# bland county Va



## WISH IT WAS YOU (Jul 25, 2006)

does anyone know of any good trout streams out in the blue ridge mountain range. im heading out there for work for a few weeks and would love to catch some native brooks/browns or /bows any information would be greatly appreciated!!


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## zimmerj (Oct 17, 2014)

Check this out.

http://flybumoutdoors.com/2014/09/20/wolf-creek-bland-county/


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## TheCream (Mar 19, 2009)

I'm not familiar with VA but I fish WV a decent amount. My best advice to you, which is probably not exactly what you want, is to pick up a good map of the area (or study one online like Google Maps) and explore. That's how I got on some good trout streams in WV. Sure, sometimes you swing and miss or don't catch much, but to me that's part of the unknown and the adventure of it. One of the most sure fire ways to get on good small stream trout fishing is to locate a larger stream in the area you will be fishing that holds trout. Then, pick some tribs that dump into that larger stream and hike/fish them. If you do this, don't get discouraged by lots of water down low that might not be ideal for holding a lot of trout. I learned this through experience in WV. There have been streams where the first 300 yards might be "iffy" water that I don't catch fish in. Then, farther upstream, I start finding plunge pools and some deeper water loaded with quality small stream trout. 

I know if you're limited on time with a work trip you might want to know a sure thing so you spend your time the best you can, but if it were me, I'd find an area on the map with several small streams close by and explore the heck out of them. Good luck!


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## grant778 (Nov 22, 2014)

Purple streams are recorded wild trout streams.

http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/fishing/trout/area-maps/map4.pdf

here is the rest of virginia if you're interested

http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/fishing/trout/area-maps/


From my understanding, in virginia you don't need a trout stamp when fishing the wild trout streams, though you do for fishing any stream stocked with trout. You will need a national forest permit if you intend to fish in the washington and jefferson national forest (its only 4 bucks). The real kicker though is if you want to fish in a stream that is stocked with trout (even if a lot of the fish are wild as well), you have to get the trout stamp which is forty something dollars. Virginia just has too many licenses and permits for me to keep track of, so I would suggest North Carolina if you can make the extra 3 or so hour drive down into the smokies some time. If you don't want to drive that long, there are 4 or 5 wild trout and 1 stocked trout stream in a state park in northern NC called stone mountain state park, its I think around an hour south of the NC/Virginia border, so probably like 2-2.5 hours from bland county. The south fork holston river might be a good river to fish once or twice while your in virginia, but again, about a 2 hour drive.


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## WISH IT WAS YOU (Jul 25, 2006)

thanks for the info i was looking at wolf creek it seems like one of the better stocked streams i can find info on. and the cream thats kind of what my idea is going to be try and find a trib of stocked streams iv fished a trib of the pound river in Va this summer in august and had a ball on browns ranging from 9-16inchs. first time fishing what i consider a real trout streams and being successful with the fly. i will report back of my findings im headed out monday and should be out there for the rest of the month


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## WISH IT WAS YOU (Jul 25, 2006)

grant was looking at the licenses requirements and it can turn in to a pretty penny really quick with the stamps thats one of my main reasons for wanting to fish unstacked unstacked unstacked unstocked and i would love to visit the smokeys but being out there for work im limited to driving a hr hr half from our motel in bland just went out and grabbed some nymphs as i believe thats how ill be doing lot of my fishing


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## WISH IT WAS YOU (Jul 25, 2006)

Well Im out here I sucked it up and baught my trout stamp as well I'm staying two exits from wolf Creek and it looks like a great river but right now we have a lot of ice flow and a whole lotta snow coming this weekend gonna have to wait and see if I'm able to get on the river depending on flow open water and travel conditions will keep posted


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## WISH IT WAS YOU (Jul 25, 2006)

will post a report as well as some other photos in next couple days hopefull more fish


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## kayaker189 (Feb 20, 2014)

Oh hell yeah bro nice job.


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## WISH IT WAS YOU (Jul 25, 2006)

sorry in advance if the report is scattered.

well guys while being snowed in here over the past weekend i did a lot of research about trout streams within my driving limits and while looking around and found a cool report about this creek called the south fork holsten river its in marion Va it sits on a state hatchery and is a managed by trout unlimited
there was two sections of this stream i have fished so far split by a small waterfall everything up from the water fall is unstocked wild fish and below gets a few left over brood stock browns and rainbows and a few left over first year rainbows but majority of the fish in these sections i was told by one of the staff of the hatchery are wild fish.
so the first day i fished got to the stream we wanted to check up stream worked up the stream from the dam and saw a few fish right off the bat but could get them to bat a eye couple 8-12 inch trout mixed in with some red horse suckers the water was crystal clear and we are inexperienced with fly fishing for wild trout in such conditions it after swinging nymphs at them for 20 mins it became obvious we didn't know how to get these fish to take our offerings so we moved on hitting every hole two miles up stream we kicked some fish up while moving around but to be honest we were so excited to be in such an area that each hole we fished we rushed in on spooking fish seeing another hole up stream that me and a co worker just couldn't sit still and work one hole we just kept rushing to the next like children in a play ground. so it really became a scouting mission up stream a hour before dark we came to a fork in the stream and were gonna meet on the other side. least to say that was a bad idea. we ended up lost between a long island of rotodendrom witch became a huge sound proof wall between us making it impossible to find each other by the time it was dark. it became a total disaster with both of us thinking the worst had happened to one another no cell service being in the middle of a area we didn't know. we both ended up following our stream back to the fork we split at missing each other several times. after a couple hrs of screaming for each other and going back and forth we ended up meeting back at the truck both drenched from slipping and falling around and both mad at one another for getting lost. we were lucky nothing did happen because we were unprepared it was a really good lesson of why taking proper precautions is so important. but on the bright side we did have a blast just attempting to fool these smart fish and hiking through the woods before getting lost.

so we ended up getting done with work early the next day and headed back out to the south fork we ended up fishing our way down stream from the dam and talked to a guy walking his dog from the hatchery and he pointed us in the right direction of a couple really nice holes we ended up finding a large pod of fish under a small walk bridge but still was unprepared with our offerings but with a little luck my buddy put a wolly bugger on a perfect drift into the hole and slammed a 15 inch brown it had such awesome color compared to anything i had ever caught our of clear creek in Ohio i mean it was awesome i ended up stumbling on to some luck my self a little later on with a larger wolly bugger on the same drift getting a nice 15 inch rainbow now i dont know 100% uf these fish were wild or not but it didn't really matter to me i was hooked the fight was amazing i mean i got the fever haha but. as it started getting dark we called it and headed back to our hotel.

the next day after work we headed to a local fly shop called Virginia Creeper creek 20 mins past marion
what a awesome store and great group of guys that run the shop. they gave us all kinds of pointers and tips. truly a great bunch of guys but we grabbed some small egg patterns/ black stonefly nymphs/ san juan worms and some wolly buggers and after picking their brain felt confident with my gear.

we started at the dam and headed back down stream both hooking up with two tiny rainbows that we both agreed had to be wild and ud never think someone would be so excited over 7 inch fish it was just a feeling like no other being able to handle these fish. so we continued down stream and went back to our small little bridge. i tired on a small egg pattern and four or five drifts in got slammed by a 18inch brown got the whole thing on film the fight lasted for about five solid minutes. with the fish making runs at a log jam giving me several scares but ended up landing a fish of a life time for me. my buddy ended up catching a nice 13inch bow then hooked a super fat stubby 17inch brown that hammered a san juan pink worm. we ended up catching a few more 12-14inch bows and browns before our light ran out. it will be a evening that i will remember for a long time. i forgot to mention this is a artificial only section of stream and all fish must be released so all these fish went to fight another day.
we ended up going back again yesterday and fished alittle above the dam saw a small stonefly hatch happen and fish were rising right in the slack water of rifles so we pitched several dry flys out and had one small guy blow up on a dry but didn't get hooked and after 15 mins of fish hitting the top the fish stopped rising and probably were spooked so we headed down stream and fished a couple different holes my buddy landed a nice bow and brown both running about 14inchs and i took a swim and filled my hip waders and pretty much called it a day after. ill be out here for another week or so so ill keep reporting if we get on some more fish gonna try some new streams here in the next couple days.


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## Trout-waters (Jul 15, 2014)

Great report! Sounds like you had a blast. Thank you for sharing. It's tough Fishing me waters. But you had great success! 

Tight Lines
Derek K


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