# Not Cheated or Dry but was a close Shave down home! - Now with photos



## Sonder (May 9, 2020)

Well hello folks I finally made the trip to fish the Cheat and Shavers Fork down Home

The ride was beautiful enjoy the photos on my blog because I am having major issues trying to post photos on here for some odd really strange reason that I have yet to figure out
I would choose to fish high up on the Cheat, but not the Cheat proper. I would fish on the Dry Fork. The is a beautiful river. The freestones waters cascaded over the smooth extremely slick small boulders, cobbles, and rocks with mother natures instructions. I did notice a lot of the typical bug hatch activity and the rock clinging nymphs were beautiful to witness. I did find a golden stone fly and that means to me that shes in good health. She was extremely low flowing at 100 Cf/s and I knew she was extremely low, but if your gonna learn a river you need to find out for your self what shes like and when. This is how you become a better angler because my version of prime is not the same as yours. I have carbide studs on my wading boots. This comes from several years of steel-head and salmon fishing alone and not taking chances when it comes to wading. The waters were crystal clear, but the holes that were 18” of better deep held a tannin color to them. I would be half paying attention swinging my partridge wet fly and missed a nice strike in a riffle! I said thank you and headed back to deer camp. I was not hunting.

My uncle invited me to deer camp “its a cabin that he and others have used for 53 years”. The cabin is nestled in a deep saddle of a mountain. There are bears, deer, red squrriles, and lots of trash bandits. The cabin is I would imagine 100 years old. Its beautiful and I am very fortunate to be able to stay there when I come down.

I would get to catch my second fish in West Virginia with my uncle who 43 years ago helped me hook my first fish in West Virginia. We would fish the Cheat around the usual haunts. She was running 275 Cf/s and while my Uncle would say its low I was thinking for fly fishing this is prime. He used his light spinning rod with inline spinners. He liked copper and it did not have a bare hook lol of all things it was tied with a wolly worm on the hook! I chuckled and he said whats so funny I said there is a fly pattern on your spinner! He said so but knew I was just bustin his chops. He would out fish me and it did not matter. I went from shallow diving streamers to dredging streamers. I got tired of not covering the water seams and water column like I wanted to.

I switched over to my skagit set up. I brought my switch rod and with my 375 grain skagit head and a 7 foot section of T-8 I began to cover the river better. I put a photo of the bait pattern I used. My Uncle watched me cast over and over. He was amused of all the work I was doing. Then patience paid off a lil scrappy 10” Bronzeback would grace me with his strike. I landed the lil feller and said thank you and put him back into the tannin brown depths. The Cheat right now looks like a Michigan River with all its tannin. Uncle said he has never seen it like that, but again I have never seen smallmouth caught in water that was almost 40 degrees.

We would retire back to camp and he would dawn his cooking hat and we would relax.

I woke up at 0400 on Sunday to head to Shavers Fork. On my way there close to Elkins I saw a BBBAB aka Boo Boo Big A$$ Bear. The black bear was on the north bound lanes headed south like me but he was facing traffic. He had done this before and so he could see the cars coming before they would see him. I don't know how large he was but to me he was close to the length of my drivers door and my passenger door on the left side of the my Subaru Legacy. I rolled into the Catch and Release Area of Shavers Fork. Now I knew that she would be low extremely low, but I wanted to give her a look. She was flowing at 55 Cf/s boy o boy did she look it. I do not sight fish, but nor did I see fish rising. The winds that were blowing most definitely handicapped the hatches. I fished wet fly's in riffles. I used my bobbers and nymphs where I could. Heck I even went as far as to put on a floating fly with an annoying post as a bobber with a small midge like pupae and had not results. The only results I had was a freak accident with wild brookies. I dapped flies in these small pools on the opposite side of the river surrounded by mountain laurel. Not my thing but it was a total shock and I let them lil fellers go as fast as I could to not injure them any further.


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## rickerd (Jul 16, 2008)

Nice report, thank you for sharing.
Rickerd


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## Sonder (May 9, 2020)

The Dry Fork






































The Cheat


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## Sonder (May 9, 2020)

Cheat II

















Shavers Fork


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## Sonder (May 9, 2020)

Deer Camp


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## Sonder (May 9, 2020)




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