I was doing some web updates to our sites and going over the coming weeks' schedule of guided trips when an email came through to me from a customer Kevin Frank. A relative of his in Galax, VA, Tracey Snow had taken some photos of the New River in the Galax area of the ice jams and it was incredible. I asked him if I could share some of the photos with customers and he said that was fine.
You don't see this much around here, and except for a brief period last winter of a week when it was really cold the last time the New was like this was five years ago. I had a guided trip scheduled, if you can believe it, and the temp when I met the guys was 9F....yes 9F. And the river looked just like this. I had been hired by a group of guys, one of whom was getting married, and for whom this was a 'bachelor party' so to speak, one last hurrah .... For that reason it was do it now or not at all. So I met them at the Riverhouse cabins and we stayed in until 11am after the temperature had risen to a balmy 22F. We rigged rods and then we went to a remote stretch of Helton Creek...surprisingly there was enough unfrozen water to fish. We ended up doing ok, catching about 25 fish in truly bitter conditions. By 4pm, the guys called it a day.....and another great day was in the book. But it doesn't always work out that way.
This last month's cold is record setting for sure....much of the NC mtns and VA were below freezing for weeks....that is below freezing......and as low as single digits at night. Hard for anything to remain liquid in that. The picture above of the New River was just before 3 inches of rain fell on top of all the snow and ice.....and what a nice messy result came from that. Just downstream of this area, where I do smallmouth fishing in the summer a lot, the flow is normally 900 -1200cfs....it peaked at just under 60000cfs, yes sixty THOUSAND. That is 25000 more than the previous high.....wow.
But at least now its not solid like the photo above....
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