Welcome back to The Porte Crayon Applejack Society — coming to you from Porte’s hometown of Martinsburg, WV, where the goose family that’s moved in around the bend from my house is getting bold.
Mama Goose and Papa Goose and their little goslings are busy bellying up to the bird feeder bar that a neighbor has set up in the front yard — meaning Ornery Dog Jasper and I have to watch our step when we’re out for our daily constitutional. There’s a lot of goosey poop in the road.
I usually make sure I have plenty of beefy dog treats on me when we go for a walk. The prospect of one is usually enough to distract ODJ. Otherwise, he’d either be dining on goose shit or rolling around in it.
Remember when I name checked Maryland’s Savage River as my next fly-fishing destination?
It didn’t work out.
Almost as soon as I sent out that edition of the PCAS, my friend Mike — from our dorm days at Marshall University — got in touch. Mike is a fly fisher and we’d been trading messages for some time about getting together so he could show me a thing or two. Before I knew it, we made plans to meet up at his place near what he jokes are the tri-cities of Pocahontas County — Durbin, Frank and Bartow. Actually, Mike married into his cabin in the country. His wife’s family has been on the land since at least the Civil War.
The last time I saw Mike, he was showing his kids around Washington, D.C. He got in touch, and I gave them a tour of NPR’s headquarters several years ago, well before the pandemic got going. Before that, it had been since the mid to late ‘80s, a time in our lives when we were trying to scrap up enough cabbage to walk across the street from the dorm to buy a 12-pack of piss-poor beer at the 7-11 and a couple of microwave burritos. I can’t believe we used to eat those things. My stomach is churning just thinking about them.
My tastes have evolved since then and I feel like I’ve changed in other ways, too. I’m not that ‘80s guy anymore. At least, I don’t have the stomach for it, and I suspect Mike doesn’t either — which is why I was a little worried that the passage of time would mean we wouldn’t have much to talk about. Our lives have taken different paths since we were thrown together as students at MU.
That may have been some 35 plus years ago, but it might as well have been just yesterday. When Mike and I met up for lunch at the Bob Evans in Elkins, we happily picked up where we left off over coffee and a meal.
Chalk it up to the prospect of fly fishing.
When we finished eating and paid the bill, I followed Mike back to his cabin near Durbin where he let me try out a couple of his fly rods before we consulted a map and decided to fish the East Fork of Greenbrier River.
Remember the East Fork?
That’s where I went fishing early last month with my old high school pal Roger and PCAS founding member Gary and his friend Brad. Although Brad caught a couple of tiny brook trout there, the rest of us were skunked. But I was sort of keen to fish the East Fork again because Gary, the former Trout Unlimited guy in the high mountain region, proclaimed it “probably the best brook trout stream in the state right now.” Plus, it’s fairly close to Mike’s cabin and it seemed like a good option as it was getting late in the day.
We ended up fishing a spot that I had declined to fish the last time I was there because I was tired and cold and couldn’t face struggling back into my chest waders even when Gary pointed out a fallen tree downstream and said, “that’s good structure.”
I should have listened because that spot — where the tree came down along the bank to create a pool of calm water amid the downstream rush to form southeastern West Virginia’s Greenbrier River — is exactly where I hooked my first brook trout.
Mike appears to be sorting out his line in the above pic. Notice the downed tree off to the left? That’s where my brook trout was lurking.
I don’t remember the sequence of events, but during our initial pass — when I took that pic— I think Mike reeled in one of the two palm-sized brookies he caught that evening. I might be mistaken about that, but in any case, the spot didn’t seem very productive otherwise, so we worked our way downstream a bit before coming back to cast our lines into that hole again.
THAT’S when my brookie hit.
I now know why people keep fly fishing amid the seeming futility of it. There’s nothing more exciting than watching a fish break the surface to bite down on your fly. My memory of the moment is fuzzy, but I must have let out a yelp when I saw it come up, take my hook and splash around on the end of my line.
I froze when it happened.
It was sudden and then I remembered that it might help to reel it in. In the meantime, Mike waded over to my side and netted that fish — my first brook trout.
It was a quite a moment and a pretty nice brookie, if you ask me. Mike guesstimated it at about seven inches.
I took some time to admire that fish with its distinctive red spots along its olive-green flanks. Then I snapped the pic that tops this week’s newsletter before working the hook out of the side of its mouth and gently placing it back in the water.
A brookie for a rookie.
That’s what my old friend and former public broadcasting colleague Cecelia quipped when I posted that pic on Facebook. Seemed like a good headline for this week so I stole it from her. I don’t think she’ll mind. After all, she’s forgiven me for a lot over the years. At least, I think she has. One more transgression isn’t going to hurt.
The next day, Mike and I spent some time fishing the Shavers Fork, one of the Five Forks of Cheat and a Porte Crayon stream if there ever was one.
For now, though, I’ve got errands to run so I’ll save that for next time.
See you on the radio this weekend.
It is possible to have a fish, um, stuffed? mounted? This might be the perfect fish to preserve for posterity and place on the wall in your studio? living room? And wait for the awe and admiration ...
Congratulations on the catch! Inspiring me to head to the water as soon as possible!