Beginner Fly Fishing Trip! (and also sufferfest)

OVERVIEW

The weather is warming up and the fish are starting to bite! Let’s welcome the Spring with a nice fun easy beginner fly fishing trip (and also superduper fun little walk)!! No fly fishing experience needed but you will have to be pretty good at walking!

The club has some fly rods so we’ll be taking those out to try and catch some native brook trout! I took a class at Mountain Lake Biological Center over the summer about the field biology of fishes. I learned a ton about fish and a fair amount about how to fly fish from the great Dave Neely. I’ve gone fly fishing a bunch since then with minimal disaster, I’ve even caught a fish or two! If you’ve never gone fly fishing before, this is the trip for you! I can teach you the basics of knots, casting, and how to work the various flies. Or if you’ve fly fished before, sign up! I’d appreciate the help teaching people!

Along with the fly fishing, we’ll be doing a bit of a fun little walk as well! I’m thinking about 20 miles with about 3,800ft of elevation gain, this’ll bring us on a nice journey through Shenandoah with a stop at Blackrock summit! Now we’ll have plenty of time for all this if we start at midnight and walk all night! It’ll be a blast! This won’t be a super difficult hike, it’ll be pretty easy terrain with the most difficult part being a 2000ft gain over the first six miles. Really the only semi-hard part will be walking all night. I’ve done a couple of these types of things alone minus the fly fishing and they’re always super fun!

Schedule:
11:30pm – meet at Shrack or get picked up somewhere
Midnight – arrive at Sugar Hollow and start walking!
7:20am or so – sunrise and some fly fishing!
8:00am – drive back
8:30am – back in Charlottesville!
Then maybe take a nap before you head out to the ODC Party!

Packing list:
Water
Food
Layers
Good shoes
Any personal fly fishing stuff you have?
Fishing License
Charged headlamp and extra batteries
Let me know if you have any questions.

Disclaimer: This trip may be kind of difficult. You’ll be up all night walking. It’s really fun but you definitely do have to get into a kind of particular mental state to enjoy it. There will be limited bail out opportunities. Pretty much, if you start this, you will be expected to finish it or go back and wait at the car. This is 100% doable for most people, please ask if you’ve got any doubts or questions.

-John (8049441929)