Note to reader: I wrote this at the tail end of last summer, then promptly forgot about it in my attempts to keep up with the insanity of the world. So hopefully this gives you a little taste of summer at the tail end of the winter season.

Also make sure to call your senators this week and let them know your opinions on protecting the Boundary Waters. It is yet again threatened by a foreign-owned copper mine being opened on its borders. I’ve told mine that this isn’t the right place for it. Not when so much is at stake. If you want to learn more about this issue, here are two good resources: BHA Take Action Webpage and TU’s report on the potential mining impacts of the proposed methods threatening the largest wilderness area in the lower 48.

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Summers are getting hotter. And the trout waters along with them. It’s becoming harder and hard to find a spot where summertime fishing for trout is ethical if you don’t have a bottom release tailwater hanging about in your backyard (I do miss thee, Swift River).

Not all of us have the luxury of the New England summer temps and cold streams. Those of us further south have to rely on spring-fed creeks for our summer time fix. If we don’t have those, we either find some bass hidden in the frog water or forgo the fix entirely. The latter isn’t an option, and the former is oft employed just to stave off the madness. Sometimes though you find gold. And by gold I mean cold.

Hidden in some rolling hills on the footsteps of the Blue Ridge sits a small stretch of water called Buffalo Creek. It’s a gorgeous little stretch of skinny water. It is a private stretch that has been allowed public access with appropriate special (but free) permit. It is home to some native brookies and has been touted to hold large wild browns if you know where to look. Unlike other stocked areas (oh yeah, they jam rainbows in here too), this special regulation section also limits the catch to only two fish over 16”. And per signage it is supposed to be single hook only with no live bait allowed. But even more importantly it stayed cold through a day that hit 95°F by noon.

It’s not a short drive from where I live, but the need was great and the location was one of four locations I knew of within a two-hour drive that was likely to be ethical fishing given the summer heat. Having fished two of those locations already (read here and here), I went for one of the unknowns.

As I got closer to the public stretch, I craned my neck to look over the edge of the bridges I passed to get a sense of the place. But the lead up did not do the spot justice. I passed the main put-in where there was a few cars already and made a chance decision to stop and try at the (not “a” but “the”) pullout along that stretch of road.

I armed myself with my favorite little rod for close-in work: an inexpensive old Cabela’s CGR 2-wt. with an Orvis Battenkill click pawl reel. One of the best rods ever made in my opinion. Cheap, almost indestructible, and casts remarkably well. The creek never exceeded 30-ft. wide and was often 10 or less. Lots of overhanging brush and trees made the little rod a necessity for keeping sane. Even so, I still lost more flies and leaders than I care to admit.

I couldn’t find any sign of insect activity beyond some big damsels and beetles and a few inchworms on the bankside grass. So I did what any sane fisherperson would do and tie on the biggest, Chernobylist-hopper I could cast with my rod (which was still not that big) and proceeded to flog the water with it. This as you could imagine was as unsuccessful as expected right up until I caught a chublike minnow with more ambition than sense. He was the chubby Chernobyl-consuming chub (I have no idea if it was actually a chub or not).

I soon lost that fly to the tries on a lackadaisical backcast. So moved to a Stimulator and recovered an even more ambitious minnow. I was doing pretty good for species at that point, but there were no trout to be seen. Even after teasing some various topwater patterns through what looked like some good pocket water.

I stopped for a drink of water and sat and watched the stream bed. Snails, minnows, sculpin, and crayfish. So I switched tack and put on a Moto’s Minnow in white and brown. This unassuming little (well, not that little relatively speaking, but little for a “streamer”) has been an absolute confidence fly for me. And a perfect generic pattern that could be sculpin, crayfish, or minnow all at once depending on how you fished it.

I found the next little stretch to explore and let my fly drift down under an unassuming overhang of vegetation when my line started zipped off down stream. I was a little slow on the reaction time but the fish gods smiled upon me and I was able to recover and keep the tension on for a great fight and landed a pretty 12″-ish inch bow.

I tried to see if there was another one hidden in that seam, but didn’t find one so I investigated as I couldn’t believe that fish had come out of that spot. To my surprise, the overhang hid a good three- to five-foot deep trench that wasn’t much wider than a foot. And the rest of that part of the river wasn’t deeper than eight inches at best.

This had my spirits and adrenaline up. And I rushed from deep-looking hole to overhand to undercut tree root ball. Covering lots of ground and skipping what would have normally been pretty fishy-looking waters for these paid off. I dragged that big piece of food in front of these hidey holes and plucked out some gorgeous rainbows. And from there I felt like I had figured out the puzzle.

I eventually stumble upon an amazing run. Hidden deep along the public stretch but likely seldom accessed due to its distance from any of the put-in spots. It reminded me of some of the amazing spots in the Chesterfield Gorge (where I also had great success with a Moto’s Minnow). I tried the same tactic: I slowly dangled that fly through that water, letting in swing like a wet fly, sometimes taking in slack to raise it and sometimes letting it drop down.

I missed several taps, but eventually, the best fish of the day came tearing out of the darkest part of the hole and hit my fly like a truck on the I-90. This fish gave me several long tearing runs that culminated in a full body exit jump or two before landing it. I didn’t have my measure tape with me but it was as long as the opening of my net. About 14” or so. Not a huge fish but certainly a big one in that creek.

I worked my way back upstream and hit some pockets with a Griffith’s Gnat. Only to be rewarded with both a small little parr of a brookie and another minnow species (likely a black dace) on the walk out. I finished the outing with a beer and BBQ at a brewery not too far down the way. Not a terrible way to spend a day out in celebration of another revolution round the sun.

I never did see one of the larger browns so mentioned above. But I wasn’t too fussed given how good my fishing was given it was wholly new water and how hot it was. When I got back home, I pulled out my copy of an old VA fly fishing guidebook and read the section dedicated to Buffalo Creek.

“Poaching appears to be an ongoing problem here. After a few hours of throwing everything in our boxes without a single fish, friend Jeff Kelble and I stopped at a small store near the stream. When the teenager behind the counter found out that we had an unsuccessful afternoon on the Buffalo, he said, ‘We catch ’em all the time. Big ones, too.’ His method? ‘We just take a big old night crawler and fish it on the bottom just like you was catfishing.’ It’s tough to beat a garden hackle.” – Flyfisher’s Guide to Virginia, David Hart

While I am not surprised, I am not particularly happy about it either. Please don’t be like that. I like using worms too on occasion, it’s not puritanical leanings, it’s able respecting the regulations for everyone’s benefit. If you ever come down to VA and want to try out this stretch, please ensure we can always access it and other special places that private landowners share by following the regulations, not littering, not poaching, and respecting the rules and not trespassing.

Don’t want to sound preachy, I just don’t want to lose access to any fishing spots through idiocy when so many are already starting to disappear though other means. It’s a pretty place and worth a cast. I’ll certainly be going back as long as I can!