around the neck of the free reporter.

    Though the application seems to be tailored to evaluate commercial filming projects, requiring others to undergo the process is truly a violation of the First Amendment Freedom of the Press.  There seems to be some confusion about the idea that hampering personal freedoms is synonymous with limiting them.

    For even if this regulation has the intent that is commonly cited, giving the Forest Service—a government agency—the power to determine whether or not an individual or project will be issued a permit and, at that, how much it will cost, opens the door for biased governmental politicking in the media world.  And with smartphone cameras creating a hazy border between recreation and news-gathering, the path becomes laborious and winding.  Beware, the slippery slope.

    Furthermore, it seems to this author that the Forest Service would be doing itself a huge disservice by burgeoning the permitting process and hindering photographers wishing to photograph the beauty of nature in wilderness areas.  If you’ve ever visited a national park or wilderness area, or dream to some day visit one far away from home, chances are your desires were inspired by photography, whether on the cover of a pamphlet, on the internet, or in a magazine or book.  What would happen to growing public interest in the outdoors if this advertising and appreciation of nature was decreased or discouraged through the process being discussed?

    Thankfully, our country’s lawmakers, on both sides of the political spectrum, agree that this proposition is out of bounds. 

    The Washington Post cites U.S. Representative Greg Walden’s (R. – OR) letter to Forest Service Chief Thomas Tidwell:  “It is also very troubling that journalists could be held to different standards at the discretion of the issuing officer depending on the content of their stories and its relevance to wilderness activity.”

    U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D. – OR) also acknowledges the potentially First Amendment-violating rules, saying that the Forest Service should be careful of overstepping, according to the Oregonian.

    As an outdoor communicator, this issue poses a threat to me personally, as it should to anyone that enjoys recreating on our Nation’s public lands—most anyone reading this column.  Though this issue seems to be one that will be shaken down by legislators and the outspoken few, don’t let it earn a foothold.

    In response to the large-scale public protest that erupted with this breaking news, the Forest Service has extended their public comment period to November 3.  Take a stand for your public lands, and write the agency, your local legislator, or both with your opinion on the matter.  Or visit the website for the Federal Register and submit a formal comment.□

Originally published in the Rural Virginian

THE FOREMAN

Every year, around the same time, when the air begins to chill and crispen, and the leaves of silver maples and paper birches are consumed into a red-yellow blaze by the dying embers of summer in the Northeast, a steely character wanders south along the River Clyde into town for the season from his regular residence, Lake Memphremagog.

     His appearance is a phenomenal mystery to the townspeople, apart from lore that it began long before the river was dammed along its course; but the town takes note of his arrival, and succumbs to a feverish restlessness upon it.  He rolls in unannounced, like a shadow--deliberate, like a life-long local.  The habits he keeps are only attempted to be understood by those seeking to make contact with him, if only briefly; and still others simply observe him sulking in his regular hangouts in accepted ignorance.  Such is the alluring nature of salmon.

    He brings with him a posse of thousands from the mother lake to the north.  In years previous, there were others mightier in the River; but after a gluttonous summertime, this year, beautifully adorned with muddy-bronze flanks and dime-sized black spots, he emerged as the strongest in the order, entitling him to first choice in a lie.

    Salmon are a fish like in appearance but unlike in habit to trout, in that a trout’s lie and dining preferences can be entirely predictable, while salmon seem to act completely at random.  That is not to say that salmon are without character, for the opposite is true, particularly in the case of large salmon. 

    The Foreman, as he was called by the townspeople and familiar anglers, chose his lie in the belly of a meadow bridge pool.  The pool was really the tail of a much larger elbow pool, which moved slowly from the head, under the bridge, where a narrow band of current adjacent to relatively-still water cut down through a foot of bedrock and flowed into the limbs of a downed tree sweeping into the current, opposite the approach of most anglers, where he could retreat from danger.  Fifteen feet downstream from the bridge’s center, an orange traffic cone laid, opening upstream—an allusion to past road construction.

     A pillow of sub-surface current rolled on the mouth of the cone, creating a micro-eddy; and that’s where the Foreman held, motionless, save for the occasional subtle turn to take an imperceptible insect tumbling along the streambottom.  His 12-man crew flanked him, all much smaller than he, and would move upstream and higher in the water column to feed when tempted; but their overseer remained immovable.

    All of this was easily observed from the overpassing bridge which, apart from his size, was probably the reason the Foreman was regarded with such prestige.  If the largest in his crew went four pounds, the Foreman went 12.  Yet it was evident that he fed most sparingly and lazily.

    When one ambitious angler positioned himself to take his shot at the talked-about salmon of the traffic cone below the town bridge, the town’s population in full arrived to wish in his favor as if a silent alarm had been wired to each one of their homes.  To get a promising drift, because of the slow surface current and faster sub-surface current running along the streambottom, an angler had to make a long cast upstream with a fly weighted to allow it to drift naturally to the bottom without lodging in the shelf rock on the bottom prematurely.  If this was achieved without snagging the full-figured apple tree on the backcast, then a strong mend had to be placed upstream to prevent drag on the fly, allowing it to sink to the desired depth.

    It was rare this would happen, and when it would, perfection was rewarded by the Foreman simply nosing the fly to the side or allowing it to tumble over his nose without reaction.  After several hours of this—if the angler’s wits lasted that long—the onlookers crowding the bridge would return reluctantly to their homes, and the onlookers’ vigil would be reopened to vehicle traffic.

    To visit the bridge pool after fishing hours was enchanting.  When the water appeared black and the graying sky became peppered with insects hatching from the riffles below the tail of the Foreman’s pool, the town’s residents who perhaps understood the steely veteran best, and were often fishermen themselves, would emerge to take in the scene from the bridge strikingly empty in the pale evening light.  If it was a particularly special evening and the Foreman was in good spirits, the delicate rise-forms dimpling the tail of the bridge pool would erupt with an explosion of water and the august form of the Foreman enjoying the day’s concluding meal.  Such is the nature of salmon.□

Originally published in the Rural Virginian

THE NEXT GREAT ADVENTURE

Life is nothing but a series of adventures; and it’s a good thing too.  I’ve learned over the past several years of my life that it is not without those adventures and the challenges and new situations that they bring that we as people mature.

    When I say “mature,” I’m not referring to that rather forced growing-up kind of development like moving out of the house or getting a job and driving to work every day.  I’m referring to the situational exposure of one’s own individual core, when experiences shed the superficial, globalized, herding-induced shucks we have all called home at one time or another.  When faced with adversity, the things that truly matter to us emerge, and areas of fuzzy thought become lucid as the waters of a mountain stream.

    For that, I’ve set myself a course untraditional, and the subject of both disapproval and hearty encouragement.  In lieu of a first semester at college, I’ve deferred to pursue and focus on my talents, interests, and habits—what I call writing, photography, and the outdoors.  In the coming months, my car treads, boots, wading cleats, and tent pegs will cover ground from Maine to Florida, the Kennebec to the Keys.  Selfish?  Maybe.  Irresponsible?  Not if you can make it work.  I call it reflective and stimulating.

    

    My writings, both essays and news pieces, with occasional allusions to my adventures abroad, will continue to appear in these pages, as I foresee them to for a long time to come.  Whether I am home or not, squirrel season still opens in my home state of Virginia, and I will be reporting.  For those interested, updates on my experiences outside of Virginia, and whatever other media that results, will appear regularly on my blog, www.AdventuresAfield.blogspot.com, and on my more recently-developed website, www.MatthewReillyOutdoors.com.

    Now this is not entirely a personal update (though I’d like to believe that anyone still reading does take interest!).  With my mind in this stage of my life hyper-focused on the issue of college and a degree and future jobs and careers, I’ve come to notice, if only in passing instances in local sporting goods shops or boat ramps, people who have seemingly lost the dogged fervor for the outdoors that they once held.  I don’t pretend to hold the answers, or claim to hold mature insight, and I am by no means attempting to judge, but it seems a shame that so many put passions on hold for the more secure and “realistic” paths that consume their time.  Life is too short not to live a deliberate life striving for dreams and goals and not settling for the average.  Part of my gap semester decision was fear of that trap and moving too quickly into it.

    So if this column is too out of character, I apologize; and I hope that I have not appeared at all big-headed to any.  I will keep it brief and singular.  But I hope that readers will take from this inspiration to find exodus in nature and the sporting life, and that, in doing so, it will cleanse their eyes and soul and help those with the need to slow down and realize what it is that is important to them, be it the outdoors, or something altogether unrelated.  I suppose that is what I write for each and every week.

    I will keep you posted on my findings.  I hope that you will do the same.□

                 

CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF THE WILDERNESS ACT

On September 3, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into effect the Wilderness Act, a federal law that has, since its initiation, preserved more than 100 million acres of primitive land in 44 states and Puerto Rico.  This year, we celebrate 50 years of the Wilderness Act and the bounds in conservation it has made possible.

A classic Saint Mary's waterfall and plunge pool.  Photo by Matt Reilly

    Pooling the vast number of sporting personalities I have grown to know and call friend, I feel I can safely make the generalization that sportsmen and women are of a tastefully simpler breed.  They long for the rustic life of our heritage, when sporting traditions, such as those recounted in the dusty pages of antique outdoor writing bibles that we all own and cherish, held much firmer ground, and were readily and easily enjoyed in the countryside and on the periphery of rural society.

    But today, in the reality that we live in, we learn the definition of development every day.  Now, I am no tree-hugger, but I recognize the age told in my parents’ memories.  They say, there was a time when Charlottesville, Virginia was not a city but a town, when Walmart, Lowes, and Sam’s Club had not yet taken their anarchical perch above Route 29, and Farmer Matheny still tended to his cows behind an endless row of black fence board and the illusion that things might never change.  The Rivanna River coursed like a river blue with snowmelt, untapped by Lake Monticello and the neighboring municipality; and fish finned its waters in untold numbers.

    From those recollections I feel regret, and momentary fear.  What will happen in my lifetime that will erode at the natural landscape?  Will I have somewhere to pursue my solitary sporting passions in relative isolation?

    To escape these stresses I have formed a habit, a fetish even, of chasing after the settings where the noise pollution from highways and roads is overcome by expanses of trees and outspoken Chick-a-dees; where I can walk and walk, fish and hunt, camp without bending to the regulation of private property and baying dogs; and where I can pretend for a day or two that there is nothing else.

    In 1964, when the Wilderness Act was signed, that habit shared by thousands of like-minded Americans was ensured forever.  Its signing established the National Wilderness Preservation System, which works to dub unspoiled lands across the country into eternal protection and public use.

    The nearly 110 million acres the Act has designated “wilderness” over the past 50 years are open for any citizen to enjoy hiking, camping, fishing, hunting, backpacking, swimming, gathering, and more, while prohibiting vehicular traffic and practices like logging and mining.

    Likewise, the 750 American wilderness areas are the source of much daydreaming; for some of the country’s most sought-after destinations have become such because of their primitive state.  Among those are the Boundary Waters Wilderness Area, Bob Marshall Wilderness, Sawtooth Wilderness, Denali Wilderness, and the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, the largest single wilderness tract in the lower 48 at 2,366,757 acres.

    In fact, to think of one of my favorite and most “pristine” settings to explore and fish, the Saint Mary’s River comes to mind first.

    In the early 1900s, the terrain surrounding the Saint Mary’s River was mined extensively and carelessly for iron ore and manganese, polluting the mountains’ lucid waters and seriously endangering the River’s native brook trout.  In 1984 the Wilderness Act facilitated the designation of 9,835 acres surrounding the River as wilderness.  In 1999, conservationists air-lifted and dropped lime into the river bottom, remedying the acidic water quality and bringing back to life the population of native trout. 

    Today, the Saint Mary’s River runs crystalline and aqua blue throughout most of the year, and sports some of the finest trout fishing in the state.

    It is thanks to the Wilderness Act of 50 years that we as sportsmen and women are blessed with such places to explore and cherish.  Join me in saying “Happy Birthday!” to the Wilderness Act, and enjoy one of our many wilderness areas this September.

*Originally published in the Rural Virginian