Upstream From Here: BRO

New science hints brook trout populations in Virginia are ready for a rebound

Eastern Brook Trout caught in Shenandoah National Park

Trout Rebound

The Eastern Brook Trout: among certain folks in the South as revered a treasure as Dolly Parton. Walk into any riverside general store from the Allegheny River of southern Pennsylvania to that top little caddy corner of Georgia, and I’d bet you a nickel you’ll find some fellas sipping coffee from a Styrofoam cup, waiting until the stream warms up for the morning hatch. Fly fishers are the last great purists, and if they’re worth their weight in soft hackle, they’ll be chasing brook trout.

You Should Have Been Here When 

My first forays into fly fishing weren’t pretty. I was sliding around mossy rocks in my Chacos, spooking brookies so bad they’d start jumping to the next pool like sockeye salmon, After cursing the river for one single four-inch trout to snag my line, I’d sulk back to the local fly shop to ask what I did wrong this time. In one of those early inquiries, I was comforted, you went on the wrong day, mildly reassuring, because you should have been there 30 years ago.

Read the rest at Blue Ridge Outdoors.