# Looking for a relaxing time in WV...



## TheCream (Mar 19, 2009)

...instead I found the following:

-same nasty hot/humid weather, head index in the triple digits
-stuck behind a wide load in the mountains, 15MPH for miles
-caught in a nasty storm Friday, nearly struck by lightning
-low flows, even with the rain
-spooky fish
-caught nothing but small (really small in some cases) fish
-flash flood warning on my final day cancelled the final day

And the kicker...I still had fun! Here's a short clip of the storm I was caught in Friday, taken with my little waterproof camera:






Traffic:










And some of the fish:














































True trophy wild rainbow:





























Immediately after the storm on Friday and early Saturday I could get away with larger flies. A #14 yellow stimulator got a few fish, #14 black caddis picked up a few, but after that it was go small time. #16 Klinkhammer-style dries did well, productive versions were pheasant tail and what I call the Royal Klinkhammer with a peacock and red floss body. I also caught a lot of fish on a #22 hi-vis Griffith's Gnat and some on a #18 Royal Wulff, and the fallfish (like a big chub) near camp could be had nearly every drift on a #14 pheasant tail nymph. I used 7X and 8X tippet most of the weekend with the small flies, but was able to go 5X when the water was cloudy after the rain. It's a lot easier to get a fly out of a tree on 5X!


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## steelheader007 (Apr 8, 2004)

Flash flood in a ditch is no fun!.. glad your ok...lol..


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## Clayton (Oct 7, 2008)

5x? FIVE X?! 


18 lb


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## KWaller (Oct 3, 2010)

Where in WV? 

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## TheCream (Mar 19, 2009)

KWaller said:


> Where in WV?
> 
> Outdoor Hub mobile, the outdoor information engine


It's highly taboo to give up information on native WV brookie streams! All I will say is that I was fishing in the eastern portion of the Monongahela National Forest.


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## Steelhead Fever (Dec 31, 2009)

that looks like some fun! the storm had to be really cool to experience...it had to be pretty surreal


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## DontForgetTheDrainPlug (Mar 3, 2010)

I've never fished for trout or actually ever even seen a live one....but after seeing those fish I'm ready to start. Those fish may be very small but man are they beautiful !!! 

What kind of trout are those? I'm assuming there are other kinds in the pics besides the rainbow you mentioned.

Great pics too !


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## TheCream (Mar 19, 2009)

The trout with the yellow and purple spots and the bright fins with the white borders are brook trout, the rest are rainbows. There are brown trout in WV, too, but not really in the area where I tend to fish the most.


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## KWaller (Oct 3, 2010)

TheCream said:


> It's highly taboo to give up information on native WV brookie streams! All I will say is that I was fishing in the eastern portion of the Monongahela National Forest.



I was just wondering because I was recently there and fished the gauley but didn't do any good.


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## TheCream (Mar 19, 2009)

KWaller said:


> I was just wondering because I was recently there and fished the gauley but didn't do any good.
> 
> 
> Outdoor Hub mobile, the outdoor information engine


I never much cared for fishing the bigger streams like the Gauley. I know it gets stocked, but the stocker streams I tend to avoid and go fish the smaller streams, instead. The majority of the large stocker streams in WV will get pretty warm in the summer and I'm not sure how good their holdover rate is on trout stocked in the spring surviving the heat. The stocked streams tend to get a lot more foot traffic, too, and I'm not a big fan of fishing in a crowd. Typically what I am looking for are large tributaries of those stocker streams, and those larger tribs usually have smaller tribs with surprisingly high numbers of fish. It takes a lot of experimentation and guess work to find good streams, but folks who know the good ones will not typically tell everyone who asks. I stick to the Monongahela National Forest land and the number of streams in it is staggering. My normal game plan on a weekend trip is to locate a camping area near a cluster of streams that I suspect hold fish, and go give it shot! I know it seems like a shot in the dark way of fishing, but the unknown adds something to it for me. And striking out is not that common, in my experience. Some streams fish better than others, but I typically catch trout at every stop. Just don't expect them to be monsters, unless you find a good wild brown trout stream, that can hold fish into the mid-20" range.


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