Currently browsing… virginia

• Voices from the river Featured

  Summer is for sun(fish)

  

  Before trout came bluegills.Not in a biological evolutionary way, but for me in a fly fishing evolutionary way.I grew up in trout country in Southern Oregon but wasn’t a fly angler. My trout rod was a little Eagle Claw ultralight spinning rig, my tackle box full of Pautzke Balls O’ Fire Salmon eggs, Velveeta cheese,…

• Conservation From the field

  TU and Forest Service team up to reconnect trout stream in Virgina

  

  By Dylan Cooper   An important historical site in Virginia got a long-awaited face-lift after more than 70 years of being hampered by the presence of man-made barriers to aquatic organism passage.    Bob Downey Branch, a Class III wild trout water, is once again open for trout thanks to efforts by Trout Unlimited and the George Washington…

• Voices from the river Featured

  Finding a balance between teaching and fishing

  

  By Mark Taylor Beck had just made a nice cast, his lure landing in a shady spot next to the James River’s bank, when he did something you don’t expect from a 15-year-old. He admitted he was clueless “When I go to a store and look at all the fishing lures, I have no idea…

• Voices from the river Featured

  Virginia Trout Slam a surprising, and fun, challenge

  

  The cast was too good. The drift was too good. There was no way this was not going to work. And it did. A trout dimpled the surface as it slurped in the little olive Stimulator. It wasn’t a big trout, but I played it carefully in the fading light of a sultry Virginia May…

• Voices from the river

  Long-awaited raft a fishing game-changer

  

  By Mark Taylor As we made our way through the final riffle, I dug the oars into the cool, green waters of Virginia’s Jackson River and aimed the stern toward the boat ramp. “Have I told you that I love this thing?” I said to my fishing partner, Sam Dean. My memory isn’t as good…

• Conservation

  Beer boost: Team effort improves habitat on Virginia’s Beaver Creek

  

  By Mark Taylor  A team approach is helping improve trout habitat on a popular fishing stream near Harrisonburg, Va.  Trout Unlimited’s national staff partnered with the local TU chapter and a property owner to improve a section of Beaver Creek, a spring-fed stream that runs through private land but that is open to public fishing through a unique cooperative program.  The…

• Voices from the river Featured

  It’s OK to have a few secret spots

  

  [et_pb_section admin_label="section"] [et_pb_row admin_label="row"] [et_pb_column type="4_4"][et_pb_text admin_label="Text"] Rabid protection of secret spots can be tricky. I think back to one I protected with a vigor that bordered on irrational paranoia.  It was a small stream not far from Roanoke, Va., and I fished it for the first time not long after I moved to the…