Up Big Laurel Creek
by Matthew G. Cooke
First Installment
We noticed the sign the night before, but were really too tired to
understand it. After eight hours fishing on the Elk, we wanted beer
and convenience. The beer we had in a cooler in the back of the
truck. The convenience would come shortly after checking into the
motel in the form of a clean toilet, a hot shower, and cable TV.
After a night's rest and a cup of coffee, it was a little clearer to me.
The top of it read, "Recently Stocked Streams." Beneath was a list of
the obvious choices--Cranberry, Cherry, Williams, Elk. At the bottom
were streams we did not know--Big Laurel Creek, Deer Creek, Lost
River. The original plan was to spend the day fishing the Cranberry,
but sometime during the previous day's fishing, we realized that we
didn't have anything to carry gear in on the hike into the Cranberry,
and the only boots we had were wading boots. The truth was,
however, neither Philip nor I were up for walking into the
Cranberry.After consulting the West Virginia Atlas, we decided on
Laurel Creek, which required only a short drive through Richwood,
and then south on County Road 39-14. We could be fishing again in
an hour, so we loaded our gear back into Philip's Land Rover, and
headed west through Richwood.
Big Mountain overlooks Richwood from the south, and to see it after
the leaves have opened fully but before the worst of summer's heat
arrives, is to think that world was formed from trees, not eruptions of
rock and water. Those hardwoods brought the timbering industry to
this patch of West Virginia and ultimately were responsible for the
formation of
Richwood at the turn of the 20 Century, a heritage captured in the
murals of brawny men with their saws that cover the crumble of
downtown buildings. As the railroad came, so too did coal mining.
And after coal mining, nothing. At its peak, Richwood was home to
about 10,000 people, but now only about 3,000 remain.
Big Mountain peaks at Kerless Knob, 3,538 feet, and it's at those
heights that Laurel Creek begins its run toward the Cherry, forming
from many small tributaries at the mountain's southwestern tail.
Soon the creek settles into long stretches of riffle, run, pool, riffle,
run, pool that the state of West Virginia stocks at least once in the
spring.
After a couple of wrong turns, we find the right road and head up the
creek valley until we cross a bridge at Jetsville. Jetsville was once a
neat community of houses speckled along the valley bottom among
rolling pastures. But now none of it remains, at least nothing that
can be
seen from the road. Now it's all rhododendron tangle and thistle, the
land bought by the Westvaco company, a paper and timbering
company, as evidenced by the little plastic markers that read
"Westvaco," nailed
into almost every tree dense enough to hold a nail.
We park on the far side of the bridge and walk back to the middle of it
to look over the creek. Rather than a pair of bridge pilings, the
bridge is supported by solid concrete, probably to hold the weight of
lumber and mining equipment. The river flows through three
culverts that pass through the concrete. The bridge's solid structure
creates a control that impounds the water behind it just enough to
leave the downstream lips of the culverts about a foot up out of the
water. The
resulting waterfalls gurgle and sparkle, refreshing the pool below
them.
"Should we try here," Philip asks.
I stand on the bridge while Philip goes back to the truck for a
spinning rod. Before he makes it back to me, he casts a jig and grub
to the middle of the pool below the bridge and walks toward me as
he reels. As the jig and grub come out of the water at the end of the
retrieve, a
brown trout large enough to swallow a ferret rolls on it but misses.
Philip hands me the rod. I cast and the trout does the same thing.
Taking turns, we each cast into the pool from atop the bridge, but the
fish
can't be coaxed to strike again.
As we stood in the sun blinking at the water, a local in a Ford Ranger
pulled up behind us.
"Doing any good," he asks as we turn to face the truck.
"Just getting started," I reply.
Philip and I both pause a beat. No doubt we are both thinking the
same thing. This guy is liable to tell us that the land is posted, or
worse yet, to get off his land specifically.
Matt Cooke is a freelance writer, avid fisherman, and lover of West Virginia.
He makes his home in Massachusetts.
The Fly Fishing Loop is sponsored by flydepot.com
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