Best morning ever

It isn’t often that the fishing and experience is so good that I stop early. Today was one of the first I can remember.

I started right after sunrise on my favorite native brook trout and wild rainbow trout stream in SWVA. Today’s weapon of choice was my Orvis Helios 4wt 8’6” with a Lamson Remix reel. I was playing with a new 5’ leader from Lively Legz Flyfishing out in PA and it was really, really good.

This rod is deadly accurate and still a ton of fun even on smaller wild trout. The reel works flawlessly (not that I ever needed the drag) and the SA Amplitude infinity line was great.

The fishing was so good and I was so in the zone that I didn’t lose a single fly in 4 hours.

This was a really nice native brook trout, about 8 inches and quite large for this stream/creek. I am always in awe when I am blessed to catch one of these in my beloved mountains.

I caught some nice wild rainbows as well.

I fished dry dropper the whole session and only used two different nymphs and the same Neversink Foam Caddis for all 4 hours.

Most of the action was sub-surface, but the trout were slashing at the dry all morning long with little success. I did get a couple on top, but the rest (and there were a lot of them) were on the nymph.

What made the session the best ever was an incredible encounter on one beautiful run and pool. On the left side of the creek a mother and 3 children came down to the bank to watch the stream. I said ‘Hi’ and thought to myself that it would be really cool if I could catch a native brookie while they were watching and then share it with the young kids.

The next moment a beautiful brookie hit my nymph, the kids squealed in excitement and after I landed it in my net I asked if they wanted to take a closer look. Walked over to their side of the stream with the fish in the water in the net and then explained to them about how it was a native fish and had been here since the Ice age.

When the mom said ‘Thank You’ to me for creating that experience for her and the kids, I was about a thousand feet tall and so, so, thankful it all worked out.

I fished a little bit after that but it was just so cool I had to leave on that note.

Have you ever had an experience like that? If not, I hope you get to.

All the best,

Mike