Memories: Boy Scouting the New River

When I was a Boy Scout our troop floated the New River.  We had so much fun and success fishing that we went again the next year.

Anyway, we put in just a few miles east of the WV/VA boarder.  Then we took our time (3 days) floating downstream.  I think we traveled about 18 or 20 miles over the course of the 3 days, which is basically a snails pace trying to fish every spot that looked promising.  We would camp the night on larger islands so as not to intrude on private property. 

It is some real beautiful country. We did encounter a few class 3 rapids but we were equipped with Old Town river canoes and our gear was stored in waterproof bags.  We would tie down our tackle boxes and fishing poles when approaching larger rapids to keep them safe during the ride.

The trip basically took us from VA into WV and it’s totally worth purchasing 2 different state licenses.  It seemed like the further we got into WV the bigger the smallmouth bass got.  And fishing from a canoe provides several advantages over bank fishing.

We planned it out so that some of the parents volunteered to pick us up at our stopping point.  I wish I knew the exact names of the public access points where we entered and exited but its been about 7 years ago.  I do know that they are real close to the WV/VA boarder though. 

It requires a lot of planning in advance and I would not recommend going alone.  If you can find a buddy to go with you its well worth taking off a few days from work for a 2 or 3 day river trip.  You will hit a lot of remote spots that simply not fished very much.  Over the course of 3 days I caught right around 100 smallmouth bass (many over 13"), plus lots of red-eye bass (which are a hybrid of some sort), as well as plenty of energetic bream. 

These trips on the New River are some of the highlights of my youth that I look back on.