Nothing this good comes easily

Knee busting, boulder strewn mountain stream-beds remind me that the best things in life don't generally come easily.  This was certainly true yesterday as Bryan and I rock-scrambled from fall, to run, to plunge pool on another Shenandoah thin blue line. Motrin and memories were our reward.

This mature Brookie actually had teeth!

At one point I climbed a boulder and found Bryan sitting on a moss covered slab admiring the river as it glided waterslide-like over a worn rock into an emerald-blue pool where trout finned on the cobble bottom.  He glanced at me at me and said that he'd seen pictures like this in trout magazines.  We agreed that the we didn't need to travel out west to find perfect trout waters -- they're right here in Virginia nestled in the mountains and hollows of our mountains.

Bryan enjoys a perfect moment

The overcast sky and light wind made for a great May day on and in the water.   When we began the air temp was 68 and the water temp was 64.   The water was running at ideal pool and clear as crystal.   

Fish on!

 There were significant hatchs today and the surface of the stream and the marine layer was alive with activity.   It was hard to determine what the trout were eating, but we're talking May brook trout so the better question might is, "what aren't eating?"

Bryan's Pocket Water Rod did the job

 Our 50ish brookies today were caught exclusively on dries; Mr. Rapidan's, parachute adams, yellow humpys and yellow wulffs all produced well. Get out on the stream -- there's no time like tomorrow.

House size boulder guards a deep pool

This brookie took a #14 parachute adams

on a soft moss bed

Bryan plies the pocket water

SNP Treasure

A rock scramble to the next pool

This brookie has a beautiful mature shape

“Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.”Cormac McCarthy