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We set out on this trip to hit a few circled locations, in the southern part of WV, that we have had our eyes set on for some time now. We had researched and talked to people with experience fishing in these areas and we felt prepared. Little did we know the hardships we would encounter.
The first location we arrived at seemed promising. There was bug life and the water was cold and clear. After several hours of hiking and fishing we ended up with nothing.
After a long day of striking out, we decided to pitch camp and recharge. We had checked the weather to see how cold it was going to get and the temps seemed fine. However, we forgot to check the elevation of our camping spot. Let me tell you, we missed and mark and almost froze to death! It took a solid 20 minutes in the truck with the heat on full blast to thaw us out. However, the morning did afford us an amazing sunrise and some great droning opportunities. It was all about silver linings on this trip.
Unwavering in our resolve to push on, we headed to the most questionable waters yet. This particular stretch of water is known by many anglers to hold some of the most burly brown trout in WV. The catch however, is this water also happens to be one of the dirtiest waters, probably in the world. For any experienced angler reading this they know exactly what we are talking about.
We lit into the stream with a feeling of confidence that we would hook into a monster. After hours of wading through dirty water and stripping streamers we had one fish to show for it and he was a small one. The silver lining here is we ended the day by meeting up with Mike Ray and got a few nice rainbows into the net. Not by any means a great day, but all was not lost.