Adventure found on Virginia river

Sometimes our search takes us to wild and faraway places — places many of us have only dreamed about. But sometimes the adventure we seek can be found in places most people might consider mundane, like a business conference.

OK, perhaps saying one could find adventure at a conference is a stretch, but it wouldn’t be reaching to say adventure could be found where the conference is held.

Last week I attended an Outdoor Writers Association of America gathering in Roanoke, Va.

Along with attending conference workshops and panel discussions, I joined a couple of other writers in squeezing in a fishing trip for smallmouth bass.

Late one afternoon, Craig Springer of New Mexico, Kevin Yokum of West Virginia and I teamed up for a fishing adventure on the Maury River near Lexington. Springer and I had made arrangements for the trip before the conference, but after meeting Yokum, we decided he was an OK guy and invited him to come along.

Yokum pulled out the fly rod, wading boots and flies he carries for just such an “emergency.” You never knows when you might be coerced into taking an outdoor adventure, so carrying along equipment is a good idea.

In Virginia, the powers that be somehow swapped east for west and north for south. With all the trees and little in the way of physical landmarks — like a mountain peak or something noticeable — my internal compass didn’t know which way was up most of the time. Even our maps were turned sideways to throw me off, but Springer assured me we drove north of Roanoke. How we got north by driving south I’ll never know.

We hooked up with Mike Smith, a retired public information officer with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and a writer himself. He showed us his secret place on the Maury River, a tributary of the James River that flows into Chesapeake Bay.

Being new to fly fishing for smallies, I asked Smith for advice.

“They have many, many characteristics in common with the brown (trout) in that they love shade,” he said. “They don’t like bright light. They feed better in low-light and shady water situations.

“The smallmouth is a warm-water species, but it likes things on the cooler side.”

The four of us spread out along the river and began plying the water. Smith said smallies “like to orient themselves near logs, rocks and other structure,” so that’s where I focused. It didn’t take long for me to reveal who the rookie was, but I stayed after it while Springer and Yokum moved upstream and reeled in bass after bass.

I cast an olive Woolly Bugger into the shadow next to a large boulder and began stripping the fly in as soon as it hit the water. Strip. Strip. Strip. Wham. I knew the fish wasn’t going to be a new record, but that didn’t matter. I was happy to catch a smallmouth bass on a fly.

But something was different about this fish. It had a red breast and resembled a bluegill. It was a red-breasted sunfish.

By the time I caught up with Yokum and Springer, they were on their way back downstream. While they were gone, I hooked three or four sunfish, but I had yet to catch one of the bronze-colored bass we sought. Yokum suggested I tie on one of the chartreuse poppers a friend from home had sent with me.

Yokum gave me a few pointers, and then I made a cast that set the popper down with a splash on the shady side of the river. Strip. Strip. Strip. Wham. This time the fish that took my offering was a smallmouth bass. That was the beginning of a fun hour or so of fishing and made up for the other two hours that weren’t so good. Between the four of us, we caught and released more than 30 bass in Smith’s honey hole on the Maury.

If fishing was this good on the smallish Maury River, how good might it be on the much larger New River? Only time would tell, because that adventure was scheduled for two days later. And that is a story for next week.

* MULE DEER FOUNDATION BANQUET — The Southern Nevada Chapter of the Mule Deer Foundation is holding its first banquet and fundraiser at 5 p.m. Saturday at the Hampton Inn. Call Fawna Gregory at (775) 970-5474 for more information.

Doug Nielsen is an award-winning freelance writer and a conservation educator for the Nevada Department of Wildlife. He can be reached at doug@takinitoutside.com.