Ramey Creek begins in Alleghany County, where it meanders along a fairly level plateau, then crosses into Surry County where it quickly drops off the escarpment and runs into Roaring Fork, a tributary of Fisher River. The Surry County section of Ramey Creek used to show up in the NCWRC trout water listing as a wild trout stream, but it has since been removed from public trout waters. That section has also been in the news lately connected with the Bottomley Properties' environmentally-disastrous logging practices. Here are some links if you are curious about that:
A portion of the creek in Alleghany County is in the Saddle Mountain tract of the Mitchell River Game Lands, and that's where I headed. As I expected, I caught wild brookies, making Ramey Creek new creek #1013.
I next drove a short way west on the Parkway to get to Big Pine Creek, one of my "bucket list" creeks. It is a Hatchery-Supported stream that runs right beside the Parkway for a few miles. I had fished it twice before and only caught rough fish. It had not been stocked in a couple of weeks, but I had read that it contained some wild fish. I caught several chubs and shiners this time, but I also caught a few small wild browns, so I can mark it as fished - new creek #1014.
Finally, I tried one more bucket list Hatchery-Supported stream, Prathers Creek. It runs through farmland and pastures much of the way and is very silty. It had been stocked a few days before, so I hoped I might find a couple of stocked fish left, but I was pleasantly surprised! I got in at a bridge and fished about 100 yards downstream though a pasture section using a bugger and caught 10 stocked rainbows and browns. I am sure they had all been dumped right off the bridge, but they had spread out nicely through the section, and I had fun playing them on my 3-weight. Mark another one off the bucket list - Prathers Creek is new creek #1015!
