If you're a born and bred West Virginia trout angler, you probably possess more than a little knowledge about such nationally famous waters as Shavers Fork, the Cranberry and Elk rivers, just to name three of the state's most illustrious streams. But a number of other quality fisheries exist, and May remains a prime time to visit these waters. Here are three trout streams that well deserve your consideration this spring and beyond.

ELKHORN CREEK
While in an exploring mood, my wife, Elaine, and I traveled to Elkhorn Creek, a southern West Virginia stream, which for much of its length parallels U.S. Route 52 as it flows through the coalfields.

While we drove, walked and fished along the creek, we found a great many things. Lumps of coal are common along the stream bank, courtesy of the trains that take this energy source to the rest of the country and, no doubt, from the many floods that have rocked the region.

Trash often lies along Elkhorn and within the creek itself, and several times, I snagged such items as bed sheets and plastic bags. And, sadly, abandoned homes, many of them crumbling and hollowed-out shells, commonly line the stream banks, testaments to better times or at least different ones when King Coal ruled.

But Elaine and I also dueled with brown and rainbow trout, the former having a tendency to grow fat and sassy, the latter being more lean, mean, muscular silver streaks. Many of these trout will grow exceptionally large. Mike Shingleton, assistant chief of Coldwater Fish Management for the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources (DNR), offers this overview.

"Elkhorn Creek has reproducing browns and rainbows," Shingleton said. "The Elkhorn has never been on the DNR's trout-stocking schedule. It receives cold water from deep mines and supports quite a fishery. It does have problems, such as sewage and trash, although there are efforts to try and correct some of those problems."

Shingleton also suggested that I contact Ernie Nester of Fayette County, who has become a major benefactor of Elkhorn.

"The Kanawha Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited (KVCTU) has participated with the Elkhorn Creek Watershed Association on a trash cleanup for the past 10 years," said Nester.

According to Nester, TU volunteers come from many different regions of the Mountain State and even from Virginia and North Carolina -- proof of the desire of many to improve the fortunes of the stream. One recent highlight was that volunteers cleaned up over a mile of stream in the community of Elkhorn.

Of course, the McDowell County stream is used to suffering indignation. A half century or so ago, coal companies abused the stream by using its waters to wash coal. Elkhorn's trout even arrived accidentally. The first inkling that trout could survive came in August of 1968 when fisheries biologists were conducting a stream survey on the Dry Fork of the Tug Fork, which lies in McDowell County near the Virginia line.

Amazingly, within a stream that was carrying drainage from abandoned coal­mines, the biologists found two brown trout, one of which weighed 9 pounds and the other that tipped the scales at 7.6 pounds.

The second circumstance took place in the early 1980s when a DNR hatchery truck broke down along Route 52 near Maybeury. Faced with the options of having the load of rainbow trout die or dumping them into Elkhorn Creek, the driver chose the latter.

Surprising nearly everyone, those trout survived, even thrived and reproduced. Perhaps the reason why the fish were able to do so is that the water emitted from these old coalmines is consistently cold throughout the year and the coal in eastern McDowell County is relatively low in sulfur.