Catch Up

I've been doing a lot of fishing lately. I used to go fishing with my Dad quite a bit as a kid, but after I went to college, I just stopped going for whatever reason. In any event, my recent trip to the Rapidan WMA rekindled my interest in the sport.

Also, fishing is a good survival skill to have. This coming up fall and winter I intend to pickup hunting as well. I will bag a freaking rabbit this season! I also intend to go deer hunting for the first time ever. A bit late to start, I'll admit, but starting at 36 is better than never starting at all. My Dad lived in suburban Maryland while I was growing up and my Step Dad never was much of a hunter, so I never was really exposed to it as a kid.

Sugar Hollow Reservoir

In any event, the weekend of May 9th I went fishing at Sugar Hollow Reservoir and the Moorman River. Rainbow and Brook Trout are stocked here every year in addition to the reservoir's native smallmouth bass population. I hear there are crappies and bluegill as well, but I've never seen them.

I got up at 5:30 in the morning and was on the road by 6. I got lost on my way out there (thanks, MapQuest!).

It had been nearly two decades since I'd been to Sugar Hollow. Haha - the last time I was up there was just after high school for a "hike-n-hump" with a girl named Casey. Ahhh, memories! That was a fun but short-lived relationship.

I was on track to be out there by 6:30 AM, but ended up making a wrong turn and arriving in Crozet by 6:45. I stopped by a gas station to see where I went wrong, but no one there (not even the employees) were actually from the area. Great. So I headed back the way I drove in and just happened to luck into an older gentleman checking his mailbox. I pulled over and he was glad to give me directions.

By 7:30 I pulled up to the reservoir just in time to see a guy with a string of six or eight trout loading his car up. I asked what they were biting on and he said "green eggs and bloodworms, but they stopped biting about thirty minutes ago." I thanked him and he was on his way. Thanks again, MapQuest. I would have been right on time...

I fished for a while and then a gent by the name of Aaron pulled up. I picked his brain about the tricks to fishing this reservoir. He suggested eggs, bloodworms, and mealworms after it had rained and lures for when it had been dry for a while. The reason for this, he said, was that during rainstorms, things get swept into the water and so the fish are looking more for live bait. During dry spells I guess the lures work a bit better because the fish aren't expecting to see any live critters floating through the water.

I drove back up along the reservoir a ways and rediscovered the Moormon River upstream from the reservoir. It's a pretty little river... more of a big stream, really. It looked like good trout waters. I dipped my hand in - chilly. Perfect. Aaron said they stocked these waters every two or three weeks. During the height of the summer the waters get too warm for the trout and they retreat to the depths of the reservoir. The trouts eggs don't live in the reservoir. I don't know if that's because of predation or inhospitable circumstances or both.

Anyway, I didn't catch anything. I chalked this trip up to a learning expedition.

• Get up there early (don't trust MapQuest if you can help it!)
• Live bait after a storm, lures during a dry spell.
• Wyant Country Store has all the bait you'll need for Sugar Hollow.
• Use smaller hooks if you're after trout - their mouths are much smaller than those of bass

All in all it was a lot of fun. Peaceful, beautiful country out that way. Albemarle County is a huge county and it's easy to think of it as just the Charlottesville area and Route 29 corridor. It's so much more than that. I intend to hit every public lake in Albemarle County over the course of the summer.

Fly Fishing Adventures

I just got a fly rod setup for my birthday. My wife was kind enough to buy it for me. Thanks, hon! Last Saturday morning I decided to try my hand at fly casting at my parents' pond in Barboursville before embarrassing myself in public.

I had watched a ton of tutorials on YouTube over the past few weeks while waiting for my rod (it was on backorder), so I had a basic idea of what I was doing. I knew it would be a matter of getting the feel for it and after about an hour of casting with no fly on my line, I decided it was time to graduate to some real casting; fly and all.

I attached a dry fly, a black gnat, and looked around the lake. I saw a group of little black bugs buzzing around the water by a bush hanging over the pond. I cast right into the middle of it and bam! My first cast ever with a fly attached and I hooked an eight inch bass!

It was exciting because the fight was different. With most rods you use a combination of the reel and and rod to tire the fish and eventually pull him in. With the fly rod, it's much more about using the rod to tire the fish and drawing in slack with your hand, keeping the line pinched against the rod with your index finger. It's a more personal, manual fight.

Seeing the actual strike didn't hurt, either! All other fishing I had ever done, the strike happened below the surface - you didn't get to actually see it. Very cool. I think I'm hooked. Okay - I just realized that was a terrible pun. It was unintentional.

Ragged Mountain Reservoir

Sunday morning I got up bright and early and went fishing at the Ragged Mountain Reservoir. It's only about 6 or 8 miles from my house.

It's amazing how on the south side of Charlottesville when you leave town you're immediately in BFE. Like the instant you clear the city limits - bam! - Outer Mongolia. It's one of the many things I love about my hometown. Many, many of the perks of a big city with almost none of the drawbacks.

In any event, I got clear of the house by 6 AM and drove out to the reservoir. Just gorgeous. You drive a couple of miles back into a valley and up a ridgeline and then you come to a small parking lot near an old abandoned house. The place looks completely habitable... I think maybe it was once the house for the reservoir attendant. It's probably still maintained by the City and County governments (the reservoir being a joint venture between the two).

I only ran into one group of two guys the whole time I was up there. It was quiet and the lake had a mist rising off of it. Geese and frogs were about the only creatures that broke the near-silence.

The other fishermen were on a john boat with an electric motor, so even they were quiet. There are no combustion motors allowed on the lake. This is probably a good thing, since the Ragged Mountain Reservoir provides a large portion the drinking water in the Charlottesville/Albemarle area. I don't much like the taste of motor oil in my water. Meh, call me a snob, I guess.

It started raining about half an hour after I arrived, but it didn't matter much. The Natural Area around the reservoir is completely undeveloped, so the trees come right up to the shoreline. Side-casting, anyone? The rain came down, but very little fell on me under the trees. I found a really nice spot and settled in.

There was a relatively flat rock next to the shore that I sat on. I set my line with a bobber and some powerbait, cast in, and commenced to relax. After enjoying the sounds of nature for a good thirty minutes I put on my iPod. Pink Floyd's Meddle was on tap - the chillest of the chill. When I need to relax, that album is the Alpha and the Omega.

If anyone wants to hear this album, here's a link: Pink Floyd's Meddle. You'll need the Rhapsody Player - no big deal if you have high speed.

I was looking out over the lake, mist rising, a light rain falling, and geese calling in the pale early morning light and I just felt so calm. The Pink Floyd, playing softly in one ear, added an extra touch of peace. I could have dozed off right there.

As tempting an idea as that was, I decided to switch out to a lure so I'd have to be a bit more active. I think my second cast with the lure I hooked into something. It was a fighter, that was for sure. My cheap-ass Zebco 33 was bent way down and even when I cranked the reel, the line still went out when the fish wanted to run.

I thought I had something huge. I was pretty excited. It took about five minutes to reel him in. I'd pull and crank for a bit and then let him run. Pull and crank, let him run. When I pulled him in I was a bit disappointed with the seven inch or so bluegill all that work had yielded. Disappointed, but with a respect for this tough little bugger. I freed him from the hook and returned him to the water.

I didn't catch anything else, but that was hardly the point. I left the reservoir feeling relaxed and calm.