Fishing at Wintergreen

My fishless streak continues. But we were fishing in a pond that probably had more golf balls than fish in it. So I don’t feel so bad.

I’ve gotten very mixed information from the staff here on what the fishing situation is. There is supposed to be a stocked stream somewhere but no one seems to know where. The Orvis-endorsed fly fishing school that uses it is run by some outside company so I guess that’s part of the problem.

So anyway, not being able to find a trout stream, we went down to the resort-owned lake at the golf course in the valley. There were supposed to be bass, panfish, crappie, carp, and some trout. That’s according to the teenage girl running the boat rental stand. I kind of doubted it and saw no real signs of life. We fished for maybe 1.5 hours and gave up.

On the way back up the hill, we stopped at Devil’s Backbone Brewing Co. for a growler of hoppy red ale. I asked the bartender what he knew about local fishing and he gave me a lot of pointers, some very close to our lodge. He also offered to let me park in his driveway and fish at the stream behind his house. I left with a growler of beer and some handwritten notes he made me. What a super guy.

Which brings me to a larger point – I kind of love this area and the people here. They have all been really nice and everyone just sort of seems happy to be alive. You don’t get that in the DC area. We’ll have to come down here more often.

I don’t know what’s going to happen with the fishing. I really want to get out on the James River but, despite how close we are, this might not be the trip for it. Georgie is kind of hard to watch while the other person is fishing. I usually get up about 2 hours before the girls so I may try a spot that the bartender told me about on the other side of the Blue Ridge Parkway in the morning.

I had entertained the notion of buying the most basic, Wal-Mart model of fly rod and trying my hand at fly fishing but I may wait on that too. I watched a bunch of fly casting videos on YouTube this morning. I get the basic principles of when you need tension and when you release and that kind of thing. It seems like I could just go figure it out. But maybe the last thing I need is one more thing to be frustrated about when it comes to fishing.

Georgie is asleep now. This afternoon will be playground and aquatic center time. Then it’ll be time to break into that growler.