Little Eden on Elk

MONTERVILLE —Clear, cold water surges out of the hillside from a pair of deep limestone caves a few hundred feet apart.

Water burbling from one of the springs travels down a channel that was once a hatchery raceway and now provides habitat for a school of monster rainbow trout, before meandering through a pasture and splashing into the Elk River.

Outflow gushing from the other, larger spring carries water from the headwaters section of the Elk River, before it disappears into a sinkhole a few miles below Slatyfork and boils out of the ground here. The pulsing water from this spring once powered a mill, but now splashes into a long, deep pool teeming with wild Elk River rainbow and brown trout.

The 48-degree, limestone-sweetened spring water provides an ideal habitat for trout and the aquatic insects on which they thrive.

“The bug hatches here are incredible,” said Sean Weir, chief guide and general manager at Elk Springs Fly Shop & Outfitters, a lodge-fly shop-bar-restaurant fly-fishing complex that’s taking shape on a 22-acre tract of land adjacent to the springs.

“We just had a phenomenal hatch of sulfurs, and three species of mayflies are hatching now,” said Weir, a former Pennsylvania fishing guide and fly shop employee. “This place has the most prolific bug life I’ve seen anywhere in the East.”

The abundant bug life, paired with the cold, oxygen-charged, acid-free spring water and a long-standing catch-and-release policy, make the Elk Springs stretch of the Elk River one of the best destinations this side of the Yellowstone for those who fly-cast for trout, Weir said.

“I’ve guided four years in Montana and the last couple of years in Colorado, and I put this on a par with a lot of the better streams I’ve fished out West,” he said, adding that he’s fished the upper Elk for more than 20 years with his uncle, Jack Williams of Charleston. “It’s probably the best undeveloped, unspoiled place to fly fish in the East.”

Opened on May 1, Elk Springs Resort is owned by Huntington-area paving contractors Darrin and Lisa Dean. It lies on the site of the former Elk River Trout Ranch, which opened in 1997 and folded three years later.

Weir said the new owners are in for the long haul, and are aware that it will take time and effort to build a clientele and turn a profit.

“But the potential for this place is enormous,” he added.

“Fly-fishing is a $4 billion-a-year industry in America. Most money that’s being spent in it comes from within a 300-mile drive from here. Many of these people spend $3,000 to $4,000 to go out West and fly-fish. They could be doing the same thing here for $300 or $400.”

In its current incarnation, the Elk Springs resort consists of a building that houses a fully stocked Orvis-authorized fly shop, and a bar-grill-restaurant called the Spring Creek Club, offering everything from breakfast omelets to hot dogs and homemade chili, and nightly dinner specials with homemade desserts.

Elk Springs also has three streamside rental cabins. Two of them are two-story, fully furnished contemporary log cabins, which sleep 6 to 8 and share an outdoor gazebo-shaded hot tub. They rent for $100 a night on weekdays and $125 on weekends. The third is a four-person cabin perched on a bluff at the edge of a long pool section of the Elk, where dozens of trophy-sized browns and ’bows could be seen slurping surface flies one day last week. The Mill Pool Cabin rents for $50 a night.

Initial plans call for building three additional cabins and completing a huge post-and-beam lodge that was built to the shell stage by the previous owners, but has stood vacant for the past four years.

“We’re trying to make this a weeklong destination instead of a place to show up for a weekend,” said Weir.

“We’re already finding out that once we get people to come here for the first time, they’ll be back.”

To reach reach Elk Springs Fly Shop & Outfitters from the Charleston area, take I-79 north to exit 57, then take U.S. 19 south to Birch River. At Birch River, take W.Va. 82 east 16 miles to Cowen, then follow W.Va. 20 for 14 miles to Webster Springs. From Webster Springs, take W.Va. 15 east about 25 miles to Valley Fork Road just east of Monterville. Take Valley Fork Road 4 miles south to Elk Springs.

For more information on Elk Springs Fly Shop & Outfitters, call 339-2FLY or 339-2FISH, or visit the resort’s Web site at www.elkspringsflyshop.com.

To contact staff writer Rick Steelhammer, use e-mail or call 348-5169.

Close Window