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

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• Talk fly-fishing

Previously I knew Smith Creek near Clifton Forge as a small brook trout stream tumbling down the mountain.

When I wrote my column about it, a reader responded, “What were you thinking??!!” I guess I had revealed his secret fishery. Last weekend I became acquainted with a different side of that stream. Below the Clifton Forge Reservoir dam it becomes a boisterous, 30-foot-wide series of foot-stirring rapids and deep plunge pool. I may hear from that same reader again when he reads this column.

Following Roanoker Jay Turner’s directions, I turned onto Commercial Avenue in downtown Clifton Forge. Outside of town it went from narrow pavement to one-lane gravel to a woodland path with bushes slapping against my Pathfinder, not a single tire mark and hubcap-high puddles.

It ended at a four-foot stone barrier thrown up by recent floods, and beyond that the road became a running stream. A Humvee might have made it, or a good mountain horse, but with a new $965 exhaust system I decided to pull in.

As I got out of the car I noted two deer skulls placed 8 feet high on pine trees flanking the road. It brought to mind the old Amazon jungle movies I watched as a kid, in which the natives had placed taboo warning signs on their territory. From the look of the grains of corn on the ground I concluded that this was another sort of killing ground. Approaching the stream, I felt the urge to look all around frequently, but I was totally alone.

Here the stream was punctuated by a series of natural stone weirs holding fairly deep holes. It was good-looking trout water and my hand shook a little as I jointed up my #2 Diamondback rod. Putting on a green Wooly Bugger, I cast across the stream above several of the ledges, and was rewarded by some slight tugs, feeling like brook trout, or maybe creek chubs, too small to swallow my big streamer.

I changed to a smaller #10 green Sparkle Bugger and waded upstream. I noticed along the bank a fair number of worm cups and Mello Yellow bottles, and had the strong feeling others had been here before me. T

ere were signs that high water had been about 6 feet up the bank, but today it was down nearly all the way and clear. Ahead there was a 50-foot shale cliff dropping down into a large pool that looked to be at least 15 feet deep. The rapids at the head of it seemed an ideal feeding station, so I worked my streamer down into it, and was rewarded with a brilliantly marked 10-inch brown that fought like a wild trout. He hit my streamer with such vigor it was halfway down his throat, and took some careful hemostat surgery to remove it. I was certain there were other trout down in the depths of that pool and resolved to try it again on the way back.

I spent the next hour exploring the stream up toward the dam, scaring up a great blue heron on the way. This was both good and bad, as it meant there were fish here, but it also was fairly certain his big wings had panicked them. Several eight-inch pipelines crossed the stream along the way, presumably carrying water from the reservoir, each of them acting as dams with sizeable pools behind them. Recalling my earlier Smith Creek experience I had put on hip waders, which were not adequate for this water. It is definitely a chest wader stream.

Water was spilling over the dam at a healthy rate, and below was a pool that warranted casting into. But it was a vertical drop of over a hundred feet, so I told the groundhog looking up at me from below, “Not today, thanks.”

A rumble of thunder off to the southwest signaled it was time to go, and besides it had been a full day, so I headed back. On the way I decided to drop a #16 Copper John nymph into the “honey hole” where I caught the brown. Instant gratification! I could see the sizeable trout I hooked racing from one end of the pool to the other, and I finally landed him -- a chunky rainbow. All I needed for a grand slam was a brook trout, but that was not to be today.

Shucking my waders back at the vehicle I gave some thought to water above the dam and the trout which may be swimming in it. But that’ll be another day, another column. It’s worth another trip up the Smith just for the quiet, uninterrupted woodland scenery.

Smith Creek is another of those trout streams within reasonable driving distance from Roanoke, only 45 miles to Clifton Forge. When you take the business U.S. 220 north exit, it’ll put you on Church Street downtown. Turn right at the light onto Commercial Avenue and follow it along the creek, passing beneath the interstate. From there it becomes a one-lane gravel road which ends at a road sign reading Campbell’s Lane to the right and Campbell’s Field to the left. Go left, although it doesn’t look too inviting, and follow Campbell’s Field as far as the road will allow. I never did find the field, and Campbell either had a Scottish Highlander’s idea of a field or else a wry Celtic sense of humor.