Remembering the Trout Trek

A Facebook memory reminded me that 11 years ago today, my dining room table was covered with gear that would somehow have to fit in my Ford Fiesta hatchback. My son Asher and I were preparing to drive across the country to fish for trout, shoot photos and blog.

Asher, who was 10 at the time, had never been outside of the Eastern Time Zone prior to the Rebel Trout Track. By the end of the journey, which spanned about four weeks, we had logged nearly 7,000 miles. The farthest we got from home (Georgia) was the Pacific Coast in Olympic National Park in Washington. 

We fished in nine different states, with all except Arkansas being in the West, fishing many types of waters but always with trout as our primary targets. We fished all public waters, fished by wading, on the bank or by float tube, and went with no guides.

We fished iconic waters known best as fly fishing destinations, using spinning tackle and a DIY approach. Each day we blogged and sent a photo gallery for Rebel Lures social media.

Asher and I sometimes revisit the trip mentally, talking about favored fishing stops and various cool things we saw along the way — and of course daydreaming about doing it again. Although it’s unlikely we can ever recreate anything quite as extensive as the Trout Trek, I do hope some day we can fish some of those waters together again.

My daughter Autumn and I fished one of my favorite Trout Trek spots — the Provo River in Utah — a couple of years ago, but that story is probably another blog for about time.

Thinks it's a Truck

I really debated taking my Expedition on my most recent trek with Asher because I was a bit concerned about clearance with my Fiesta on some logging roads in Maine. I was told that I "should be OK," though, and decided to hope for the best.

Just as it did last summer, carrying us 8008 miles and conquering mountain roads all over the West during the Rebel Trout Trek, and just as it has on so many Southern Appalachian back roads, the little car performed nicely as we added another 3000+ miles to its odometer. It got seriously dirty, threw a few rocks and bumped bottom once on a New Hampshire logging road, but it kept trucking along and never flirted with getting stuck anywhere.

What I like most about my little car, not surprisingly, is its fuel efficiency. At 40 mpg, it's mighty practical for long drives. What impresses me, along with surprising toughness, is how much junk fits in such a small car with a good hatchback design. Much larger sedans and even some small SUVs would carry less or make gear much harder to access.

Asher and I have learned how to pack the Fiesta so the stuff we need the most stays pretty handy. Not that we don't sometimes lose that order in two weeks on the road with too much junk. We do. But it doesn't take long to get it back in place.

There may be a 4WD or AWD need somewhere in the future, but for now we'll let the little car keep pretending it's a truck!

Whole Lot of Packing Going On

Asher and I are in full packing mode because tomorrow we leave on this summer's biggest adventure. We're pointing the car north this year, instead of west, and headed for New England. I suppose the primary targets would have to be the beautiful brook trout that live in the ponds of northern New England, but we'll be hitting a variety of waters in New York, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine for brook, rainbow and brown trout, along with smallmouth bass, pike and whatever else wants to cooperate, and we'll even spend a day or two saltwater fishing on the Connecticut coast. If you followed last year's Rebel Trout Trek, this one won't be quite that grand. We were gone nearly a month and traveled all the way to Olympic National Park just outside of Seattle on that trip. I think we'll end up being on the road a little less than two weeks on this summer's trip.

At one point I thought we'd fly and get a rental car, but the more I thought about all the junk I wanted to tote and the scheduling freedom that comes with driving, the more I became convinced that the hours behind the wheel would be well invested. Now I just have to decide which wheel. My Ford Fiesta has been a mighty fine "trout car" and handled last year's cross-country trek, and it is the most likely choice. I need to check logging road conditions in one area of Maine, though, to make sure ground clearance won't present a problem. If that's too iffy we'll spread out more in the Expedition, and I'll just have to spend a little more time squeezing gas pump triggers.

I'll be sharing stories and photos from the trip on the Rebel Lures website and Facebook page beginning Aug. 1, which is around the time we'll likely be returning home. In the meantime, I'm sure I'll post a few travel updates here, on my Facebook fishing page and on Instagram and Twitter (@jeffsamsel on either).

Fishing Adventures Near & Far

If you glance at this page from time to time, you likely know that last summer I spent most of a month on the road with one of my sons, Asher, trout fishing in the West and sharing stories on the Rebel Lures website and Facebook page. Asher and I also made a few spring trips that we called "spring training" to collect similar content and I did some related work from closer to home through the year.

Beginning with the new year, I'll be doing that kind of content gathering full-time. That means I'll be fishing a bunch, probably even more than before, and traveling to a lot of different places. Some fishing will be local, but I already have plans brewing for several larger trips, including a few to coastal waters.

I know I've been pretty slack about posting on this blog of late, by the way, but I hope you'll keep an eye on this page for the latest fish stories!

Related, I caught my first fish of 2016 a few hours ago. Asher went to the pond this morning, and when I went to pick him up I roamed the banks and cast until I managed to land a bluegill.

2 Favorite Catches from 2015

I tried to pick a single favorite fish from 2015, but the best I could do was to narrow it to two. Each had unique appeals, and I can't  quite decide. Both were big trout that I caught and released, but that's pretty much where the similarities end.

The first, a brown trout that grabbed a Rebel Tracdown Ghost Minnow, came early this summer from North Carolina's Linville River. I was on my way to a writer trip farther north in the North Carolina mountains and had time for a quick detour. I actually wanted to explore Linville Gorge, but the river was high from recent rain, and I decided that hiking down into the gorge alone would neither be prudent nor productive. Instead I settled to fish around a single river bend in a section of easily accessible hatchery supported waters on Blue Ridge Parkway land. I expected there might be a few stocker-sized rainbows around (which there were). What I didn't expect was to feel a crushing strike and then see a thick band of yellow at the end of my line. I was alone, with no net, so you can guess that I was a bit tense until I managed to land the fish. Next trick, of course, was trying to get a photo. I took a few quick close-ups to make sure I got something and then set up a single self-timer photo with the camera on a rock before I let the fish go, hung my lure back on my rod and continued on my journey.

The other, which is pictured at the top, occurred later in the summer, while Asher and I were on our Rebel Trout Trek out West. I think it was a Snake River cutthroat, although it might have been a rainbow. I wish I could say for sure. Whatever it was, it was a good one, and it hit a Rebel Wee Crawfish while Asher and I were wade fishing in the Delaney Butte Lakes in Colorado. Big trout are no surprise in those waters, but summer doldrums had hit when we were there, and it was the only bite we had in probably six hours of fishing. That catch had some landing drama of it's own. We had a net, but the first time Asher tried to net it, he realized it didn't fit very well. "The net isn't big enough!" he yelled as the fish flopped out and surged again. When I got it close again, he had to carefully scoop it tail-first so it went into the hoop tail-to-nose instead of being across it. He did a fine job getting it in the net and getting photos before we let it go.

Exploring New Water

Yesterday's biggest trout, a pretty Wilson Creek rainbow. Photo by Asher Samsel

Exploration often involves more than wading up a new creek. It typically begins with web research and a big of map study and often involves things like making wrong turns and learning that a road that looks like the rest of the roads on the map turns to dirt, climbs a pretty substantial mountain and gets scarily soft and slick for Ford Fiesta travel after a morning rain. It also involves discovering spots where a road beside a river truly provides access and where the road is actually 50 feet above the stream, the banks are wooded and the river is deep enough float your hat from bank to bank.

Asher and I did a little of all that yesterday as we explored the delayed harvest section of Wilson Creek in Western North Carolina. We also learned more about the river's character and how it varies through that stretch, where it can be accessed and how the fish use the river (or at least how they used it given yesterday's conditions). I learned a lot that will aid my approach next time And there definitely will be a next time. While the river is a pretty good trek from here for a day trip (nearly four hours, each way), I was sufficiently impressed with what I saw that I'll definitely return.

While learning and discovering, we also managed to catch some brook trout and rainbows, including one dandy rainbow that nabbed a Rebel Tracdown Ghost Minnow at the head of a long run. I had 2-pound-test, and the net was in the car, well up a steep bank, so landing the fish was almost as intense as navigating the slippery parts of the road.

As anticipated, it definitely was good practice for Asher and me for this summer's Rebel Trout Trek. Asher kept a camera with him and did a good job with it, and he stayed enthusiastic all day, despite the long drive at each end. I'm looking forward to discovering all sorts of things together this summer, and understand that some of those discoveries will begin with wrong turns.

#RebelTroutTrek

First Month of Fishing

Guide Donald Cranor with a pretty cutthroat, which was part of Norfork River
trout slam (brown, rainbow, brook, cutthroat) and species No. 9 for my 2015 tally.

Sometimes the fishing year starts sort of slowly, with limited angling opportunities during January. This was not one of those years. My first fish of year, bluegill and bass from a pond near home, came only a couple of days into the new year, and last week, while trout fishing on the Norfork River with guide Donald Cranor, I tallied species No. 9 (a cutthroat trout) for January. Looking back, it looks like I got to spend at least part of about 10 days fishing during January, and all except for a couple a short pond outings were full days on the water.

Fish listed came from four states: Georgia, South Carolina, Pennsylvania and Arkansas. I also got to spend a couple of days at Lake Taneycomo in Missouri and caught a bunch of rainbows and browns, but those species were already on the list from a fun day on the Chattooga River earlier in the month. Three species (pumpkinseed, yellow perch, black crappie) came to me courtesy of holes in the ice in Pennsylvania while fishing with Dave Lefebre.

From a fish species list standpoint, the cutthroat might be my favorite January fish because that's not a species I get the opportunity to even fish for every year. I do anticipate more opportunities to fish for cutters this summer, when Asher and I head west on the #RebelTroutTrek, but I'm happy to already have one on the list.

I wonder what February will bring!