Richard Formato

Richard Formato is an avid catch-and-release fly-fisherman from Wytheville, Va. When not on the water, he operates a small business there. Formato loves to fly-fish in his native Southwest Virginia because of the great water and wonderful people. He also loves to fish the flats and shallows of the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic whenever work and weather permit. He is on the Department of Conservation and Recreation's board of directors and is a trustee of the Shenandoah National Forest and Skyline Drive.

Recent columns

• What about Bob?
• Notes from the Charlotte Fly Show
• A chance meeting
• A wish for Jack

• Column archive
• Talk fly-fishing

Growing up I can remember my dad telling my mom, "I’ll be fishin’ up on Bah-buh’s Creek tomorrow."

His Franklin County drawl made it sound like the name of a popular red-headed sports announcer of that day. Last Friday I decided to follow in dad’s footsteps and headed for Craig County. Exactly 40 miles from my doorstep I encountered stocking signs and pulled off the road near the stream. I had a vision of the many trout-productive days my father spent on Barbour’s during his lifetime, and looked forward to taut lines.

The water temperature was a pleasing 60 degrees, belying the low, glass-clear condition of the stream. It was teeming with an assortment of minnows, all of whom loved my #18 Prince Nymph, and it became minnow-a-minute time.

I looked in vain for a sign of trout shadows. The stocked stretch of Barbour’s Creek runs close to a paved road with many beaten paths into all the promising holes. In my father’s day this would have been a rutted dirt road with few travelers through the Jefferson National Forest with some bushwhacking necessary to reach the water. Today it has all the earmarks of a heavily fished, put-and-take stream. Many trees still bore announcements of last year’s Heritage Day trout fishing event.

From where I entered down to the bridge crossing Rt. 611, I tried everything in my nymph box, not having spotted any flying insects. I had several weak hits that felt like two vest pocket-sized rainbows. Wading was easy, unlike some of the boulder-strewn brook trout streams I had been fishing this summer. It’s only around 15 to 20 feet wide up in the national forest, becoming twice that size downstream where it’s all posted private property. Back in the 1940’s and 50’s all of this choice lower water was open to fishermen like my dad, and the deep holes down there are where he caught his big rainbows.

My dad, Maury Slone, was one of the scant handful of people practicing fly fishing in Southwest Virginia back around the middle of the last century. I still have a circular fly box of his containing big #10 Royal Coachmen, Adams, and a few other bulky ties that worked for him.

He must have raised a few eyebrows with his 9-foot bamboo Shakespeare, and I can just hear the locals asking, "What kinda fishin’ are you doin’? I never seen anythin’ like that before." I still have that old rod too, but with the end two sections remade into a dandy 6-foot 8-inch number 2 which is a little whippy but can lay a fly out 40 feet if I’m patient.

It was a quiet Friday, I had all of Barbour’s Creek to myself, and the brilliant scarlet cardinal flowers were pleasing to my eye. Looking way off downstream, I tried to imagine the lanky, hip-boot-clad legs of my dad as he wielded his 9-foot Shakespeare. I hated to think he wasn’t there nor would ever be there again.

To reach the stocked section of Barbour’s Creek take Rt. 311 to Newcastle, turn right in town onto Rt. 615, follow that to where it crosses the stream. Take a left on Rt. 611 at the Crossroads Church then a right on Rt. 617, which leads to the stocked area in the Jefferson National Forest. Where I pulled in at the first turnoff there my odometer read exactly 40 miles. So this is a stream within an easy drive of the city. But my recommendation would be to avoid it during low water, and wait until some October stocking takes place before tackling Barbour’s Creek.