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.

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• Talk fly-fishing

At this advent of dog days, the challenge for trout fishermen is to find streams with a water temperature conducive to lively fish and also refreshing to bare wading legs.

My midsummer retreat from the heat always leads me back to the Little Stony in Giles County, one of my very favorite high mountain streams. During last week’s heat wave I returned there for a satisfying morning of fly-fishing. The water temperature averaged 10 degrees below the 68 degrees and above I had been experiencing in meadow streams.

Another reward of fishing this area is the awesome scenery, including greyhound-size boulders. I was told by Virginia Tech geology professor Bob Tracy that these mammoth stones are leftovers from one of the most cataclysmic landslides in the history of the Earth. Even though it occurred 300 million years ago, give or take a millennium or two, evidence of that upheavel is still obvious. Dr. Tracy assured me that from the air you can clearly see how the mountain split and roared down into the gorge to form the Little Stony.

However, last Wednesday things were quiet in the area, except for a wood thrush and the rush of miniature waterfalls hitting their plunge pools. With a water bottle and a couple of peaches in my fanny pack, I set off up the Cascades trail wearing a good pair of walking shoes. Slung by my side were a pair of felt-soled wading shoes and a change of socks. I always find the fishing here better the farther upstream you walk, so today I went for over a mile before jointing up my #2 Diamondback

Having had good luck with a Copper John at another Cascades, the one in Bath County, I started off here with that same fly. It hooked me a small rainbow and after that there was a 45-minute hiatus, which led me to change to a small Hare’s Ear Flashback. In one of the smaller pools below the second bridge I was gratified to hook a minnow-size brook trout. I say “gratified” because the brookies are being constantly nudged upstream by the encroaching rainbow population. So it was good to find one this far down. Such encroachment is an increasing problem in so many native Virginia streams, and there doesn’t seem to be a pat answer to it. The little brook trout I caught could have easily been swallowed up by most of the rainbows I hauled in.

It’s always a marvel to me the way these tiny streams seem to grow larger the farther up the mountainside you go. The answer, of course, is that the steeper gradient upstream causes more waterfalls, which in turn form wider and deeper catch pools.

As I waded into one of these I felt the water creep above the hem of my shorts, recalling a minor disaster some of you may also have experienced. On my car keys I carry the remote door lock. I once had water flow over my chest waders, which totally disabled the tiny computer contained in the remote. Only after I opened it up and let the interior dry out did it work again. But then it stopped once more and I discovered that the spring in contact with the battery had slowly rusted and had to be scraped off. The clerk at Radio Shack informed me that slow roasting in an oven never seems to help this problem, contrary to information I had from a trained electronic engineer. My preventive measure now is to put car keys and remote into a tightly sealed zip lock bag. It saves you having to unlock your car the old-fashioned way -- with a key. But it also saves buying a new remote, which I am told costs a couple of hundred dollars.

As the day warmed up, there was a variety of hatches on the Little Stony resulting in considerable surface activity. Spotting some caddises, I switch to a #16 light Elk Hair, with no luck at all for the next twenty minutes. I tied on a parachute Royal Wulff, cast to a rise next to a boulder on the far bank, and netted my largest rainbow of the day. That amazing fly seems to come through for me when all else fails.

Normally I will fish the pool below the 60-foot Cascade at trail’s end. But this day I noted a number of youngsters with dogs and bathing suits rolled into towels headed for the falls. So I decided to skip the big falls and skid down steep banks to some pools I had missed on the way up. It’s advisable to fish the Little Stony on a weekday. It’s thronged with hikers on the weekend.

The day had warmed up and surface strikes on my Wulff were half-hearted, resulting in a series of misses. Headed back to the parking lot I took a few minutes at largest hole, watching a group of rainbows circle about on their various missions. The midday sun was shining brightly on the water, outlining the trout shadows against the golden sand of the bottom. I don’t usually fish around the big streamside boulder here, as the fish are so fly-wise I never get a hit. But sometimes I believe it’s nearly as entertaining to watch trout as it is to catch them.

To reach the Little Stony from Roanoke, drive U.S. 460 west to the village of Pembroke. Just before the Dairy Queen there’s a sign reading, “Cascades.” Turn right there and drive to the end of the road to a check-in station where you pay a nominal parking fee.