brookie walkabout 2008

Hopefully next year’s trip will be filled with less churnage than this year’s first annual brookie walkabout. Evan had to bail due to adult responsibilities. My past week was filled with anxiety over a huge personal career decision that still bothered me all weekend. Chris facing similar decisions. Adulthood sucks sometimes. That’s why we need to escape to really great places filled with solitude and basketfulls of 7″ brook trout.

Friday morning Chris and I headed out of CRW at around 7:30 am. Trekked approximately 4 1/2 to 5 miles down off Kennison Mountian where we pitched camp and begun fishing. It has been years since I last fished Dogway and I have done very well on numbers in the past. Chris is not a numbers guy so he didn’t count, which is a good thing because I am and I’m also very competitive so I would likely have focused on beating him more than just enjoying the serenity. We fished for 6 hours that afternoon and made it only about a mile from camp. After retiring back to camp we had a killer meal and hit the hay early.

After a bit of a rough night morning coffee never tasted so good. With threats of thunderstorms I decided to leave behind the DSLR and only take a video camera. So we hiked about 2 miles downstream based on our calculations from the previous day and began fishing. Starting at about 10 am and fishing to about 7 pm we barely made it back to camp before collapsing. Another great meal. By numbers I caught a ton of fish on Saturday (60), but knowing what this stream is capable of I’d call it an average day.  

Sunday on the way home we stopped for pizza in Craigsville and made plans for next year’s brookie walkabout. Seneca Creek with no stress attached.

A sampling of the photos taken can be seen in these galleries:

http://www.vandaliarodworks.com/troutbum1/index.html

http://www.vandaliarodworks.com/troutbum2/index.html

I will probably post some more of the photos not in these galleries on this blog during dead times and when I get around to it.