Buckets and Musky



Trailer load of limestone sand

June 9th started out with an early morning start from Wetzel County at 5AM.  The plan was to head to Elkins to meet Jonathan "Brookie" Paine and head to the Highland Scenic Highway.  First order was the Middle Fork of the Williams Bucket Brigade this year was the 5th year for the event.  The purpose of this project is to improve the pH of the Middle Fork of the Williams so that native brook trout will once again start thriving in the stream and reproducing in the stream.  This year there was a record reached with 12 tons of limestone being moved by buckets along a .25 mile trail to the dump site on a trib of the Middle Fork.  There was a great group of people there 105 total with several people from Wal-mart, several different TU chapters, WVDNR, and of course WVAngler.  You couldn't have asked for a nicer day started off a little cool but warmed up with sunny skies and no rain to let us get all the buckets carried down to the site.  Glad to have been apart of this great effort!






After the bucket brigade we decided that the flows were going to be a little tough to chase brook trout so we would head back to Elkins and break out the big stuff.  After a stop off at Castle Brookie we located a nice Old Town canoe from one of his work associates and headed off to the Tygart.  We were on the water in no time and the 10wt rod was ready to do some work.  The conditions were perfect and the water was clear and the sun was shining brightly.  We hit the water at about 3:30PM a time of day fishing can sometimes be tough.  Well I shuffled through the fly box and pulled out a Vermont Fly Guys fly the Maelstrom Whistler.  We were fishing a lot of structure when I noticed some blue gill in the shade next to a log.  One cast and the next thing I know wham its on.  I didn't get a look at the fish so was not even sure what I had, Paine yelled nice bass but the next thing we see is a toothy creature hooked to the fly.  A nice landing job by Jonathan and my first musky on the fly was in the boat a small 26 inch fish but a musky on the fly none the less  and my first musky landed on the fly rod!!

Echo 10wt, Cabelas RLS reel, and Vermont Fly Guys Fly