FISHING THE PIGG RIVER

Pigg River

 Today is my last day in Ferrum, Virginia until Mid-August. It was pretty much the last day of the summer course I was taking. We have to give presentations in class tomorrow, but then I'm headed right home afterwards. Back to Florida. Today though, we had the entire day off. We actually were finished with the class yesterday morning. Our professor gave us plenty of time to finish our presentations and papers that most of us had already had finished. So me and some of my friends decided that we were going to spend this day off fishing. I had never had like a day off with literally nothing to do in Ferrum. Maybe I have actually, I can't remember. But last night we had made up our minds that we were going to drive to Waid Recreation Area to fish the Pigg River that is located there.

Last night, I had to go to Walmart to pick up a Virginia Fishing License. Since I will be fishing for Trout and you have to have a separate license for that,  I picked up a Virginia Trout License as well. I'm actually really glad that I looked up the Virginia Resident requirements online before I went to buy my license, because being a student at Ferrum College gave me Virginia Resident status for the license. It may not seem like too big of a deal, but it really is. I saved about $80 altogether from not paying out-of-state pricing. Sweet deal, and the lady at the cash register didn't even add the Trout License price to the receipt. So I scored big time. After all, I was in a Franklin County Walmart. While I was at the Walmart I picked up some worms, some hooks, and other rigs I would need for the next day. It's been a while since I've done any freshwater fishing, much less, river fishing.

So today around lunch time we set off for the Pigg River. Some of the guys had class until noon so that hindered us from leaving early in the morning. I guess they never heard the phrase, "The early bird gets the worm." Oh well. It was just a short drive from campus to there, about 10 minutes. Once we parked, it was just a short little trail to get to the river. We each found a little spot to claim down the river and began fishing. I'm pretty sure I was the only one using any live bait. Hey, I'm old school. I used a small split-shot weight to weigh down the line in the fast moving current, but still kept it about 24 inches from the hook and worm, so the worm could still be mobile and active without the fish noticing the weight. It took a little while to get used to fishing in the river with the current, but I started getting some little bites. On and off the bites would come. But it never felt like anything would actually strike it. The water in the river was murky from all the rain we had been receiving throughout the week. I kept fishing the same spot, because if their weren't fish here, there wouldn't be fish anywhere in this river. And of course there were fish in this river. I finally was able to bring one in. As I was reeling in the catch, it looked like a little Rainbow Trout, which is what I had been fishing for all day, so I was getting hype. However, when I brought it in, it was quite different from a Rainbow. It was a fish with horns on the top of it's head. Lots of horns. I had to do tons of research once I got back to my room to figure out what type of fish it might be. I came up with a "River Chub" or a Hornyhead Chub". I couldn't even find any information on them in the Virginia Wildlife booklet I was given with my license. It was absolutely crazy looking.

After a while, all the bites I felt were the same little bites as the "Chub" I had caught earlier. We decided it was time to pack up. No one else was even getting really any bites, so they all wanted to leave. My and my friend decided we would try out a little pond on campus once we got back. We drove my truck around to the pond and just put some bobbers on the top of the lines with the same worms I had been using at the river. For a while, it was just waiting and waiting. I was looking all around the lake just looking at the scenery, and even watching a few little fish I could see around the dock area. I wasn't paying attention to my line really at all. Unfortunately, I looked over to see my bobber had been under water for a good 10 seconds, and as I panicked to set the hook, I missed the fish of course. I threw the line back out quickly to get a good couple of strikes on my line. None of which would take the bobber under again. I had missed my chance. Of course. It was my luck of course today. I kept trying that same spot for a good while after, but nothing. The fish had their laugh in. But I was done for the day. The next time I would be fishing would be home in Florida. I should probably renew my license there.