Thirteen months' worth of stream restoration work has transformed a four-mile segment of Pocahontas County's upper Shavers Fork from a flat, featureless river into a river punctuated by riffles and pools. By installing current deflectors such as the V-shaped rock vane at bottom center, workers focused the river's currents so they would flow deeper and colder.

Before the project, much of upper Shavers was as inhospitable to trout as the shallow, structure-free stretch in the photo.