But I don't care about the cold. I only have eyes for a riffle of water near the bank under a low-hanging tree. Moments before, a huge rainbow trout had swirled the surface just there.

    "To the fish, we're part of the scenery now," whispers the man standing at my elbow -- Frank Oliverio, a cherub-cheeked, 250-pound bear of a man with colorful fishing flies bristling from a patch of sheepskin on his chest.

    Oliverio, a former oral surgeon and professor at West Virginia University, has been one of the state's top fly tyers and fly fishing guides for more than 30 years.

    I cast again. The trout jumps inches from the lure -- thumbing his nose at me, I think. I cast again, right at the eddying circle where he landed.

    "When you pursue one like that, it establishes a personal relationship," Oliverio warns, his tone low. "Now it's a contest between the two of you. If you catch him, we'll be extra careful in the release, because you will have bonded with the fish and won."

    I nod as if bonding with a fish is the most logical notion in the world, and begin to twitch the purple-bustled fly in a most enticing manner. Then, as Olivario has taught me, I let it drift downstream, the way most food comes to trout.

    It works. Unable to resist, the trout strikes, sinking the small hook into his lip. My slender graphite rod arcs and I keep the line taut, knowing that if I pull too hard the hair-fine leader will snap. It is, as Oliverio said, just the fish and I -- and time stops mid-tick.

    Then the 18-inch trout is in Frank's net, slick and gleaming in the sun. With a deft movement, he frees the hook. The fish pauses at our feet, doubting his luck, then darts away.

    A shout from the bank breaks the spell. Lunchtime. On the river bank just upstream from us is the Cheat Mountain Club, a three-story log building which hasn't changed much since 1888, when a group of Pennsylvania sportsmen felled huge spruce trees on the spot and levered them into place to form 16-inch-thick walls.

    "This is one of my favorite places," says Oliverio as we hang our waders and rods on pegs by the door. "I've fished the world's best trout streams, but this particular area is, in its own way, unparalleled and is certainly one of the most beautiful."

    In moments we're warming ourselves before the big stone fireplace in the inn's great room and I'm regaling (I think) the other guests with details of my catch -- as others have no doubt done before me. Hunters, too, have stood here telling tales of bear, deer, grouse and turkey. Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone probably did so, during their stay in 1918.

    Not everyone who comes to Cheat Mountain Club fishes or hunts -- or even approves of such pursuits. But no one can ignore the ghosts of sportsmen who have done so in this perfect setting -- surrounded by the 900,000-acre Monongahela National Forest, on the banks of one of the state's finest trout rivers. It's not necessary to hunt or fish -- or do anything -- to enjoy the extraordinary serenity of the place.