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As Originially Printed in The Virginia Sportsman, Winter Concern 2023

Story by John Kelly

Fly fishing has a means of getting inside your coronary heart and staying there. As soon as you discover your strategy to the water, likelihood is you’ll discover your means again, even when it takes some time.

Wes Hodges had his first fly fishing expertise on the age of 13 at a Boy Scout camp in Colorado. His mom had given him $100 spending cash, and as Hodges likes to inform it, he blew a great piece of it on fly fishing proper off the bat. It could be the primary time he would wager on the game, however definitely not the final.

The sights and sounds of these Colorado days by no means left him. Because it normally does, actual life intervened in his story, together with a ten-year stint as a sniper within the 82nd Airborne that included a number of excursions in Iraq. When Hodges returned stateside for good, Hodges landed in North Carolina, after which at Virginia Tech, the place he discovered himself a house away from dwelling on the New River and started working as a part-time information. “I completely fell in love with it,” Hodges remembers.

After a quick stint in Ecuador and a six-year flirtation with company America, Hodges and guiding lastly made it official with the founding of Wesley Hodges Fly Fishing, positioned within the coronary heart of the Alleghany Highlands, considered one of Virginia’s most outstanding pure playgrounds, The corporate runs between 500 and 600 journeys every year on seven our bodies of water, together with the New, James, and Jackson rivers, and gives an in a single day full-service lodge and eating expertise for as much as 14 in addition to tenting and glamping choices.

The enterprise shortly proved a pure match for Hodges’ pursuits and skills. The one factor that may match his ardour for the out of doors sporting life is his ardour for and curiosity in individuals. “I’m very intrigued by everyone I meet. I ask a whole lot of questions and actually wish to study who they’re and what they wish to do. To me and my guides, it’s about far more than simply taking individuals fishing.”
Hodges’ navy expertise is one other key to his success relating to the preparation and precision his shoppers have come to like. “An excellent expertise is generated by the entire gamut of day, from all the time being on time, to being correctly dressed to trying like an expert and having high-end, well-maintained gear to creating our lunches by hand on the water,” he mentioned. In reality, shoppers have likened their sandwich stops to a premier deli expertise on-the-go. Additionally harkening again to his coaching, Hodges and his crew put communication at a premium, with frequent check-ins from the second of reserving to the float itself to ensure the crew has all the knowledge it must ship the premium expertise its shoppers deserve.

He and his fellow guides (8 in all) start every day at 5:00 AM attending to each element and monitoring a myriad of variables together with climate and water ranges, amongst others. “We speak each day,” Hodges mentioned. We share info. Daily of the week at the least considered one of us is on the water, so once you have a look at some 600 floats a 12 months we do, you may have what’s principally a continuing dwelling fishing report that we’ve got that permits us to form every journey we do based mostly on what our shoppers are wanting and what the fish are doing.”
Hodges can be cautious to correctly match his shoppers and their wants with the suitable information from his crew. “Every of our guides have completely different personalities. Me? I’m a rattling hammer, man. I maintain individuals at it. I maintain ‘em going. Another guides are extra passive. They might be extra more likely to say to a consumer, let’s actually get absorbed in nature, and I’m hammering shoppers to hit that, hit that hit that!”
In fly fishing, as it’s in actual property, the highest three components are “location, location, location.” That places the Alleghany Highlands on the high of the listing for fly fishers not solely within the Mid Atlantic, however across the nation. “We have now seven our bodies of water we will float on,” Hodges mentioned, “and they’re on completely different sides of the mountain, so we all the time have fishable water. We are able to adapt each single day. I not too long ago did the maths and decided that there are someplace between 350 and 400 miles of water for our information crew to guide journeys on.”

As if the beautiful waters aren’t sufficient to new and established angler alike from across the nation, Hodges explains that it’s what these shoppers see, or on this case, don’t see on the rivers’ banks that’s maybe most outstanding of all. “Alleghany County is the out of doors mecca of Virginia or a motive,” he mentioned, “however what most of our shoppers touch upon is the simply how ‘wild’ it actually is. The land right here may be very a lot untouched. There may be hardly any improvement, you don’t have wave after wave of individuals coming in, and also you don’t have to attend in line for something. It’s simply the wide-open nationwide forest.”

This reality is hardly lot on Hodges’ clients. “Once we take individuals on floats within the summertime, one of many first issues they discover is that they don’t’ see a house on the river. You possibly can go from the Higher James, the place our Lodge is, for about 50-60 miles and also you received’t see a home. On high of that. When you fish in the course of the week, you in all probability received’t see one other soul on the water. We have now it to ourselves.”
Hodges and his guides welcome everybody from freshmen to probably the most skilled anglers. “I like working with the whole spectrum,” he mentioned. “With freshmen, it’s about instructing them the right habits, actually ranging from scratch as an alternative of attempting to right habits. They get actually excited, and that pleasure is contagious. Then, with the extra skilled individuals, if they aren’t turning fish proper off the bat, they’ll actually get of their heads about it. That’s one other problem I like. Ultimately, it’s about relationship constructing, as a result of as I all the time inform individuals, I’m within the relationship enterprise, not the boat turning enterprise.”

For extra info and to e-book your journey at present, go to wesleyhodgesflyfishing.com.
Magnificence and solitude are additionally at a premium for stream-loving fly fishermen within the Alleghany Highlands, whether or not you’re heading off by yourself adventures. It’s all the time straightforward to seek out well-spaced entry factors, particularly provided that some 50% of the land there’s inside a nationwide forest. The two,350 Lake Moomaw, a hotspot for trout, largemouth and smallmouth bass, perch and panfish. Doutthat State Park’s lake and streams are well-stocked with trout in the course of the Spring and Fall and bass and panfish all summer season lengthy. Much more alternatives await on the Cowpasture River, Dunlap Creek, Jackson River, Potts Creek and Smith Creek.

These searching for a extra personal expertise can select the 485-acre Escatawba Farms, positioned within the coronary heart of the George Washington Nationwide Forest, and identified for an abundance of heavy rainbow brook and brown trout. It’s two-mile-long Dunlap Creek runs by means of two attractive miles of mountain terrain, and the property additionally contains three spring-fed ponds. To ensure a peaceable and quiet expertise, Escatawba Farms limits the variety of rods on the stream every day.

Whereas company there can count on privateness, they need to not count on a straightforward fly-fishing expertise. “I don’t inventory an artificially excessive variety of fish,” mentioned proprietor Derrick Barr, now in his twenty fifth 12 months of working Escatawba Farms. Positioned in Covington, Virginia, the location repeatedly attracts fishing fans from all through Virginia, North Carolina and past, and boasts a return visitor fee of 85 to 90%. “We make it a pure expertise, and with this clear water, which has all of the traits of a spring creek, you actually should be on high of your sport. We get a whole lot of skilled anglers coming by means of right here – you must use small flies, and a whole lot of the time you want double and triple rigs, and a whole lot of occasions double and triple rigs and 6x and 7x tippets. Fly fishing is a considering man’s sport, and you actually should determine it out.”
Barr got here to the fly-fishing enterprise 1 / 4 century in the past after a visit to Montana, the place he realized that if individuals liked the game sufficient to fish there all winter, they would definitely do the identical within the extra temperate Virginia winters. It was principally love at first chunk. “I really feel like a wealthy man, as a result of as they are saying, in case you do what you like, you received’t work a day in your life.” Even in any case these years, Barr finds thrills in even the smallest moments. “It’s fairly cool when you may search for sooner or later and see an 18-inch Brown Trout on a size-23 zebra midge and produce it at hand, that’s a fairly cool feat. If you are able to do that, you do absolutely anything else.”

To plan your Escatawba Farms escape, go to escatawba.com.

The area gives quite a lot of lodging experiences, from high-end resorts like The Homestead in Sizzling Springs, Virginia and The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia to resort and small inn experiences like Cliff View in Falling Spring, Virginia. This nature lover’s dream getaway alongside the Jackson River gives its personal fly-fishing expertise, together with loads of climbing and a gorgeous 18-hole golf course that serves up beautiful mountain and river views all through. The property options 9 uniquely designed bedrooms together with a totally stocked kitchen, eating room, front room and loads of attractive out of doors areas to select from. Informal eating at its best is obtainable at The Brewhouse at Cliff View, one of many newer and extra common eating places within the Alleghany Highlands – identified for its juicy burgers however that includes a menu with one thing or everybody, plus dwell leisure, loads of chilly drinks and dwell leisure.

For extra info on all that the Alleghany Highlands have to supply, go to visitalleghanyhighlands.com.

Photographs Courtesy of the Alleghany Highlands Chamber of Commerce and Tourism