The return of the PCAS
and in case you're wondering, Porte's favorite fish still escapes me
A word of advice.
If you’re a fisherman who is concerned about protecting your reputation as an angler, don’t agree to cast a line with me.
Trust me.
You don’t want to be anywhere near the same body of water. You’ll get skunked, to use a term I’ve learned since attempting to follow in Porte Crayon’s footsteps and take up fly fishing.
I’ll get into my seemingly unique ability to doom my fishing partner’s luck in a moment. First though, today’s newsletter marks the return of the PCAS after a break that lasted several months. During that time, my pal and fellow Marshall University grad, West Virginia Public Broadcasting alum and NPR colleague Dave Mistich and I wrote 60 Days, a newsletter that focused on the regular session of the West Virginia Legislature.
The session has been over for more than a month.
I’m tanned, rested and ready.
Let’s go fishing.
Another programming note before we turn to my impact on fishing partners. You should know that I’m following NPR’s lead and am no longer using Twitter, at least for the time being.
NPR is in a standoff with Twitter over how the platform has labeled the network. You can find more on the dispute here, but I should say that I’m still lurking on Twitter. For now, my account remains active. I’m just not using it.
If you want to interact with me online, I encourage you to do it through this newsletter’s comments section or better yet through “Notes,” Substack’s new Twitter-like service. “Notes” is independent of Substack newsletters, but as a subscriber to the PCAS, you’ll automatically see whatever I post there. You can find “Notes” at substack.com/notes or through the “Notes” tab in the Substack app. I hope to see you there from time to time.
And now — finally — to my seeming influence on other fisherman.
My friend Nic and I go fishing together several times each year. The fact that we never really catch anything has become something of a running joke between us, but it’s not all light-hearted banter. Sometime during each excursion, Nic will mumble to himself, “I just don’t understand it. I used to be a good fisherman.”
Fast forward to last weekend when I met up with my old high school friend Roger in Porte’s Canaan Valley playground.
A few months ago, Roger made the mistake of telling me that he’s a fly fisher, albeit a rusty fly fisher. He acknowledged not having a fly rod to hand in a quite a while, but I still insisted we set a date to get together this spring and he agreed, against his better judgement, I suspect.
Last Friday, we found ourselves fishing alongside my Tucker County friend Gary and his pal Brad. Gary knows the water in the high mountain region of eastern West Virginia. He’s retired now, but he used to work for Trout Unlimited and helped to restore trout habitat in the mountains, including the East Fork of the Greenbrier River.
We drove about an hour over to the East Fork — near Durbin in Pocahontas County —on a cold, wet Friday morning in the mountains. I was looking forward to catching my first brook trout, Porte’s favorite fish. I was confident because Gary said the East Fork is likely the best brookie fishery in the region and my friend Roger, after consulting the fishing forecast on the internet, pronounced that conditions that day were excellent for trout.
Neither of them, however, took me into their calculations.
I’m not sure what it is. I must have some sort of aura that screams “ROOKIE!” Or maybe I just smell bad, a different sort of aura altogether. Thing is, I feel like fish see me coming, turn their noses and dash over to the other side of the stream rather than say hello and engage in a little small talk.
My “energy,” as the kids say, seems to envelop everyone around me. We spent hours on the East Fork and while Brad somehow managed to overcome my negative influence and catch a couple of baby brookies, the rest of us got skunked. The fact is the trees were more interested in the flies I was casting (gotta watch my back swing).
The next day, we stayed closer to Davis, where Roger and I had set up camp at my brother’s place in Canaan Valley. Gary took us out to Red Run, a native brook trout stream that runs swiftly through a deep gorge down Canaan Mountain.
It’s a beautiful place and while the East Fork was gorgeous, Red Run put me more in a Porte frame of mind — with mountain laurel growing wild and unrestrained on its banks and water rushing over and around boulders into deep pools where brook trout were likely lurking, seemingly ripe for the hook.
“THIS looks like Porte,” I told Gary after we scouted the area and he readily agreed. Red Run is Porte’s descriptions of Canaan Valley streams come to life.
Despite the strong Porte vibes, we were skunked again. At one point, I looked around and Gary and Roger had given up. They had put up their fly rods and were simply watching me. Then they started offering advice and encouragement.
“Try to cast to the other side of that boulder,” Roger said.
And when I did, I heard Gary say, “That’s perfect!”
I joked that they were making me feel like a 10-year-old kid, which, in fly fishing years, I guess I am. I fully expected them to give me a participation ribbon.
One day, I’m going back to Red Run. Given its Porte ambience, it’d be nice to snap my losing streak there and catch my first brook trout.
Anyone want to fish with me?
No?
I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t want to fish with me either. Apparently, I smell bad or something.
But if you have any tips, tricks or a good place to go that just screams PORTE CRAYON, let me know in the comments or get in touch with me through Substack Notes.
See you on the radio this weekend.
Near Lobelia
That pretty stream in Greenbrier County reminds me of Watoga Park and Hills Creek Falls which I visited with my family, escaping Charleston's August heat.