A cold drizzle had begun to fall last March by the time Craig Miller and I arrived at Anthony Creek in Greenbrier County. Even though the weather conditions were miserable, I was surprised to see a number of vehicles parked along the stream. However, Miller, who operates Serenity Now Outfitters in Lewisburg (www. serenitynowoutfitters.com), was not at all astonished to see people out and about along this tributary of the Greenbrier River.

After all, Miller pointed out that it was a weekend and that's what people do in West Virginia on Saturdays and Sundays -- enjoy the outdoors. With all the folks plying Anthony Creek, a well-known put-and-take trout stream, wasn't the guide just a little bit worried that we would have quite a bit of competition for the stream's fish. Indeed, he wasn't.

"Here's a little secret on fishing West Virginia's put-and-take trout streams," confided Miller. "Everybody knows where the trout are released, and everybody knows where the popular holes are. And most everybody is going to fish those holes or their favorite spots where they have been going to for years.

"So what I do is park where everybody else does, then take off walking through the woods to look for isolated holes. The trout don't all stay where they were released, and someone who is willing to walk a little bit doesn't have to compete with other fishermen for the popular holes. Throughout the spring, I can find plenty of unpressured fish on put-and-take waters, just by going to off-the-beaten path sweet spots."

So after debarking from Miller's vehicle, sure enough we began hiking through the woods. After a reasonable amount of walking, we came to a beautiful sylvan setting. Sycamores shrouded one side of the pool, which was fed by a riffle. Great rhododendrons and speckled alders rimmed the other side. And true to Craig Miller's word, we had the area all to ourselves.

As no surface action was occurring, and given the numbing rain and temperature in the 40s, a topwater bite was not likely to take place, the outfitter suggested that we both nymph fish with generic bead-style offerings. Although the weather could certainly have been considered miserable, I soon forgot all about the inclement conditions and became absorbed with attempting to make accurate casts to the boulders that lined the pool and toward the vegetation that covered the shorelines. A pleasing natural contentedness occurs when one's mind becomes absorbed with making delicate casts with flies.

My reverie ended, though, when Miller shouted that he had on a nice trout, and I waded over to him to catch the action with my camera. Soon Miller landed and released a recently stocked rainbow. No, the fish did not flaunt the brilliant hues that stream-born fish do, but give the fish a month or two in Anthony Creek and maybe it would begin to do so.

Miller considers Anthony Creek one of the premier put-and-take trout streams, not only in southern West Virginia but also in the entire state.

"Anthony Creek has it all," says Miller. "Part of it flows through the Monongahela National Forest, part of it flows near main roads like state Route 92, part of it is very isolated and part of it isn't. It's a big stream and heavily stocked, so you can just about always come here and find trout willing to bite."

Anthony is a "W-F" trout stream, meaning it receives stockings once in January, twice in February, and once each week from March through May. The creek also receives stockings once a week for two weeks in early October when many folks like to pair trout fishing with scouting for deer.