When most people think of Virginia they think of beaches, the Chesapeake Bay and lots of Striped Bass. I got to experience a different side of Virginia, a side much like my native Maine. Back in March I applied to the Tri-state Trout Unlimited Trout Camp. I was lucky enough to get accepted which I was very excited about. Two years earlier I went to the Trout Unlimited Trout camp here in Maine so I kind of knew what to expect.I arrived in Culpepper the day before the camp started. The first thing I noticed was the difference in temperature and humidity. The temperature throughout the week was in the mid nineties with humidity above 80%. Too hot for a boy from Maine in my opinion!The first day was spent getting to know everybody, assessing equipment and skill and learning the basics of casting and knot tying all of which was a review for me. After a late night we finally hit the sack at 11pm. We woke up the next day at 7am, ate breakfast and then went to practice the skills and techniques that what we learned the day before. After casting for an hour we finally got to fly fish on a pond stocked with bass and bluegill. Not exactly fun to me ( I am a trout fanatic) but some of the other campers caught their first fish on a fly rod there. After fishing for a few hours we did a stream survey of the aquatic insects in the Rose River. On a water quality scale of 12 the river scored an 11. This is because the river’s headwaters are in Shenandoah National Park. After the stream survey we Electro fished a section. This was one of my favorite activities.On Tuesday the 3rd day of the camp we woke up at 5am to go fish at the Rose River Farm. The Rose River Farm is a privately owned stretch of river which is stocked with trophy rainbow trout. When we arrived, there was not much insect activity so I decide to go with an olive Wooly Bugger. Right off I hooked a monster bow which was easily over 20 inches. I had him on for about 30 seconds but he took me to the other bank (which was only 10 feet away) and practically beached himself where he got slack and spit the hook. I did end up catching a 16 incher on a black wooly bugger 20 minutes later.The rest of the week went by in a flash we had lots of guest speakers like Walt Cary founder of Walt’s poppers, Beau Beasly, John Ross (chair of Virginia TU council who I got to fish with) and many other people who donated their time and resources. We also got to fish the upper Rose river in the park, The Rapidan river and the Rose River Farm again. I caught 5 brook trout on the Rapidan all on drys. I even managed to catch a lunker which is puny by Maine standards. Anything over 10 inches is considered a big fish for the Rapidan’s native Brookies. On our second trip to the RR Farm I caught two more 16 inch Bows this time on a parachute Adams. One of them jumped a good 2 feet out of the water not once but twice. It was quite a pretty sight right at dusk and what a way it was to top off a great week in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains a long way from home but very similar, in a trouty sort of way.