Hugh Koontz & His Laughing Trout

May flowers and trout

2011-05-30T21:23:00.003-05:00

Wild rose and honeysuckle fill the air. Cold water flows around my legs and rainbow trout dance in the current, wiggling and swaying to some unheard music. I caught a few here and there in the afternoon. Hatch was coming off, but I could not get the fly right. Sorta yellow today, while last week it was an almost white fly hatching. Still, I caught a couple, switched to nymphs and got some more. All small, around 10 inches or so.
Sun was achingly bright, so I kept losing the little flies in the glare, only to be roused out of trance by a loud dog-in-the-water splash where a trout just rose.
A kingfisher flew low, putting down a few fish. Old man and his grandson crashed down the bank through the rose bramble. I let em play with those little fish and moved downstream,tossing a wet fly and catching more little guys. Where's that fat trout?
Later, i tried at the bridge with no luck at all. Then at the fire station things picked up when they settled for a no. 16 light cahill. They were all over it.
Just as I was ready to quit, a trout the size of my leg spashed heavily. He was entirely out of the water for a sun-drenched moment, all golden and shiny with an electric glow. I had to at least try for that one.
Well, I tried. And after catching another dozen average trout, I began to reel in, hard with a little anguish added, and just as I lifted the line off the water a trout hit.
Yep, another average rainbow.
My favorite color scheme, red and silver fish to go with red and white wild rose. Not average at all, I'd say.
It's pretty special actually.
What a nice Memorial Day.

Memorial Day on a trout stream

2011-05-28T20:44:00.005-05:00

On Memorial Day weekends, I drift back to Virginia Beach of 1967 and a summer night in a dimly-lit tavern. The thick fishy smell of the ocean is fresh in my mind, even aftrer four decades. I can hear crashing waves relentlessly pounding the sand flat. Boat lights blink and bob in the dark. I hear the big ships moan in the black night.
These thoughts return uninvited every year around this long weekend, when the nation pauses to grill boat, fish, golf, salute a parade or just take a holiday from work. The days whip by like tornadoes of eating, drinking and laughing amid a riot of music, motorboats, Harleys and boisterious teenaged boys.
Away from the riot, a few people will pay homage to the men and women who died in defense of our country. I'll remember, too, but I'll flee alone to a trout stream. There, it's always quiet. And I think that's just fitting.
Forty-four years ago, the noise was welcomed. It was July and, of course, it was pavement-shimmering hot. Johnny and I were sitting in The Ravern at Virginia Beach, drinking sweaty mugs full of ice-cold beer with our girlfriends. We looked like overcooked lobsters, our faces bight as stoplights, and we were having the time of our lives. We knew we would never die.
Johnny and I had been on the high school wrestling team at Maury High. He had wrestled heavyweights thick as cows, mostly. I wrestled the little guys, the lightweights. I think Johnny was more like 180; I was a soaking-wet 125 by the time my junior year rolled around. He was always overachieving and won a football scholarship to Tennessee when normal-sized people played. I, ever the underachiever, made fourth-string on the Virginia Tech wrestling team.
Once, at a high school dance, I discovered the mysteries of gin and was horribly surprised to find this stuff could make you sick. It also could kill you, but who worries about such when you're a teenager? We were indestructible. We knew we would never die.
Besides, Johnny was there to make me puke; probably kept me alive.
I had run into Johnny that summer night at The raven by accident. I hadn't seen him in a while, not since he took off for Marine Corps boot camp. He was just back, and I was getting ready to go.
Johnny was delighted at that bit of what I thought should have been considered sorrowful news. He spent a good portion of the evening scaring the red off my sunburn with horror tales of sadistic drill instructors who lived to beat on, yell at and torture Marine recruits. I'm convinced some were evil.
We didn't talk about world news that night. We certainly did not discuss Vietnam. We were not political. We were just two beer-swilling guys with their girlfriends in a Virginia Beach tavern talking about good times. What war? And who cared? We knew we would never die.
We left late, diving into the black, humid night, letting the ocean's breath wash over our stinging skin. We said our goodbyes and our good-lucks while fading into the night. I took off for Parris Island in a couple of days. Johnny took off for Vietnam. I remember his huge smile framed by all that redness. He had a great smile.
I never saw that smile again.
I never saw Johnny again.
Johnny was shot and killed in Nam by enemy fire in 1968,
So, now we have another Memorial Day for people who need reminders that war is, indeed, hell. In a day of video-game warfare, it's easy to become detached, or just plain not care, which I submit is far worse. If it's not on TV, it's not happening?
I don't need a reminder. Neither should you.
Even in a mountain trout stream, I can almost smell the ocean air and hear waves slapping the beach.
Semper fi.

Yellow stoneflies return

2011-05-04T21:44:00.005-05:00

Now I know that spring is here. While sitting outside preparing to put my fly rod up for the day, one of these little yellow stoneflies whizzed by my ear. I caught him on a blade of grass, and he glady posed for several photos. After a few minutes wasting VFT (valuable fishing time), I crossed the road, scampered down the bank and began heaving flies every which way.
The little stones were hiding, I guess, so I caught a couple of rainbows with a pheasant tail nymph and kept on fishing downstream from the cabin.
The sun was fading quickly. Then the little yellow Sallies began to hatch in abundance, driving the trout crazy. The water began to boil with rising fish. I slashed at the water with my flyline - first here, then there, chasing rises before settling down to seriously catching fish.
Come Sunday, I'll be loaded with little yellow stones in the fly box. Around 8 o'clock, they'll begin popping like corn.
I used to sit on the banks watching other fishermen whip of a froth on the water's surface, fussing and cussing the fish they could not land. They usually left around 7:30 or so. Way too early. One must be patient.
At 8 it's great.
I live for this time of year.

Spring's here; pass the Quill Gordons

2011-04-16T20:37:00.006-05:00

There was about 40 feet of line floating on the surface, and the fly began to swing across the middle of the stretch of river. Fishing Prince and pheasant tail nymphs on a glorious spring afternoon, I had caught a half dozen rainbow trout. Some jumped and fought. Some just wiggled a little, as if they knew I was going to toss them back. It was a fine day.

I began to strip in line - two strips quick, one slow, and so on - and was ready to call it a day. I had errands. Stuff. Bills to pay. You know.

And something huge tugged at the other end. As usual, I figured it was a log or moss-covered rock. I hated to lose that fly, especially since it had worked so well, but I was ready to snap it off and reel in when that log splashed and leaped, angrily tossing its head like a dog with a bone. I could see the flash of silver and bright reddish-orange sparkling in the sunlight and knew it was the biggest rainbow trout of the year.

I was not about to break him off. What a fish!

He was bigger than the big'un I nailed the previous week, one so fat that I could not fit both hands around. I cussed myself for leaving the net in the car, just to avoid a few rose bushes on the banks, and I knew a photo was out of the question.

At my feet, splashing and wiggling, the trout seemed to take one sardonic look at me before flipping the hook and scooting off.

Wow. That was fun. The miserable winter I had been assaulted with each day off since Thanksgiving abruptly stopped to allow a tardy new season in.

Now, the hills were again alive with color, as if somebody had spilled their Fruit Loops on Mount Hardy and allowed the colorful circles to roll down the slopes.

Jonquils kept a silent watch from the banks. Wild violets and bluebells swayed in the gusty spring breeze. Cherry and apple trees fill with blooms.

Spring had arrived and all was right with the world.

Quill Gordons have arrived for their annual visit, but I have managed to miss the peak hatches I heard about at the Davidson River Fly Shop - "Biggest hatch I've ever seen here," said the guide.

Yeah, I know. I shoulda been here last week.

Late Sunday I tied on a Quill Gordon, though I never saw any of the big bugs flying about that day, and tried it out on Avery Creek, a tiny tributary of the Davison River that regularly gets hammered. The fish are wild and small, but like most tiny creeks it's full of surprises. Within the past year, I have caught brook, rainbow and brown trout there.

The brown, hiding in the shade of some branches, took the Quill Gordon when I wasn't looking. Surprise!

I said it was a beautiful day. Anybody's mind could wander with the sun ripping through the hemlocks to dapple the water's surface.

It seemed as if spring had come in the back way, with hardly anybody noticing the color gently filling in the blank spaces on the mountain's canvas.

Now, it's here in all its glory.

Snow slows fly fishing in WNC

2011-01-26T22:23:00.004-05:00

Every time I turn around, there'smore snow on the ground. The days in the middle of the week, though, have tossed a few curveballs by giving us mild weather in the high 40s and low 50s and then turning vile for the weekend with a shower of sparkly snow and ice.

I did get out, though, on a couple of those miserable days. Mostly, I fished nymphs in the water across the street. On the nicest of those days, I caught nine at the cabin and a couple more downstream at the fire station. Nothing special, but they were trout. They hit pheasant tail and hare's ear nymphs.

My days off this weekend look good on the weather map. It's looking like low to mid 50s and mostly sunny. Some clouds Monday could help.

We had some snow; we caught some trout

2011-01-19T22:37:00.005-05:00

Like I have been telling folks...we had some snow. And then some more. Over Christmas, it was OK because I got snowed in with the grandsons in Virginia Beach, where they set a new record with 13.5 inches. That was fun. Even built an igloo, or rather Spencer did.

We did have a few nice days. Usually, those were the days I worked. It snowed on my off-days. A couple of times.

If it just gets into the high 40s or low 50s, chances are I will catch trout. Between 30 and 40, not so much. Below 30, I spend more time sipping coffee in the car.

I posted some earlier this year but the entry ended up in the May 2007 folder. You can link back to that one. Sorry.

2011-01-08T20:44:00.001-05:00

Getting cold for fly fishing

2010-12-11T23:04:00.003-05:00

My backyard mountains have thrown off the gaudy attire of fall for the colors of faded flannel. Within a week they resembled rounded hunters in camo. Now winter's breath ices our necks and the hills look like eerie formations of emaciated Confederate soldiers, standing tall and straight still but rough around the edges. A little haggardness, I guess, sends the silent message that winter is a lilttle more than a week away.
Still, we catch trout. Not all the time, but mostly.
With just the smallest window of warm opportunity between the hours of 11 and 3, dry flies have been working well. Mostly, parachute Adams and tiny caddisflies.
Only one weekend was blown out by the icy wind. I joked at the flyshop that perhaps it was cold enough to rig up inside the Troutmobile while the heater blasted. You know, rig up, jump out, make a cast or two. Jump back in. Warm those fingertips. Jump out again.
Nah.
Another day and it was wind. Then wind and rain, heavy doses of both. The North Fork of the French Broad got rowdy and danced out of her banks. One motorist was swept into a field and had to be rescued.
I keep looking for little splashes of sun. If it warms the water some, it may warm up the trout appetites for dry flies.
They were popping pretty good last week. There is a little stretch about 400 feet in front of the cabin that few fish. It's just a surpreme bother to struggle through the rose thorns, so few bother.
The little girl across the street, along with her 4-year-old daughter, tried to clean my home waters out a month ago. They bagged a bunch. Kept 'em too.
Then, little momma tells me about the 31-inch brown some good ole boy caught at the waterfall last year.
That, friends, broke my heart. It was like General Lee once again had his sword stolen by some Yankee general.
More and more the trees lining the little creek took on the somber look of Army of Northern Virginia ghosts, standing blind sentry by precious water.

dry flies and brook trout

2010-11-09T11:29:00.006-05:00

Tough place to cast a fly. Worth it, though.

Fly fishing amid fall's brilliance

2010-10-19T19:43:00.005-05:00

Fall in the mountain of western North Carolina is a little like driving around the inside of a brightly-lit Christmas tree, with a rainbow shower pouring through the branches drenching everything. It's one of my favorite seasons.

The perfectly blue sky was marred by only a few feathers of cloud. The sun was bright. The air was sweet and warm.

Leaves were beginning to shower to forest floor and clog the trout streams, but I caught surprisingly few of them this past weekend. I also caught surprisingly few trout, though the ones I did manage to hook and land were memorable, mainly because they were the first fish I had hooked in more than a month.

For the record, I was skunked on the East Fork of the French Broad River two weekends ago, humiliated by gently rising trout sipping God-only-knows what type of flies. They certainly were not interested in anything I had to offer, which included hoppers, midges and parachute cahills and a few streamers too.

It can be demoralizing. You're standing on the edge of a mirrow-smooth pool reflecting the flame-red and gold of maples and beech, and the water looks as if it were raining. Trout are feeding everywhere. The rise rings pop up and disappear.

So, you tie on a fly. You pick out a spot and you let loose with a perfect cast that lands feather soft on the water's surface, allowing the fly to float for a few seconds before ...

Nothing happens. The trout continue to feed on everything in the water except your fly. They splash and swirl and swallow every bug in sight ... except the one fly that's not real.

This happened on the East Fork of the FB, on the Davidson River near Looking Glass Creek and once more with feeling on the Pigeon River.

It's one thing to get skunked when there is nothing happening and quite another experience when the fish are feeding all around and the water looks like it's been peppered by birdshot.

I tied a little sparkly midge, about a size 20, and cast to a little channel next to some rock. It was late Monday and I had not caught anything but leaves. I watched the little fly bounce jauntily along before disappearing with a violent splash.

The spell was broken. The remorseless drought came to a splashy end and I had the fist trout of the day, indeed of the month, struggling at the end of my line.

That felt good.

I got another brown while floating the fly downstream, mending the fly line every few seconds so it wouldn't drag it like a wiggling snake and scare the fish. I missed two or three this way, mostly because I had so much line loose in my hands trying to get a long, quiet drift to where the fish were feeding.

Overhead, a blue heron soared.

I drove home through a tunnel rich in fall color, with gold and crimson light pouring softly through the trees like honey. Everything glittered.

Fall's one of my favorite seasons.

Fly fishing is all about timing

2010-08-28T20:50:00.006-05:00

I had slept on the ground with the stars winking above, crashed inside the car during a rainstorm and found a cabin with air conditioning during my experiments with camping out near trout water.

Best of all, I spent a couple of nights on the banks of the South Holston River with a camper to sleep in and a stack of firewood to burn. I was so close to the water I could hear trout rising to eat little yellow bugs.

On the hottest day of summer, I selected the cabin as the best option. It remains so.

The riverbank site conjures the best memories. There, I would arise with the sun, check out the water, go eat breakfast at one of the two country stores, return to the site and fish until noon, eat lunch, then fish the early afternoon sulphur hatch until the water began to rise with roiling water released from the dam.

One day TVA did not generate, so the water stayed safely wadable.

The river itself is wide and open. I fished under mostly cerulean skies, rimmed with puffy clouds that reminded me of piles of popcorn.

I caught a ton of fish.

My most recent trip to the So Ho reminded me that in fishing, as often it is also in life, timing can be everything. You grill the local fly shop operators, tie the correct flies, arm yourself with a stout flyrod and use 25 years' of trout fishing experience to get out there and rip some lips.

None of that matters if the timing is off.

There had been a heavy rain the night before I arrived. The lower end of the river, the part I usually hit first before fishing near the dam, resembled cafe au lait from you favorite coffee house. I zoomed upstream, only to find every flyfisher from three states standing knee-deep in the river slinging flies into a vicious wind.

There was even a squadron of blue heron between the anglers.

I had to hike a bit to find an unoccupied stretch. The hatch was on, trout were rising here and there and everything was perfect ... except for that damn wind.

My timing was off. I should have arrived hours earlier. There probably was plenty of gusty wind then too, but I could have had my choice of places to fish. Although I didn't know it at the time I waded out from the bank, I picked the worst spot of all. It was scary wading, with some really deep dropoff punctuated with little ankle-breakers in the rock formation that made up the river bottom.

So, I could not wade far. And the different currents dragged my fly across the water like a berserk bass boat, scaring every fish in Tennessee with its wake. When I thought I had a good cast, that pesky wind would rev up and take my fly for a wild ride to someplace else.

I got a couple hookups, a few handshakes so to speak, but no fish. I skitted the fly over the surface and got some good rises, but missed them each time.

Two hours went by. No fish. The afternoon wore on. The wind wore me out.

I was on the verge of packing it in but thought, just one more cast, and I punched the fly upstream 25 feet into the gust. The water was a little choppy with the wind, so my sloppy cast didn't scare anything.

And a trout smacked that fly.

Another few minutes and I would have been out of there and that brown trout would not have a sore lip.

Talk about timing.

Fly fishing in Tennessee

2010-08-12T22:13:00.002-05:00

Found a cheap cabin to rent on the hottest Sunday of the year. Didn't catch many fish and missed the evening sulpher hatch because the TVA was generating and the water was scary high.

Thought I had the biggest trout of the year Sunday afternoon before the water came. Took about 5 minutes to horse him in. Quite a battle. For a little 12 inch rainbow. I had foul-hooked him in the tail, so he felt like a monster brown at the end of the line.

Nice trip, anyway.

Another fly fishing camping trip

2010-08-03T21:17:00.004-05:00

The black sky outside the camper window slowly faded like a pair of old jeans to a shade of gray. The rising sun added a bit of blush. An eerie mist shrouded the beasts mulling about in the field.

It was my third weekend camping, and the newest spot was nestled under a clump of shade trees beside the South Holston River in Tennessee.Unlike the other campsites I had tried, this one was wide open as the Serengetti in Tanzania, though the beasts that surrounded this site were mere beef cattle, not wild rhinos. And I was thankful for that, despite the plethora of flies that lent their incessant buzzing to the natural melodies of summer.

It was the flies that drove me inside the camper early in the night. I usually sleep with just the star-sprnkled sky for a roof. It it rains, I can fit the sleeping bag into the back of the Troutmobile, like I was forced to do the previous weekend.

In two and a half days I got in a lot of fly fishing, managing to catch tons of brown and rainbow trout. They were hitting little sulphur flies, little yellow things the fish seemed to like floating on top of the surface or below. I fished a CDC dry up and across, then let it swing downstream until it dipped under the surface. From there, I stripped the fly back slowly until I felt that familiar jerk at the other end.

Sunday evening was awesome. After a long lazy lunch, I rigged up the new rod. From my seat at the campsite, I could see rise rings spread over he mirrow-smooth water while the feeding trout taunted me. I could not turn away from such a challenge.

During the recent hot dry spell, trout have been stressing out. Warm water can be lethal to the fish, and many fishermen avoid low-altitude, and hence warmer, creeks and rivers. Instead, they search out trout in the higher elevations. Or they find a tailrace river, where the coldest of the cold water in a lake is released from the bottom of a dam to generate electricity and make a lot of trout downstream happy in July.

It is never dry on the South Holston. The water gets a bit rough when they open all the gates, but it's always a healthy cold temperature for trout.

I was catching a few and missing a few when a fellow in a big 'ol cowboy hat hollered from the bank. Names were exchanged; dinner invitations were offered.

The fellow, who has the same name as one of my first cousins, said they would cook the steaks around 6 and return to the water at 7 for the evening hatch.

Sounded like a plan. My luck was looking up.

And after dinner we slayed 'em, mostly with little yellow spinner flies, and fished until the biggest moon of the year peeked over the treeline upstream. Sparkling trout held in the glow of a midsummer moon left one of those indelible images forever etched in my brain. Who needs a camera?

The next day, there was a late-morning frenzy of hooking, catching and losing trout, almost all bulldog-strong browns. The fish returned for an encore later in the afternoon, just before the dam gates opened and the rowdy river chased us to shore.

I slept like the proverbial log that night to the tune of Carolina Chorus frogs and the river's steady beat.

The flies stayed outside.

And as I left, I recalled the campsite owner mentioning an empty home he would let me use, which would certainly protect me from bug attacks.

But I would miss the water buffalo wading throught the early morning mist, awash in a golden sun.

What's a few bugs?

Trout like bugs.

Fly fishing on the South Holston River

2010-08-01T22:53:00.005-05:00

Fly fishing Fourth

2010-07-17T21:44:00.000-05:00

She put the plate on the table and said, "I didn’t make this. She did." Then, the waitress disappeared into the kitchen where presumedly She was preparing BP lunch specials like the one in front of me.
My plate sorta resembled a Louisiana beach, with a thick layer of goo covering most of it and flanked by some boiled bacon flavored with green beans. There was a pretty good biscuit off to the side.
This fishing trip is not getting off to a good start, I thought. I had arrived late at the South Holston River. First, the water was too high to fish downstream. I slipped on the bank, twisting my knee. I forgot to line up a place to sleep and I was driving around lost while trying to remember where the best spots were and how to get to them.
Then, it was dark as a scary movie.
I had violated my No. 1 rule: Never leave fish to find fish. The prior weekend I had spent a couple of splendid afternoons at home catching rainbows and brown with little black ant flies. Though I could not see the fly, the trout could. I’d watch for the splash or the twitch in the line, then set the hook. I lost count of how many.
Fourth of July weekend was supposed to be special.
While my first day was a bust, Monday dawned full of hope. By mid-morning, I was catching trout on a dry fly and again I lost count. This was more like it. I fished mostly sulphur dries but also used a soft-hackle wet and some nymphs.
The spin fishermen downstream were reeling in lots of trout and taking heavy stringers to the house before returning for more. At the South Holston Fly Shop, I learned later that these good ole boys are infamous for flouting the state fishing regulations. They probably have a refrigerator full of freezer-burnt fish that a skinny cat wouldn’t eat.
Things began to get better, though. I found a campsite, bought a new fly rod and sampled some fine cuisine at the Hickory Tree Store where the chili dogs are prepared lovingly by the ladies running the store.
As the sun began to dip, the river sparkled with a red-purple glow. Mayflies glittered in the air. Trout began to rise all around as the water, which had been rushing from the dam all day, began to drop. I started with a yellow dry fly.
The trout kept on rising and I kept on fishing.
I did no catching.
When I looked closely at the water, there was an armada of spent-winged mayflies doing their version of the Dead-Man’s Float. These were the worn-out spinner flies, of which I had none in the fly box. Dang.
That night I slept under the stars; there was no need for a tent. Holiday fireworks and a big dog’s woofs from across the road lulled me to sleep.
The sun woke me early, so I achingly struggled out of the sleeping bag. The sky was a brilliant blue with a few horse tails for clouds. I was in the water in an hour.
I caught a bunch of fish, rested in the early afternoon at the campsite and headed back to the water for the evening hatch, for which I was fully armed with spinner flies.
And, you know what? Those spinners did not show up. Calmly sailing by on the surface were sulphur duns, with their upright wings in the air like sails, so I changed flies a couple of times. I could hear a group of fly fishers nearby, their voices rising with the mist through a heavy fog that settled over the river. One guy was into a big trout. Another guy fell in.
The sun was almost gone when I felt the tug … a hard tug. All my fly line disappeared as the brown trout took off, shaking its head like a big dog with a bone it won’t let go of.
Wow, those South Holston browns are strong. I had already broken off one huge one, so I wisely let this one run.
My reel was ringing, adding to the celebratory Fourth of July racket that never ceased that weekend. Holding the trout gently before releasing him, I marveled at the fiery colors awash with the sunset’s fading fuchsia. The water shimmered.
What a fine way to celebrate the Fourth of July, even if I had to leave fish to find fish.
The next weekend I was back on the home waters catching late-afternoon rainbows with tiny ant flies.
Ain’t it great to be alive and living in America?

Fly fishing on the Fourth on the South Holston River, Tenn.

2010-07-10T21:29:00.006-05:00

Getting antsy with summer fly fishing

2010-07-03T21:11:00.003-05:00

Summer trout fishing creeps slowly like a relentless picnic-raiding army of ants. It’s a respite from the wild dances of April and May.
I love spring fly fishing, of course, for that is when the mayflies and stoneflies fill the afternoon and evening air to entice wary trout out of their winter sluggishness to get in line for the big bug buffet.
Boy, I had some awesome days in May tossing little yellow sallies and light cahills, which often didn’t have time to get used to the cold water before one of those voracious rainbow trout abruptly ended its peaceful ride. In the late afternoon light, the mayflies sparkled and glittered like jewelry.
At the right time, the hookups were almost non-stop. I’d have to drag myself from the water.
Waiting until it was almost dark as tar can bring out some big surprises. Huge fish come out of nowhere to hit the fly with startling violence and after he breaks my line, I stand with shaking knees wondering where that one came from and where was it a couple of months ago?
I mark such places, vowing to return to finish what was only begun.
With summer I can pause to catch my breath. The water is much lower, the mayfly hatches are less frequent, and the air is thick as warm syrup. The fishing, in a word, is tougher.
But you recall those picnic raiders, the ants? Trout love these little guys. Beetles and grasshoppers also drive trout insane with the munchies on the hot summer days, and these flies will work when nothing else in the fly box will. Sometimes I cut the hackle from the bottom of these flies so they float a little lower in the water, even though that makes it almost impossible to see. Ant flies work on top, in the surface film and tossing around under the water.
My favorite home water was frustrating me last week. Nothing worked. I wasn’t certain there were even any fish left there. The water was ankle deep and threatening to go lower if rain didn’t come soon.
I kept changing flies.
I put on a beetle fly and fished it in the shallow water downstream. Like the ant flies, I could hardly see the thing on the water. I just kept a careful watch for splashes, and thern set the hook.
I switched flies when the beetle began to look well-chewed and digested. A big black ant made a fine substitute, though I still couldn’t see the thing on the water.
I fished a good portion downstream, finding a puddle pool here and there, holding the rod high while hoping I didn’t spook the trout.
The water was so low I was spotting trout by the waves they knuckled the surface with when they moved . There were a few rises, but nothing deliberate or regular.
But that little ant kept busy. I missed a bunch, hooked quite a few before losing them and landed a few nice rainbows before I just got tired a catching fish and quit.
One rainbow shot out of the water like a little silver and red rocket about three feet into the air; what a show-off, I thought.
It had been a fine day for fly fishing. Why press it? This is summer fishing, slow and easy.
Well, perhaps not easy but certainly relentless ... like ants.

Fly fishing when even the sun seeks some shade

2010-06-19T19:28:00.003-05:00

Summer slammed me in the face the past two weekends, necessitating some shifts in my fly fishing routine.
It’s no longer wise to bask in soft sunshine during the middle of the day while waving a flimsy graphite stick back and forth. The sunshine is no longer soft as a May breeze but has turned hard and mean. Gone are those pleasant days of April and May when it was always a perfect 75 degrees.
Now, I fish late in the evenings. Sometimes, it is almost dark before I drag myself off the porch with rod in hand.
The fishing in May had been almost too easy. Mayflies and caddis flies hatched in the mornings, the afternoons and evenings. About the time the sun began to dip, the air would explode with sparkling yellow and white insects hatching over a river bubbling with rising trout.
Pleasant was the word for May fly fishing. Wild violets dotted the banks, and honeysuckle sweetened the air. Even the persistent rain showers that kept me dodging clouds while moving from spot to spot were mostly refreshing. Thunderstorms were rare.
In May one could almost set his watch by the evening hatches that sent the fish into feeding frenzies at 8 o’clock. Boy, was that fun.
With a recent heat wave that has the sun itself looking for some shade, my normally frenetic fishing pace has slowed. Last Sunday I spent several hours just sitting under the hemlocks — eating lunch, washing lunch down with cold beverages, rigging the fly rod, tying on tiny flies, lacing up the wading boots, reading the NY Times, napping — and almost anything else that did not require any strenuous effort with a chance of sweat.
Now, with cumulus clouds piled all around the mountaintops like fluffy pillows, I am lulled into a false sense of goodness. Last Sunday looked like a perfect day.
Then those friendly looking white puffs darkened. The hills began to rumble. Thunder boomed like drums signaling all sorts of approaching unpleasantness. The ground shook. Time to get out of the way.
At least the intermittent sprinkles cooled the air.
When the rain stopped and the sun peeped through a crack in the clouds, a spooky mist rose over the water. Shards of light stabbed though the vapors like golden swords. An eerie silence fell like a curtain.
And with the cooler water, trout became hungrier.
This is the time of year when I mostly fish hoppers, beetles and ants during the daylight hours. Grasshopper flies are fun and are fished in an indelicate manner by splashing them on the surface to get the trout’s attention. The fly goes ka-plop, the fish looks up and sees a sub sandwich and attacks it with the vigor of a teenager.
You can’t do that with little mayfly dry flies. You just scare the fish. But hoppers are different. And trout love them.
Ants and beetles, when fished carefully with no drag in the line, will catch trout through the summer and into the fall.
I fish the ants pretty small, sized 20 or 22. You can barely see these little flies, so mostly I just watch for movement in the line and then set the hook when it jerks a little. It works.
And if it gets too hot, I can wait for the evening hatch while sitting in the shade, waiting for the sun to find its own shade behind the mountain.
Really, dusk is the time of day in June when the action begins.

Memorial day a good time to hit the river

2010-05-29T22:26:00.002-05:00

The merry month of May this year has fully compensated for hateful February and March, for the fly fishing has been awesome. May is now my favorite of the calendar dozen.
May even had five weekends for fly fishing. Now, that’s compensation.
Last Monday was typical, with little mayflies hatching sporadically during the day and trout lazily rising to sip them in here and there. I had some luck. For the weekend’s fishing five creeks in my neighborhood, I caught wild and hatchery rainbows, some energetic and colorful browns and a couple of little brook trout. All hit dry flies of a pale persuasion.
Brook, brown and rainbow … that’s a hat trick.
In the evening, just before dark as the sun slipped behind the Mount Hardy, my home creek exploded with mayflies sparkling in the waning sunlight like flecks of gold.
They were in a hurry, and while I was studying the water from a bridge, the little sulphur flies bounced off my face and arms. I caught a couple, looked real close at their No. 16 hook sized bodies, and attached the appropriate offering to my tippet.
Then I caught a ton of trout.
At the end of a turbulent ribbon of water splashing cheerfully over ancient rocks, a pool smooth as glass beckoned. I never catch fish there but I always try.
As the moon poured a silvery sheen on the water, I flipped a perfect cast that settled softly as a sigh and disappeared almost immediately. On the next cast, I lost sight of the fly, but when the line moved, I lifted the rod and brought in a brown.
I fish alone, mostly. Sometimes, my mind wanders, especially near Memorial Day.
Flashback 42 years and join us in the Raven bar in Virginia Beach. Our faces are lobster red and the beer ice-blue cold.
Johnny was with one of our school’s cheerleaders and I was with the beach girl I later married. Johnny was just out of Marine boot camp at Parris Island, S.C., and I was getting ready to enter that hellhole of sweat, bugs and cussing. He was having a ball regaling me with boot camp horror stories. I began to think it may not be a bad idea to try and join Air Force.
Johnny and I had been teammates on the Maury High School wrestling team. I was the littlest and usually the most nervous, and Johnny was the biggest and calmest. He wrestled guys in the heavyweight division who were bigger since he weighed in at about 185. It’s amazing today to think at that size he was all-district in football and won a scholarship to the University of Tennessee. He had a big heart.
At a high school dance about seven years before, he probably saved my life by helping me lose the pint of gin I had imbibed with way too much alacrity. I don’t recall a heck of a lot more about that dance.
Guess I’ll always remember that night at the Raven in the summer of 1967.
Within a few days, Johnny took off for Officer Candidate School at Quantico, and I got on the bus to South Carolina.
I never saw him again. Johnny died in Vietnam of gunshot wounds in combat.
I got the word first from my Dad: "Your friend Johnny got killed in Vietnam."
It felt like I had been punched. It must have been an awful mistake. I thought the same thing three decades later when I visited the traveling Vietnam Memorial. I could not find his name. Perhaps there was a mistake.
Then a kindly camo-dressed vet showed me. There were little crowds of people around, children playing and laughing, adults weeping as they traced the names of loved ones and comrades on that black marble. I almost lost it right there.
A couple of years ago I had a dream that Johnny showed up on my front porch. It was the middle of the blackest time of night. I heard a knock. I opened the door. And there was Johnny … for a few seconds before the apparition faded into a mist. Mistaken again.
What a waste. While watching a football game or a wrestling match today, I cannot help but speculate what a fine coach Johnny would have made. He’d be a granddaddy by now too, with a bunch of little guys crawling all over him.
So, the merry month of May ends on a melancholy note, as it has for me the past four decades. I can’t forget.
Today I’ll also remember Sarge and Jerry who fought the demons inside for years after Nam. I’ll remember Lewis B. Puller Jr., the son of the most decorated Marine in history who came home crippled and maimed. Demons got to Puller, too, and he finally took his life.
That war killed those boys just as certain as it did Johnny. Just slower.
What a mistake that war was. It would be a bigger mistake to forget, though sometimes, I think we have.
I’ll fish the yellow and red dry fly tonight. I really have no name for it, but I could call it a "Chesty."
You Marines know what I’m saying.
Semper fi.

The Hatch - Bug buffet in May

2010-05-15T21:34:00.002-05:00

They call it the Mother’s Day Hatch out West also. I read about the hatch in Montana that really lights up those trout on those big rivers during May when the air fills like a golden bug blizzard. It’s one of those magic moments on the water when fooling fish with a fly becomes almost too easy.
We called the yellow stonefly hatch on the Davidson River "The Mother’s Day Hatch" because we discovered the marvel on, you guessed it, Mother’s Day about 20 years ago. It began around 8 and lasted until it was too dark to see the fly. We could almost touch the madly feeding trout that splashed next to us in the rushing water.

And it’s that time again.
The flies are coming off the water on the Davidson, the French Broad and everywhere else there’s cold water and trout. Often, those hatches explode in the waning light when it’s least expected, like after you’ve been on the water all afternoon with nothing to show for it other than wet boots. One must be patient.
I spent a good portion of Sunday afternoon chasing rising trout in the Davidson, missing quick little wild rainbows in Looking Glass Creek and in general just getting a plain old-fashioned skunking everywhere else.

The water tumbled over Looking Glass Falls like a glistening crystal curtain. I paused for a second, thinking perhaps I should give that plunge pool a stab with a heavily-weighted wooly-bugger. But the crowd was too much. I wasn’t exactly looking for company.
The sun was bright and warm. Sudsy clouds fringed a perfect bluebird sky. The wind was a mere whisper tickling the laurel.
Fishing Looking Glass Creek, though, gives me the feeling of vulnerability. The water is so close to the highway I sometimes expect passersby to toss soda cans from car windows at me just for fun. It could happen. I guess I could throw fish at them in retaliation.

I tagged a couple wild rainbows with a cream-colored caddis fly, but both were too quick. Almost 6 o’clock and no fish.
Leaving Looking Glass and the Davidson behind, I hit the Blue Ridge Parkway. I had a few special creeks, places where I can get away with drive-by casting, that hold a few special trout. They are not easy to fool.
Approaching 7 p.m., there still was no hatch. I decided then that I would go to the cabin … after one more stop.

My fire station pool almost always saves the day. There are a lot of stockers in there and a few browns. On Sunday I discovered the really huge brown trout that lurks under overhanging tree limbs and I almost missed it entirely.
Light was fading like old blue jeans. I could barely make out the fly, and then the water exploded like an old tire tossed into the river.
All about my face little bugs danced aerial jigs. They looked as if they were being shot from little Polaris submarines.

And the trout acted like frisky puppies scrambling for food. There’s no line at this bug buffet.
The biggest fish took the fly, ran upstream and then turned back as if it forgot something. I stripped line like mad, then let the fish run while the reel clicked like crickets on meth.
I had caught a dozen so far, and lost one biggie, from my spot below the bridge.
The fish began to tire. I brought it close and held it with my left hand while fumbling for the camera. The brown sagged heavily in my hand, its hooked jaws moving like it was cussing me out.

Or perhaps just laughing that quiet trout laugh.
The fish snapped the line. The hatch was over. I could go home now.
I’m glad they have this much fun out West too.

You remember the trout you lost

2010-05-01T21:50:00.001-05:00

The river stretches before me like a shimmering, silver quilt covering secret gifts piled under a Christmas tree.
I know there are big, even giant, trout waiting for me under all that sparkling, smooth water. They are there hunkered next to a rock or thick laurel root, lazily sipping nymphs and the occasional oblivious mayfly sailing over its nose. You can see them from the bank. You imagine they are laughing at all the foolish-looking people standing waist-deep in the river waving sticks over their heads with a string with a bit of hook and feather attached.
I know they laugh at me.
Strangely, my most memorable fish at the Davidson are the ones never landed. Certainly, we all remember that huge rainbow caught and netted years ago, but for me those fish pale in comparison to the monsters that broke my tippet and my heart the past 20 years splashing around the Davidson River.
Only on the Davidson do I have such a problem.
Noted by Trout Unlimited as one of the nation’s Top 50 trout streams, the Davidson that I fish has three classifications — the Hatchery Supported section at the lower end near the intersection, the Catch and Release section upstream past the ranger station and the Wild section far upstream.
So, you have your fat food fish at the lower end, your trophy trout in the middle and the quick-as-lightning wary wild trout up the mountain toward the headwaters.
Something for everyone, so to speak, awaits the anxious angler on the Davidson. She has all sorts of ways to break a fisherman’s heart.
I hit the water late in the darkened afternoon with a heavy gray sky threatening to spit all kinds of rain and mischief. By the time I had rigged the rod and donned the waders, a soft spring rain began licking my face. My thoughts immediately turned to Blue Winged Olives, those little mayflies that love misty rain on cool days.
A passing fisherman said the rises were ‘sporadic’ but that the trout had been hitting cream-colored caddis flies all day.
I tied on a cream-colored dry fly.
The rain, unlike the bull of a storm of a few weeks ago, had a soothing sweetness and soon passed.
A piece of sky peeked through the clouds, escaping from the darkness like a frightened bluebird.
The threat of rain and spotty showers kept most people away from the river on Monday, and I all but had the water to myself. I cast upstream on the mirror-smooth water. Trout rose downstream, across stream and upstream. They ignored my fly.
There was a little breeze, what the poet called trout-colored winds, whispering through the trees, but if you waited for a pause, you could flip a fly a good ways. I used a long leader, which helped get a more natural drift.
I chased rises for awhile, even though I know that is not the proper way to fish these fish, and I missed the few hits I got. I turned my head to cast upstream again when I felt a tug from behind and almost lost the rod to a struggling brown trout who thought I wasn’t looking. Fooled you, I thought.
I laughed at that trout.
About 15 minutes later another trout hit my fly with a vengeance. A passerby shouted, "I heard THAT," and I knew I was into a pretty hefty fish. I could not tell you which was shaking the most, my rod or my legs.
When the trout rolled with the fly, I caught a glimpse of an enormous belly the size of one of my shaking legs. I had him hooked solid. All I had to do was play him awhile, give him enough time to get tired and then get him up close for the obligatory photo.
I fought that fish forever. It splashed and whirled and ran with the fly.
And then he broke my heart.
The tippet went ping.
And he was gone.
I could almost hear him laughing.

Cheating anglers

2010-04-24T18:25:00.001-05:00

Professional athletes do it with chemicals. Texas angler Robby Rose did it with a fish.
Did what? They cheated, though only Rose was trying to cheat by stuffing a 1-pound lead weight down the gullet of a fish that he had caught last October in a bass fishing tournament.
Rose, a Texas business owner and bass tournament competitor, was caught stuffing his catch in a tourney at Lake Ray Hubbard in Texas. The Dallas Morning News reported the dastardly deed, mentioning that the prize for biggest fish was a $55,000 bass boat.

This was more than just a fish story shared with buddies at the local tavern. Hey, with enough time and beer all fish grow in size, and it’s generally accepted that a trophy trout or bass will gain a couple of pounds after the weekend’s glow wears off.
But this turned out to be a felony. Rose insists he was not really cheating to win that nifty boat and he sorta apologized for it and admitted he could have handled the whole thing better. The judge handed him a $3,000 fine and 15 days in jail. He also lost his fishing license for the five years he’s on probation.

Rose was not exactly repentant. Even with the extra weight, his fish was not enough for the top prize, but if he had left it alone he had second place locked.
"Second place was mine to do with as I pleased," the newspaper quoted him.
Others disagreed.
"Cheating is cheating," the lead prosecutor said. "And neither the fishing community nor this office will tolerate it."

Rose continued his defiance by asserting he had been bullied by tournament officials in the past and had to pass numerous polygraph tests and the rumors about how he won other contests in the past were based on jealousy.
Back in another century when I did a little part-time guiding, I helped with a trout fishing contest. We had all the safeguards, we thought. Each participant would get a disposable camera to photograph the fish stretched next to a ruler, to show how big it was. Of course, the biggest fish would win a considerable amount of cash, and folks will go to all sorts of trouble to win cash.

A couple of good ‘ol boys tried to pull one over on the fishing guides and the good ‘ol boys got caught. The fish, a monster rainbow, had been a faded dead for several days. You could actually tell from the photo. Tempers flared. Threats were issued. But the good ‘ol boys did not go home with the prize.
I said from the beginning that a fly-fishing tournament offering money for the biggest trout was a dismal idea. It smelled of trouble like a fish dead too long. We never held another.
Smallmouth bass fishers have their summer-long contests where each angler chips in an entry fee. At the end of the summer, the guy who brought in the biggest "live" smallie would walk off with the bucks.

Just about everybody cheated in one way or another, though I know of nobody who stuffed a fish with lead weight. Too obvious.
The smallmouth fishermen were more imaginative.

A big fish was caught and kept in a private pond all summer. At the end of the summer, the pond was drained, the fish scooped up and the top prize was claimed.
Funny, I know.
But it was still cheating.

Fishing like a kid

2010-04-17T21:22:00.000-05:00

As a boy I began fishing with little more than a hook tied to a string with perhaps a washer or bolt attached as a sinker.
I would impale some poor sea creature, mostly shrimp, on the hook and sling it all as far as my 8-year-old arm could into the Elizabeth River in Virginia. I didn’t even have a rod; I used a short stick, and pulled in my quarry hand over hand, like Hemingway’s Santiago in "Old Man and the Sea."

But, hey, I wasn’t fishing for marlin. I caught croaker and spot. The croakers made funny noises and were a big hit with my friends.
Then I graduated to using a rod and reel. I used big ol’ lead sinkers to get the bait into the deep water. It was years before I discovered bobbers, which dance on the gentle waves until a fish strikes and pulls its red-and-white body violently underwater.
Boy, that was fun.

I fished like that for years. One time in South Carolina, I fished for bass with a fellow who used long rods and bobbers. I thought that was weird at the time. Still do.
About 20-some years ago I discovered fly fishing, bought a rod and a bagful of flies and attacked the nearest river 225 times out of 365 days. I kept a record.
I forgot about bobber fishing.
But within the past couple of years, I began to zero in on nymph fishing under the surface. At first, I just watched the fly line for twitches that indicated a strike. Then I began tying on a dry fly with a nymph or wet fly attached to about 6 to 8 inches of tippet. When a trout nudged the nymph, the dry fly got dunked like a bobber. Fish on.

But a lot of anglers today use yarn tied to their leaders as strike indicators, while others use a fluorescent colored putty on the line. And there are indicators like the Thingamabobber that’s supposed to be easy to put on and remove.
On the MidCurrent fly fishing Web site, they say strike indicators have three primary jobs: they must float well, be easy for anglers to see and small enough not to scare all the trout. Big roiling water requires a much bigger indicator than slow pools.

Last week I tried fishing a blood midge attached by a skinny 7X tippet and a No. 16 dry fly. These little nymphs, about the size of a little girl’s freckles, are usually deadly on the Davidson River, and huge trout will gobble them like corn chips all day. It was way too early for any major mayfly or caddis hatches, so I fished the little nymph.
And you know what? I caught trout … on the dry fly. They ignored the nymph, which I thought was odd.

The next day I bought some bobber indicators. They’re as bright as fire trucks’ flashing lights and may startle some wary trout in quiet pools.
But bobber fishing makes me feel like a kid.
If I catch fish, so much the better.

Always on the lookout for more feathers for flies

2010-04-10T17:06:00.002-05:00

Anybody who ties his own trout flies is always on the lookout for new sources of material. All those piles of feathers and fur do not come to the fly tying desk easily or cheaply, even though it’s really just a bunch of dead animal parts. It is a wonderful feeling to discover a newer, less costly supplier.
Virginia Beach, Va., may be the future for feathers.

The story, as related to me the other day, goes like this. Two brothers, age 6 and 8 ½, crashed into their parents’ bedroom to demand, beg and cajole politely without too much volume for a big piece of cardboard.
What on earth for? They were asked at 6 a.m.
For a business sign, of course, the fledging entrepreneurs replied. Get up.
Patrick and Spencer decided they would go into business for themselves by taking advantage of all those wild ducks flapping through the air that visit the many ponds, lakes and waterways when they tire of dodging Navy fighter jets.
The boys were ready to sell ducks.

"Duck Co." reads the sign, which also mentions the open-air store begins each day at 7 a.m. and goes until 7 at night.
Now, most fly tiers use some ducks feathers. Others might use a lot and the messiest of us spray the room with bits of feather while actually using very little for the fly being fashioned.
I’m one of the messy ones, so I’m on the lookout for new duck feathers that haven’t been trampled by my boots.

So, naturally I thought that the Patrick and Spencer Koontz Duck Company could fill that need.
One problem. No inventory. The boys have no ducks in stock.
When informed of this shortcoming, they disappeared for a long time. Apparently, they found the Pepperidge Farm bread, ripped it out of the bag and put the crumbs inside a big bucket, all with the intention of luring unsuspecting ducks from the air. Once inside the bucket, the boys could do what they wanted — maybe pull some feathers for Papaw or sell whole ducks to the neighbors.

I’m not going to rush my first order. Fortunately for our feathered friends, the inventory remains low.
I’ve had miserable, or perhaps just ironic, luck tying flies this year. One week the trout slam the wooly bugger, so I tie a pocketful for the next weekend only to find nothing is interested in the big ugly flies when the time comes. Instead, they gobble the last of my blue winged olives, so for the next weekend I tie a bagful of BWOs. You guessed it, armed with the BWOs that were so effective just seven days ago, I get skunked. The trout were looking up for light hendricksons and blue quills.

And I still have two dozen teeny midge flies that I needed way back when on the Davidson River. Perhaps today will be the right time to fish those little guys low and slow where the big rainbows go.
I almost expect the trout to be rising to little yellow sallies, of which there is a paucity in the fly box.
Do I tie a boxful? Should I place an order with the grandsons for dyed yellow duck feathers?

Spring's teasing me on the river

2010-04-02T20:37:00.005-05:00

Like a kid pulling a prank on a neighbor, spring has enjoyed the last month by teasing me with lots of nice, flowerly days during the work week and then rain, snow and cold on my days off when the real important stuff, fly fishing, awaits.

There’s a little more green today in the hills, and Panther Mountain looks more like a handful of paintbrushes dipped in gentle pinks, greens and yellows instead of the pile of old sticks it resembled earlier. Robins dance and sing. The air softens. Fly fishermen tie flies in anticipation of glorious days on the river.

Then spring pulls another prank.
A few weeks ago, after a long week of warm sunshine, I ran into fire hydrant rain on a Sunday and then snow on the third day of spring. The snow was tolerable and the trout were vulnerable.

I caught a ton. I had a box with some tiny midge flies that never saw the light of day, but the black wooly bugger did a number on those trout they likely will not forget. That night, I tied up another dozen black wooly buggers for the next weekend.
Well, we had another wonderful work week full of bluebird skies and puffy white clouds. Spring was teasing again, I figured.

The weekend arrived and the gray sky wept all day Sunday — lousy weather and a lousy prank for the new season to pull — but Monday was not half-bad once the chill in the air subsided. And I was loaded with a box full of black wooly buggers, which figured to be the fly of choice with the water still high from the rain. I figured to tear up some trout lips.

I should have known it would be a weird fishing weekend when I noticed the deer grazing with a neighbor’s cows. What’s she doing there? I wondered. I parked the Troutmobile on the other side of the field, next to the rowdy, rain-swollen river that was clobbering the banks.

If rivers dance to their own tune, then the French Broad was stomping like a drunken clogger on the front porch. It was loud, raucous and remarkably clear. The neighbors had not begun plowing. Too wet, I guess. Perhaps that deer was hanging around until the gardens were ready.

A couple of pit bulls got into the chorus, singing along with the river and annoying me, even though I knew they were just doing their jobs as watchdogs. One came over the bridge to sniff and check me out. We both watched the wooly bugger splash and sink and get lost in the deep pool. We did not see any trout.

Then there was a rise just downstream, like the trout were teasing me too. I saw a big gray mayfly. The wooly bugger came off; the dry fly went on. It worked. As the sun winked in and out all day, teasing with its warm rays, I teased trout with a dry fly.

Fish shredded that fly to rags. The rainbow trout were acrobatic and the browns, sporting spawning color, fought like bulldogs gnawing on a bone.
It never got warm. Spring stayed just outside the door, ready to pop out the next day as I drove back to work.

This week I figure we can stop the pranks. I’m expecting a huge mayfly hatch.
Don’t tease me again.

Air was cold but fishing was hot

2010-03-30T15:32:00.001-05:00

All week the sky was glistening brightly with bluebird color. The air was soothing after a brutal winter. The fish were moving, looking for spring insect hatches, and I had spent the previous weekend tying tiny midge flies with the idea of assaulting some quiet, deep river pool full of monster brown trout.

Anticipation heightens any sensory experience, so I waited for my chance after a week staring at a computer screen. I needed air. And trout.

I was anxious and ready, with a fly box overflowing with little midge flies.
Sunday dawned gray as an old battleship wrapped in a dismal fog. As the day progressed, the air got cooler and wetter and by the time I arrived at the mountain cabin, it was a downpour as strong as a blast from a fire hose. No time for anglers.

Monday dawned gray but dry. Fly fishermen thrive in such weather, funny as that may sound. About the time I had my second cup of coffee, the snow was falling pretty steadily, though it was in the form of little pellets that looked like packing material, not snow, but that soon changed to a relentless shower of icy flakes that threatened to slick up the mountain roads.

I stayed in the neighborhood, venturing less than a mile from home to fish some rambunctious water I had never tried, primarily because ot its proximity to riverside homes. It’s difficult to be alone when you feel somebody’s eyes looking at you through a kitchen window. I always feel like I’m sort of trespassing, though there are no warning signs.
With the water high and frisky, there was only one fly to tie on — a black wooly bugger. I’d toss it with a little split-shot, watch it go ka-plunk with a loud splash and then let it swing around downstream, at which point I stripped it back slowly.

The trout loved it. The first fish, caught almost in the country store parking lot, hit the fly like he was mad as it drifted toward the bank.
The snow kept falling, chilling my nose. Wrapped in plenty of wool and fleece, the only cold body parts were fingers and a red nose. There was no finding those fleece gloves, especially on the third official day of spring, so my fingers felt like they had been crushed in the car door.
But what’s a little pain when you’re catching more trout than you can count?

There was one spot on the new stretch where a pile of flood cobble lined one side of the bank, which dipped off into a deep pool. The landowner must have pushed all those river rocks to the side. Most were smooth as hen eggs. All were tricky on walk across.

A big rainbow hit the wooly bugger, rolled in the rapids and popped off with the fly in his mouth and almost broke my heart for he was by far the biggest fish I had hooked all year.
With frozen fingertips, I tied on another the same color and size and kept right on gettin’ on until my arm tired.

It had been a fine day. It was so good I quit before darkness sent me home, a mere four hours spent on the water.
That night I tied more flies. But I probably won’t need them today, as I expect gentler, warmer water and perhaps some trout sipping mayflies off the surface.

I still have those midge flies.
I’ve been anticipating such all week.

Daylight Fishing time arrives

2010-03-20T17:14:00.001-05:00

Most of you know it as Daylight Saving Time, but we flyfishers look at the March time change as Daylight Fishing Time, for we get an extra hour in which to fish. The first day, though, can be a little tough. We lose sleep. For the first day of DFT we stagger a little, our bodies still clinging to the time frames of the past.

Then we get over it. By the beginning of the second DFT day, we’re ready to assault the streams and rivers way past dinner time, and now that spring has sprung and the air has softened, we can fish right into the blackness of night.
We have late dinners.

Last week it was still a little chilly, a little windy and a little less like spring, which was, after all, another week away. I spent about an hour getting skunked on the Davidson River Sunday under darkened skies.

Monday dawned bright as a camera flash. The sky was bright blue with just a few cotton-like clouds. The water levels were just right. I figured it would be a good day for fishing in one of the Delayed Harvest rivers where, from October to June, the fishing is catch-and-release. You may not catch them all the time, but you know there are trout ready to tease or please.

The East Fork of the French Broad River is just a 30-minute serpentine ride down the mountain and through some lovely farm country where old barns and farms line the road to the river. At the first bridge the catch-and-release section begins. There’s a little pulloff spot, with enough room for one vehicle, and I stopped to rig up the rod and don the waders. The water was still cold with snow melt.

There were way too many anglers. My favorite spot with the long, mirror-like pool had been claimed. I pulled over at a place I had never tried, fished a bunch of different flies for about an hour with no luck. One of the locals stopped to talk, and I learned that his son and his buddy had been catching fish with San Juan worm flies and wooly buggers.

My green inchworm fly attracted only scorn. I began to worry that I may have to face the embarrassment of getting skunked on a Delayed Harvest river full of frisky trout.

Then I tied on the black wooly bugger, a big ole nasty-looking fly that can resemble all kinds of trout food from small minnows to little crayfish.
All I know is those trout loved it. They chewed it ragged.

The first trout to hit looked as big as my leg. That slab of silver and blush red rolled in the fast current, tugged at my fly and then slipped off the hook. It was a strong, hefty rainbow that tested my little 4-weight fly rod to the limit … for a few palpitating seconds.

For the next hour, I couldn’t keep them away from my fly.
One after another they hit that fly, tugged on my fly rod like big dogs holding on a chew toy and did a few Shaun White imitations with aerial displays. I lost count of how many.

I quit early. I had a dinner date with Mrs. Koontz.
And, after dinner, there was still time to fish a little more.
I love DFT.

Some days you get the bear

2010-03-13T21:21:00.001-05:00

Some days you get the bear, and some days the bear gets you. John Riggins used to throw that quote out while playing football for the Washington Redskins back in the day. As most of us recall, Riggins got the bear more often than the bear got him, even those bears from Chicago.
Last Monday, we got the bear.

There’s usually a lot more snow on the other side of the mountain in Haywood County than there is on the south side of the Blue Ridge Parkway, so if was not without a little trepidation that I took the Troutmobile to the Delayed Harvest section of the Pigeon River. I expected some icy spots along the twisting road and some tough-to-catch trout when I got to the church parking lot, where you don’t have to park in snow and mud.

We found the little river fringed with a lace-work of ice and snow. The roads were smooth and clean. The air was a spring-like 50-something and felt warmer when the gusty breeze quit its blustery ways.
And, lo and behold, the Ttout set out the welcome mat.
In past years my luck on this little stretch above Lake Logan has been spotty, at best. Farther downstream, I once caught a monster rainbow well over 20 inches long and in the 4- to 5-pound range. A handsome fish, to be sure. Upstream near the Blue Ridge Parkway, I managed in midsummer to catch a handful of sparkling brook trout.

But I have been as disappointed and disgusted as a spurned street beggar holding an empty tin cup or ‘dreaming of a cheeseburger’ sign.
My hopes were not exactly high.

But it hardly mattered. Snow and ice were disappearing.
The winter air was softening. Insects were hatching.
After a long two months of catching nothing but freezer air in the face and going home with little more than frozen fingertips, it didn’t matter if there were fish in that water.
But there were.

After arriving and spending way too much valuable fishing time stringing up a new leader, I headed upstream, leaving my angling partner behind to fish the closest spot.
When I looked back a while later, there was another fly fisherman splashing through the water my friend was fishing. Bad manners, I thought. Mrs. Koontz would give that fellow a tongue-lashing for his rudeness. The nerve of some.

I was still fishless but the stranger and my friend both had bent fly rods and each was releasing a wiggling trout.
I waded back to where the fish were.
They were not picky fish. We caught them on a dry Adams, nymphs, caddis flies and just about anything else in our fly boxes. I had them hit on the top, just under the surface and in the deep pockets.

All were brightly colored and put up muscular battles. In past years, hatchery trout were pale and weak.

According to the fishing stranger, the stocking truck had dumped a load there that morning.
Talk about timing.
Sometimes, you get the bear. Sometimes you get him really, really good.

Time for some dry fly fishing

2010-03-06T23:00:00.002-05:00

Sometime in the darkest hour of the night a splash of new water on an old rock transforms into a beautiful crystalline ice flower that dances just above the creek’s surface. Hanging and nodding like a buck dancer to fiddle music, the laurel branch sparkles in the moon’s silver light, surrounded by hills smothered in the latest snowfall. The only sound is the creek softly singing.

There is a lot to be said for winter’s hard and cold beauty. The field leading to the old barn lies quiet under a heavy cushion of smooth snow. Silence reigns. Stars sprinkled like spice spread across the sky. A full moon casts ghostly shadows and the night air has that clean, metallic taste only the coldest months seem to have.

But I yearn for spring. This has not been the best of winters for fly fishing in the mountains of western North Carolina, though there were a few marvelous days when the water warmed just a tad. But storms seemed to appear out of nowhere just in time to ruin roads and vehicles and smash any chances of getting on the river.

I really yearn for spring.
Just two weeks away, the new season seems to be sneaking up on us. It’s like that sometimes. One day it will be bitter cold, and then the next day will be balmy, perhaps even in the 60s. Before one knows it, flowers are blooming, grass is greening and trout are rising to tiny mayflies. There have been years when spring exploded in the hills overnight, flooding the mountains with waves of green. Little wild violets pop up along the banks.
So far this year, I have managed to land just two trout. Both of them hit the Tellico nymph with the little rubber legs and both were hefty rainbows caught near the cabin. If one were keeping score, winter was the victor in this fishing game.

I am ready to say goodbye to this winter of angling discontent. Today, there should be a good sampling of spring weather, a time for tossing dry flies and playing with frisky wild trout while the last of the ice drips from the rocks. There may be some March browns hatching, or perhaps some blue winged oilives and red quills. I’ll probably begin today throwing a big Adams into the current, with a little nymph tied on as a trailer.

Those two dozen midge nymphs certainly will be baptized today in the holy waters of the Davidson River. Since I spent the good portion of a snowbound weekend tying those exasperatingly tiny flies, you can bet they will get used.

And those little dry caddis flies will get their usual workout the next day on one of my little creeks up the road, for I know from the most recent scouting trips where some of those wild trout are hanging out.

For the next couple of days, at least, I will have discovered a glimpse of spring.
It’s time for the ice flowers to drip from their branches to make room for the laurel soon to bloom while the air fills with mayflies.

Fly box didn't have the right stuff

2010-02-27T19:13:00.002-05:00

Snow and ice are not without some flashes of beauty. Just up the road a bit from our cabin, the ice had that frightening beasts-with-teeth appearance, with long, vicious fangs of crystal grinning maliciously at passersby and, if you could let your imagination fly, the fanged beast was being held in check by ancient icemen with flowing beards.

To either side, ice maidens with waist-length locks glistening in the late afternoon sun kept the old timers company, and perhaps held the leash keeping the fanged beasts back.
It’s been cold. And way too windy for an enjoyable day fly fishing for trout.

But then it warmed to an astonishing mid 40-degrees and out came the rod, waders, vest, boots and fly boxes to toss into the back of the rental car. The ice whiskers on the side of the mountain now looked like the remnants of last night’s candle, melting into a puddle near the ground. After a couple of early morning errands, I was knee deep in the Davidson River looking like a fool waving a stick back and forth over my head.
It felt more than wonderful to be outside again. It didn’t even matter if a trout hit the fly. It was enough to breathe air not clouded with auto exhausts and to bask in the rare warmth of a February sun.

Once again, all was well and good with the world.
I kept changing flies. Trout kept ignoring me. The little Adams dry fly should have been a hit with these fish, but they let it pass by with the rest of the river traffic.
These trout were not exactly tearing the surface up eating floating bugs. I counted one rise in two hours.
I changed to a little caddis dry, for there had been a little hatch the previous day where those hyperactive insects bounced in the sunlight like tiny helicopters, up and down, up and down. They were smaller than anything I had in the fly box, and besides, that hatch was on another river on another day.

Streamers didn’t work, wooly buggers attracted no diners and even the smallest nymph was ignored like an ugly girl at the prom.
Sometimes, when all else fails, you can learn something from the other anglers around you. First, I watched from the bridge and then moved downstream when nobody caught anything. There were a lot of puzzled fly fishers changing flies over and over, but the trout were not puzzled at all — they simply ignored all that fur-feather-steel floating by.

What was needed, I figured at last, was an itsy-bitsy midge nymph, about the size of a freckle on a kid’s face. Red or black should do it, with the fly little more than thread over hook and lacquered on top to give it some shine.
With at least several hundred flies in a half dozen fly boxes stretching the seams of the fishing vest, you would think there would be at least one little midge nymph in a size 24 or 22.
There was not anything even remotely like that in that mess of flies.

Well, I kept trying.
And the trout kept ignoring me, so I quit.

As I was pulling off the wet boots and waders, a fisherman walked by in a kinda hurrying sort of way.
Any luck? I asked. Yep, was the answer. Eighteen so far and 11 of those were over 20 inches. Just caught a 20-inch brown.

As he walked away I naturally asked what the trout were hitting.
And he replied, red midge.

Snowbound fly fisherman mislead by calendar photo

2010-02-20T20:05:00.000-05:00

Those romantic notions of being snowbound in a mountain cabin, with snow spread thick as frosting on the roof, makes a splendid calendar photo for February. Tree limbs bend with their heavy loads of fresh snow. Branches break, sounding like rifle shots in the dark. The world slows. Trucks cease to roll by. A trout stream sings in the background near the little cabin, and you just know that water is full of trout.

It takes about three days to melt that notion like an old icicle, and then the miserable reality of winter sets in. Pipes freeze, heaters quit heating like they should and roads glaze over with scary ice. Getting out of the driveway becomes a major challenge. All the dogs are wet as dishrags and smell like zoo animals. There are wet clothes, stiff boots and mud on the floor.
And sometimes the snow grabs your car as you drive through what you thought was a clear dirt road and you cease to move. An hour and a half later, you are still stuck in the national forest, it’s black as new Bibles and there is no other vehicle on the road.

Where’s my calendar photo?
It got worse. The Troutmobile’s transmission burned up, we had to get towed out by a pickup truck with chain and then spent most of the next two weeks stuck with driving rain, sleet, more snow and a little ice here and there just to wake you up if you tried to get to the store too quickly.

February weather is never great. The month itself ought to be abolished. Burn that calendar page in the wood stove.
I was already set for some fly fishing, no matter how cold or miserable.

The mountains looked like old bear dogs sniffing the clouds with grizzled muzzles. If the wind died and the sun came out, a fellow could hook a trout or two, provided it did not get too dreadful. That was the plan, anyway.

Late Sunday while on a short hike up the waterfall road, I noticed very few signs of human presence. Past the first campground, the road was smooth as new sheets on a bed. I came across some turkey tracks, apparently left by a lone feathered wanderer earlier in the day. The tracks were fairly fresh.

A little farther there were some rabbit tracks, dotting the snow like colons on a typewritten page, two-by-two.
Even farther up the creek road, deer tracks zig-zagged in the crunchy snow.

I never saw any sign of trout, though.
For the next 10 days I saw no fish. On the two days when the wind died and the sun softened the wicked cold, I had no luck with the little yellow nymph.

It turned out to be an adventure just to get down the 10-foot bank without slipping and cracking my head on a rock, but a fellow can stay inside only so long.

I’d tied a ton of flies.
Wonder if I’ll get a chance to use them before summer?

But first, let’s get rid of that calendar photo.

Chasing the sun upstream

2010-01-09T18:13:00.000-05:00

The sunlight through the troutmobile’s windshield was deceptively soft and warm. It was not what one would call a perfect day for fly fishing, for the air was raw as stripped wire with enough wind to hurt, but as the road slithered up the mountain the urge to get out and fish for trout became as inviting as that faux warmth inside the car.
There was a handful of newly-tied flies inside the vest begging to prove their worth. The gear was in the back. There was a chicken sandwich on the front seat next to me and I was on a mission for fishin’.
But, boy, was it cold when I drove up the dirt road to the first campsite. The boots, still wet from the previous week, and waders and fly rod were willing, as was my spirit, but the flesh can be weak, however much wool and fleece you cover it with.
The rod stayed comfortably inside its carrying case.
I got uncomfortably out. By late afternoon, there was still a little sunlight but not enough. The temperature was in the teens and dropping with the sun.
I walked beside a trout stream unarmed, just sauntering along chasing the waning sun up a snow-lined dirt road, then off to the right to follow the first trail that hugs a little feeder creek.
Even with water levels a little high, this creek was scarcely more than a trickle. I decided to follow it to its end.
So, for the second time in about two decades, I took off walking in the forest with no intention of fishing.
I never much liked hiking as such, though the old recluse Henry David Thoreau, in calling the practice by another name, makes it appear as an acceptable substitute when it’s really too late in the day and much too cold for fly fishing. He preferred to call it sauntering, or walking aimlessly with no set destination in mind. Just meandering about among the tall trees.
Well, I did have that little creek to sing along with, so I never quite got trout completely out of my mind.
There was still ice in spots, dripping from the rock where road meets mountain. It’s a pretty time of year, sparkling like diamonds in the day’s last bit of light, the banks draped in sheets of snow.
When it’s a fresh, deep snow, there is nothing but the smothered whisper of silence.
Today, I’ll deal with snow that is half-way gone, with probably just enough to make getting to the water a slipping adventure, and noisy trucks full of hunting hounds will kill all chance of quiet.
No matter. I know there is a rainbow trout in the creek by the first campground, and another just upstream. The upstream spot is one of my trusty standbys when I can find fish no where else; the other trout was a surprise, and I believe I know just how to catch him.
And if not, I’ll saunter up the road chasing the day’s last soft rays sunlight.

Cold as ice fly fishing

2010-01-02T21:23:00.001-05:00

The month of December was a roller-coaster for weather and fly fishing. Some days the water raged with all the intensity of a broken-bottle saloon fight, but then the clouds would shut tight so the river settled to the peacefulness of a church on Monday morning.
I did better with the water up and rowdy, fishing a big Tellico nymph with some nifty rubber legs that I added to the traditional mountain fly pattern. Attaching a piece of lead the size of a wad of gum, I could barely sling the yellowish fly across the creek. It would splash with the resounding gusto of Sullenberger’s plane in the Hudson, drift into the feeding lane I was aiming for and bounce along the creek bottom where large, wary rainbow trout hunkered in the cold water waiting for dinner to come to them. This time of year, the fish do not exert a lot of energy to eat.
For the month, the most memorable fish was the fat rainbow that eagerly grabbed the rubber-legged nymph when both water and sun were high. It was about time for lunch and I had many errands to run, but, you know, there’s always time for one or two casts before taking care of domestic chores. I nailed that trout on the third cast, played him to the bank as quickly as I could and attempted to get a photo. Shame that the fish was camera-shy. He shook the hook and shot back into the current like a torpedo.
December was gracious enough to send a few 50-plus degree days, which turn out usually as perfect fishing days, especially the second warm day in a row.
Today I expect something quite the opposite. Highs in the low 30s and lows into the teens at night, making the water intolerably cold to splash around in, are expected. There was a dusting of snow the other night in my neighborhood, so I anticipate good water levels, albeit too danged cold, when I hit the river with fly rod in warmly-gloved hand. Bundled up like Michelin Man, I’ll waddle down the path lined with ice and snow, not expecting to catch much but hopeful of surprising that elusive winter brown.
It happens. You sometimes stumble across one of those monsters. Fellow in northern California caught a 27-inch brown a couple weeks ago with a black wolly bugger. What a fish.
The big trout hide in the larger, quiet pools, so it takes a lot of lead to get the fly down to where they hide and more often than not the fly hangs up and snaps off. But you have to fish deep, slow water. They’re down there.
Mostly, though, I spend an inordinate about of time walking instead of fishing in the winter. The banks lined with ice raise the bar on degree of difficulty, and even with wool socks the cold water hurts my toes. I’d rather boulder-hop, bouncing from one to the other while keeping my feet warm and boots dry.
Here’s hoping the sun softens today’s hard winter air to herald in the new angling year.
And here’s hoping there’s a huge brown trout waiting just for me.

Change tactics for winter fly fishing

2009-11-28T21:53:00.001-05:00

There is no such thing as bad weather when it comes to fly fishing … just bad equipment.
It’s a lesson mostly learned the hard way but it’s one that’s never forgotten, because winter fishing can hurt. It can get bone-crushing cold along the banks of my favorite little trout streams. But with the proper accouterments and layers of fleece and wool, the avid winter angler can spend a quiet afternoon casting flies in relative comfort.
Think layers, and I’m not talking about chickens.
The report today is there is no snow on the banks. I won’t have to worry about slipping on ice. And the sun is expected to warm the air.
Still, it’s the time of the year to switch to winter fly fishing mode.
Over the years, I’ve learned the best times to fish in winter are during the middle of the day, preferably with some sun out to warm the water a bit and kick up some dry fly action.
Trout slow down their dining habits during the cold months; they still eat, but their metabolism slows way down and they don’t eat that much. Bouncing a nymph on a big trout’s nose will entice hits. The fish are unlikely to chase a fly any distance, so fish those nymphs slow and deep.
I try to find spots of slow water warmed by the sun, then swing a heavily-weighted fly through the deepest water. During the winter the trout will be hanging out in the deeper pools, leaving the riffles and pocket water for the spring and summer, so it helps to be more selective about where to cast.
The ideal temperature for trout fishing is 63 degrees in the summer. As the thermometer approaches that magic number, feeding activity increases. If it gets hotter, the fishing slows.
The water is not going to get that warm again for some time now that winter is just weeks away. According to the Web site randrflyfishing.com, if the water temps get below 38, the fishing will be very slow. Above 42 degrees, and activity increases.
Fishing a wooly bugger or streamer like a nymph, letting it drift naturally into a deep, is one good cold-weather tactic. I use a 4X tippet and fish with little line out so I can feel the soft hits better without a strike indicator. Using dry flies as strike indicators usually works most of the year, but the fly doesn’t always get deep enough.
Another thing to keep in mind is that stocked trout don’t slow down as much as wild trout during the cold months; I find myself hooking into fish more regularly on the Delayed Harvest rivers than on the little wild waters. No one has a scientific answer for this, but randrflyfishing.com subscribes to the theory that stockers continued to seek out food when the wild trout know it’s just a waste of time since there are no insects floating around.
The No. 1 way to improve your winter trout fishing is to add split shot to the tippet, usually 6 to 8 inches from the fly. It is the hardest lesson to learn for fly fishers, especially those of us who revere the dry fly to almost religious status. Most of us hate using such weight, but that soon disappears when we hook into a big trout.
I use a 4-weight rod, so slinging flies with heavy shot on the tippet can be awkward, or even dangerous. I mash the barbs on my flies, so if I do hit myself in the back of the head slinging heavily-weighted nymphs, I can get the hook out of my ear with relative ease. On my last excursion, I pinched on a split-shot the size of a marble and could barely get it out into the current. Switching to a smaller size, I compensated by casting upstream with a lot of slack in the line to get the fly deep in the water. It works.
And, if with the sun in your face, have some fun catching winter trout.

Joy of a one-trout day

2009-11-21T22:59:00.001-05:00

The mountains look like piles of Chevy pickup trucks all reddish-brown and tan with rust and age. Most of the bright color of fall is gone. The November sun felt good when it slipped through the trees along the path.
The air was cool but not biting cold, so there was no need for a jacket. In fact, after a half-hour hiking gradually uphill along the river, I got warm. Perhaps, I thought, the fishing would be better up and over the hill confronting me. At the bridge where I left the car, the trout failed miserably in hitting my fly, so I caught nothing.
But it was a good day to be out, and the path had softened to a thick comfortable carpet of wet, dead leaves. The air was full of the rich smell of rotting wood, decaying leaves and at times a hint of a smoky campfire.
I never made it to the top of that hill. Those three prongs that feed the Davidson River would have to wait another week at best, for my legs were giving out. Finding a sun-softened rock to sit on, I skinned lunch by ripping the foil off two granola bars and then killing a nearly-cold beer I had in the fishing vest. Refueled thusly, I returned to attack the river, only to be met by indifference and perhaps even a little scorn by the wild rainbows and browns.
For the next hour the fish ignored my hopper, scoffed at my nymphs and greeted by dry flies with utmost scorn.
Fish, like people, can be hateful.
It was my own fault for arriving at the water in late afternoon, even though it’s well known that the best fall and winter fishing often comes during the height of the day when the sun is the hottest.
But it got colder. I slinked home without having caught one trout and pulled into the driveway in no hurry to quit, pulled out the flyrod and slid down the bank across the road. There, I hid behind a tree so I could flip the little yellow fly into the current without scaring what I hoped would be a big fish hiding close to the bank.
He was there. As the fly began to move toward the bank the fish hit, jumped and ran with the line slicing through the water’s surface like a knife through a tender steak. He was a fat handful at 16 inches .
And he made my day.
Getting out a little earlier the next day, I met a friend at Avery Creek close to where it empties into the Davidson. Both are catch and release streams, so you know there will be fish. You also know they will not be easy.
We caught several little trout, wild rainbows no bigger than a bass lure.
Switching to a dry fly, I tossed it into a little swirl next to a rock where the water was quiet. It was a tough place to put the fly, for as soon as it landed, the current would grab my line and drag the fly like a water skier, leaving a tiny plume a spray in its wake and scaring all the trout.
But not every time. Something splashed at the fly and missed, so I put it back in the same spot with lots of slack in the line, watched it settle from just a second and then disappear as a fine wild rainbow nailed it on the run.
Not as big as my homey trout, it had twice the fight.
And, you know what? That fish made my day.

Taking the path less traveled by

2009-11-07T22:08:00.000-05:00

I had no idea where I was headed. There was a little parking lot, but there were few cars on a Monday afternoon. Upstream from all the commotion at the fish hatchery, my map says the Davidson River splits, then veers off to the north and then splits again into three little tributaries that originate close to the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Adventure beckoned. New water and wary trout waited for my fly to float by.
I crossed the big bridge and really didn’t expect to find much. It was just such a perfect day for a gentle walk through the Pisgah National Forest under a canopy of gold and orange. After a week of unsteady rain, the cushion of leaves had softened, making the trek a lot like walking on thick new carpet.
But it was not a leisurely stroll. It was uphill, with steep banks stretching deeper and deeper with each step on the rapidly narrowing road, which turned into a trail which then turned into a skinny path.
It was way too far to slide to the water. I kept walking. A strikingly bright sun knifed through the beech and maple. There was a shy breeze whispering through the hemlocks. The air was perfect.
Normally, all my fishing activity is confined to the water downstream, near the hatchery or just below. That’s where the humungous trout big as hound dogs fin lazily in crystal clear water within sight of hundreds of tourists and fly fishers. Occasionally, I have caught some of those monsters, and at other times the bigguns broke my line. Mostly, those trout ignore anglers’ flies, for they have seen every imaginable type and size and color. They are, in a word, educated fish. They see a lot of fishermen, too, and don’t spook easily. They just hunker down and stare at you.
That portion of the Davidson is Catch and Release. Past that section and the hatchery, there is the part known as "The Gorge," which is not for the faint at heart or feeble of body. The water roars over boulders big as cars. It’s much tougher to get out than it is to get down the bank to the river.
But, like I said, there was adventure beckoning. I went farther up, past Cove Creek to where Long Branch Creek goes left and the Davidson wanders to the right where it later splits into three little creeks — Right Fork, Daniel Ridge Creek and Shuck Ridge Creek.
I walked forever.
When I came to what was left of an old bridge, I considered sliding down the bank to get to the other end of the road, but then I realized I would hve to climb back up that same bank.
So, I took the path less traveled by.
This little path, which followed Right Fork uphill, was just as steep with a gorge almost as deep as The Gorge. I found one place that was easily accesible to the creek, slipped down a gentle bank and caught a little wild rainbow surrounded by loud, rowdy water tumbling over huge rocks.
I leaned my back against a smooth, warm rock just to let the day soak in. I could have fallen asleep and decided it was too late and I was too worn out to finish the trek to the end of this little path.
The walk had taken its toll. And I still had the return hike to the car.
For the next week I walked with a little less bounce . It was Friday before the aches faded so I could consider finishing the exploration.
Yeah, I took the path less traveled by and it certainly made all the difference.
I ached all over.

2009-10-31T21:45:00.001-05:00

How does one define the perfect fly-fishing day? The one day on the river that you never, ever forget. It could be a day when you catch all the fish you want, or it could be a day you finally catch that big brown that hangs out near the bridge. I was determined to find out.
The river was up after a week of rain. But I was anxious to get into some late afternoon fly fishing, so I tied a bushy, high-floating dry fly and let her rip through the current. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon, and I mean really lazy.
I spent the first hour just getting rigged up, then reading some of the Sunday paper. I spent a bunch of time drinking in the cocktail of 100-proof color that lit up the mountains.
When I finally got up, on the first cast I hooked a wild trout, which jumped and flipped the hook with vigor.
Not a good beginning in the quest for the perfect fly fishing day.
Emerging from the creek, I noticed another car. Most campers had left long ago, way before Sunday afternoon, so I was a little startled to see humans, little humans at that, scurrying about the banks with little fishing rods. They asked if there were any trout there. I said they might be a little tough to catch today, but you never know. They’re in there, I assured the little anglers.
They were about 6 and 4 years old, I guessed. One held a rod with a big ole hook at the end of the line with enough corn to feed a pig, while his little brother had a little kid’s rod with a stick of wood tied to the end of the line. I figured the stick gave it some weight so he could practice casting until he was as old as his big brother and could fish with real bait.
Their mother said her dad brought her to this spot when she was a child, and they caught trout then.
Well, I said, I just lost one.
I began reeling in line, getting set to try some spots upstream, perhaps make it up to the waterfall if there were not too many leaf-peepers hogging the one-lane road.
I pulled out a little, then stopped, backed up and cut off the engine. The little fishermen were still standing with their rods and dirty faces.
Opening the back of the car, I grabbed a fly box and took two black wooly buggers — a fly sometimes considered as one for all seasons and all fish — and walked over to the bank.
I handed one to the oldest boy, who seemed delighted with his new treasure, and then gave the other to the little fellow.
They both looked at those scruffy flies, then looked up at me with smiles wider than a fat trophy trout.
Christmas came early.
The next day sparkled with fall sunshine. The river was clear as new glass, and I caught everything I cast to with whatever fly I chose to use.
Most would consider that the perfect fly fishing day, and I guess it was close to that.
But I’ll remember the previous day longer.
One can catch trout anytime, but the face-splitting smiles of little boys are rare.
That was a perfect fly-fishing day.

Lookng for answers to life's questions

2009-10-24T18:58:00.000-05:00

Chilly winds swept the sky clean last Sunday. With the mercury hovering around the low to mid 40s, the emphasis was on chilly and for the first time this fall I bundled up with a sweater before hitting the river. It figured to be a pretty day. Leaves had turned a little, giving the feeling of driving through a church with massive stained glass windows on both sides.
Leaves also had decided to litter the river, for the sole purpose of snagging a fly fisherman’s flies, I’m sure. That happens a lot and is expected in the fall. We put up with it in our continuing search for the answers to life’s most perplexing questions, as they might say on NPR.
A fisherman’s ultimate goals change over the years — first trying to catch the most trout, then the biggest, then the most difficult — but life’s questions hang around to make it all that more difficult.
Like why?
As my fingers numbed in the wind, I asked that very same question. I was slinging a two-fly rig, with a weighted pheasant trail nymph tied about 6 inches below a larger Yaller Hammer nymph. The Yaller Hammer is a scraggly looking thing that used to be tied with the yellow/black feathers of the yellow flicker, now protected and off-limits to fly tiers. So, we use dyed imitations with feathers from some other poor bird.
A fish bumped the fly on my first cast, but I never hooked up with a single trout all afternoon. The impudent wind was a constant, nagging nuisance. Like a little brother pulling your shirttail, it was relentless.
I pushed on. Switching to a dry fly, I hooked into a feisty rainbow on my first cast. The little olive parachute fly bounced nicely in the channel flowing near the rocks, and through the crystal-clear water I watched the trout rise from his hiding place. The rod tip was shaking pretty well. Then, it wasn’t shaking at all. The trout was gone.
That rude wind slapped at my face.
Now, fishless after several hours, those persistent questions returned, especially that one about "Why?"
With those two flies tied in tandem, a good portion of the early afternoon was spent untangling those flies from the weeds and trees on the bank. Each time the question came up, "Why?" That wind did not help.
I tried finding the answers at the origin. I trucked upstream until there was no more stream, at which point I followed the trickle of water to where the French Broad River originates. It was a fairly rough hike, over boulders the size of small houses and past sheer cliffs of rock where you hang on the rhododendron limbs with prayerful grasps, hoping the wood does not break.
Scratched up and bumped up and heartbeat really up, I got to the source, a place up near the top of a little mountain.
The wind died. And it was so quiet there was no need for any answers. By then, I had forgotten the questions.
Except that most persistent query of them all – why am I not catching trout?

fly fishing delayed harvest waters

2009-10-17T22:04:00.004-05:00

Today dawned gray and dreary as an abandoned battleship, and just as wet, but the weatherman has promised that Monday will shine like a Marine’s brass buckle. Though I’m already thinking about tomorrow, I won’t spend today indoors.
If a light drizzle ruins everybody else’s day, it will be perfect for a fly fisher armed with tiny blue wing olive dries. The little mayflies love this kind of weather and will hatch all day, taunting rainbow and brown trout until the fish rises to the surface to sip their insolent little bug bodies.
I stood in a Virginia trout stream some years back with such a misty afternoon, stayed in one spot just a few feet from the bank and caught nearly 30 trout. Even the water was muddy, but it mattered little and may, in fact, have helped since the fish couldn’t see me. I was astonished they could see the flies.
Since then I have had many good fishing days when the rain relentlessly pelted my cap like a pecking hen.
There is no such thing as bad weather, I’ve been told. There’s bad fishing gear and good fishing gear, but there is no such thing as bad weather, at least not bad enough to keep me indoors.
If the wind roars and the rain falls sideways, I may spend some time listening to the car radio until it lets up. Then, I’ll be out again.
But I love sponging up rays, too. Blindingly bright days are hard to fish, certainly, but they always feel good after weeks of wetness and cold.
A sun-warmed boulder on a chilly autumn day beats a Lazy Boy recliner.
Monday’s battle plan calls for an assault on the East Fork of the French Broad River, just outside the little town of Rosman.
It’s a Delayed Harvest river, which means fishermen cannot keep their catch during the winter months.
From October until the first Saturday in June, the such rivers are "Catch and Release."
Upon June’s arrival, the trout population begins a rapid reduction.
So, during the winter I always know that stretch of water will have trout. They may not be easy to catch all the time, but sometimes they are.
Usually, it takes a few weeks after the state stocks the stream for the fish to become acclimated.
Most have never even seen a bug, having been raised on little round pellets of trout food, and, no, I do not fish with a fly that resembles trout pellets.
During the past seven years of fishing this river, I’ve discovered there is no reasoning why those fish hit certain flies for a while and then ignore the same flies later.
As a rule, I catch a trout with one fly, then change to another, and catch more fish before changing flies again.
I use a lot of different flies on the DH waters, especially in the early fall. Come spring, they’ll recognize a little yellow stonefly and its bug relatives and the fishing will be entirely different.
Until then, I’ll just keep changing flies over and over.

Fall fly fishing: It's in the air

2009-10-03T18:22:00.003-05:00

The familiar smell of approaching fall hangs in the air now. Gentle breezes shimmy through the trees in a graceful dance at the top of the mountain.
There’s a sprinkling of rust around the edges of trees, which should be expected after weeks of pounding rainstorms. The air, thick as warm syrup just a couple weeks ago, carries a sneaky cool that slips down the mountain in the early evening so you don’t even notice that the day is done.
Darkness arrives quietly. Before you know it, it’s time to go home.

Already, I miss the long, lazy lateness of summer sunsets that allow me to fish well into the night.
But I also love fall fishing. The air begins to nip with a fresh crispness. Here and there you catch a whiff of wood smoke from a nearby campfire or cabin.
Being early in the new season, the dead leaf invasion has not yet cluttered the creek to snag my flies, so there is still lots of prime unmolested fly fishing.

A couple weeks ago, my river was too high to fish, with the current ripping along at 9,500 cfs. The North Fork of the French Broad was rocking and rolling, an angry caramel monster that moved fallen trees and knocked aside boulders and, in effect, rearranged everything. So, I had a new river to fish the next weekend when the flow slowed to about 650 cfs (normal is about 350 cfs, I’m told.)

July water had been almost too low to hold a fish, and I was happy to see the rain.
Fishing on the last weekend of September, I found a lively but friendly river moving along at a moderately fast pace. I nailed rainbow trout, mostly with marabou muddlers and green inchworms.

I tossed some big hoppers into the slower current also, and was surprised by some feisty fish smacking the fly.
Fall is the perfect time for hoppers, ants and beetles. Trout love those flies.
And, since I would rather fish dry flies, the box is stuffed with these imitations.
For the first time this year, the water across the highway from our cabin flowed fast enough to fish without scaring every trout in the neighborhood with one faulty cast. Water flowed around my knees in spots where there had not been enough to reach my ankles in August.

To my delight, the trout were feeling frisky.
I tossed out a black muddler, let it slip downstream with the current and got a bump on the first cast. On the second cast, I had a struggling rainbow shaking his head at the end of my line. Then there was another, then another.
Boy, was I having fun.

Downstream, I noticed that the fallen tree that had blocked my path previously had been relocated by the storms. The way was clear.
The trout hit every fly I threw out. I even caught a few of them.
Cleared out, it was like fishing new water over old rocks. I marked in my mind the locations of the trout that shook my rod before shaking the fly. I’ll be back, I vowed.
Later, as the sun slipped behind the mountain, you could feel the bite of the coming fall in the air.

Again, the air filled with the scent of wood smoke. I pulled out a sweater.
I love fall.

We need a talking flybox

2009-09-05T18:07:00.002-05:00

A flybox can be read like a book for what it tells us about the owner, or it can be meditated upon like an album of old yellowed photographs for what it tells us about ourselves. Most of us own more than one, if we fly fish just a couple times a year, and some of us stuff our vests with foam, plastic, wood and aluminum contractions that hold our dear little trout flies tightly so they are not blown into the river or clumsily dropped into autumn’s pile of leaves on the riverbank.

We all have our favorite, the one that goes to the river when there is only room for one in the shirt pocket, and for me it has to be the big foam box I bought five years ago. These types are typically the cheapest on the fly shop shelves. There are probably more than 200 flies of all sizes inside. Since it fits nicely, if a bit snuggly, into my shirt pocket, it’s my Go-To box when I travel light.

I’ve had wooden fly boxes, with brass nameplates on the outside and magnetic strips to hold your flies. I’ve had, and still do, plastic ones you can see through and some you cannot. I once lost an aluminum flybox in a tiny Madison County creek while fishing in late fall and then found it sparkling on the rocks underwater in the spring. All the flies were fine, though pretty well soaked. None rusted.

Now, I carry the white foam box, a little plastic one you can see through, one with little compartments that you cannot see through and a couple of old Altoids tins I stuffed with big Green Drake flies and oversized streamers. I don’t even like Altoid mints that much, but I love those tins.

There’s no telling how many flies are tucked away in my vest.
Looking at photos of fly boxes in magazines and Web sites and blogs, I’m almost as ashamed of the mess as of my uncut front yard. Those are some scruffy flies, I have to admit. But they are scruffy because they’ve been chewed like dog toys by playful trout in my neighborhood creeks.

There are quiet times when I’ll just stare at all that mess, recalling the days when certain flies nailed certain fish at a particular spot near a waterfall or bridge. When I see the hackle dangling loose as an untied boot lace, I smile at the memory of a wild brook trout that had an exceptional row of teeth. When a stranger looks at that same fly box, he probably wonders if my home is as messy. My sock drawer is. You know I’m no engineer. Neatness is overrated.

The one essential thing a fly box cannot, but should be able to, do is tell the fisherman which offering will fool trout at a particular time of day and year. Somebody should invent such. But for now, all a fly box can do is tell us a little about the owner and remind that owner of days past on wild rushing water full of trout.
And, really, that’s quite enough.

Top Ten Trout Town? Asheville?

2009-08-29T18:36:00.002-05:00

This could be a good thing or a horribly disastrous thing. My neighborhood has been tagged by Forbes Magazine as being close to one of the Top Trout Towns of North America, and I am tempted to write to the editors to complain.
I live in Transylvania County near the Blue Ridge Parkway. My backyard is the Pisgah National Forest. Walk 3 miles from my front porch, and you will find a nifty 50-foot waterfall. I can walk to four different creeks and catch wild trout. Across the road, fat rainbows splash and play. About a mile down the road, big browns lurk on the bottoms.
It’s never crowded.

Until now.
We are within a 45-minute drive from the city of Asheville, which now has been dubbed No. 10 in the TTT list.
That’s sorta like wearing a bullseye on your back. They’ll all be gunning for our trout.
Like we don’t have enough tourists driving their SUVs at 5 mph through our neighborhoods already.

Usually, magazines that come up with such lists ignore western North Carolina. All the great rivers are out west or up north in Sarah Palin land … you know, within sight of Russia. Nobody ever picks Asheville, which by the way is a city and not a town. A town is something like Rosman, with one grocery store and a community swimming pool.
But I guess Asheville is a good headquarters stop for visiting fly fishers. The article touts trout, but the French Broad River flows through the city and that big ole river is also full of smallmouth bass and muskie, so there is more to fish for than just salmonids. You can wade the river in some low spots and cast from a boat in others.

Within an hour or so drive, you can hit prime trout water in just about any direction. Go east, find Wilson Creek. Go west, find the Davidson. Go north into Tennessee, find the South Holston River, a tailrace that has wild brown trout as big as German shepherds, though they are not as easily caught.
I’m surrounded by waters full of all types of fish, but mostly I concentrate on the trout. In 20 years, I have barely scratched the surface and its doubtful I will ever fish them all.
So far, for the record I’ve slayed ‘em at the South and North Forks of the French Broad River, the Davidson, Avery Creek, Courthouse Creek, Hickey Fork, Beegum Creek, the Pigeon River, Kiesee, Big Creek, Whitewater, Laurel Creek, Reems Creek, Doe Creek, the Watauga and the South Holston.

And there are a host of others I never got a name for. I couldn’t fish all these creeks and rivers in WNC in two lifetimes.
So, upon serious reflection, I will venture the guess that I will always be able to find a creek or river to cast a fly that is not crowded.

Being tagged as a Top Tenner may not be so bad after all.
Bring ‘em on.
We got room.

Just try not to drive so slooooooooooowly. There’s trout waiting.

Fly fishing into the dark

2009-08-22T19:56:00.003-05:00

Clouds piled up like foam from waves crashing on a beach. You can always expect some sort of precipitation this time of year, either spotty thunderstorms that feel like somebody emptied a big bucket of water down your neck before clearing or one of those relentless showers spinning off the newest hurricane whirling off the coast like a county fair ride.
It was a clear, hot day with little breeze to speak of, so the lawn mower got one of its shortest workouts ever. The grass was a little wet, anyway. Let it go, I thought. Trout were waiting.
With the temperature high and the water low, the fly fishing was tough, though it became easier to spot trout from high banks since those fish were not moving from the bottom, where they hugged rocks and spitefully ignored all my flies.
Being a weekday, Avery Creek’s campground was almost empty, leaving the trout water for me alone. Overhead, a few crows weaved and danced in the air, their caws sounding like glass breaking combined with a heavy metal band’s painful guitar licks. Crows, being about the only birds in the forest to make a truly unpleasant music, could not have cared less.
The songbirds are always a treat, for they sing pretty. The turkey buzzards know their place, sailing gracefully high overhead in silence, and never take center stage to perform. The hawks sound as if they are laughing from their hunting perches in the hemlock. More than once, I thought their derision was directed at me as I waved the fly rod back and forth.
My guess is that the raucous blackbirds scared all the trout. I left Avery Creek without seeing a fish.
Hoppers, ants, pheasant tail nymphs and caddis fly dries did not interest the trout. I got one rise in the Davidson next to the big parking lot, then left to try the North Fork of the French Broad, where I never get skunked. The church road bridge produced nothing, as did the water at the fire station bridge.
This was unusual. I entertained the idea of quitting.
Since it was a Monday, there should not have been a lot of campers and waterfall peepers on Courthouse Creek. But they were. The first campsite, one of my favorite hotspots, was occupied. Upstream, families visiting the falls made almost as much racket as crows.
The shadows stretched longer. It got cooler.
I passed up the chanterelle mushrooms dotting the bank with their little blaze orange hunter’s caps. They are just too labor-intensive, for one must pick a bunch of these little fellows to make frying them up worthwhile. Perhaps next time. After all, they are one of only a few wild ’shrooms I feel safe taking home. If I stopped to pick enough to eat, valuable fishing time (VFT) would be irretrievably lost.
It was beginning to get dark. Clouds turned pink with a disappearing sun dipping behind the hills.
A good-sized trout wiggled in a tiny pool near the path to the falls, and I managed to spook him with my first sloppy cast. Another, smaller version, hooked himself as I was moving upstream and, after flipping him back into the water, I saw another rise under the bridge.
This time the cast was perfect, the fly landed in the center of the rise ring and the fish smashed it with a violent splash.
That, I thought, was what it is all about.
Now encouraged, I drove back to the cabin to try the front yard pools, where I had just enough light to see where I was stepping but not enough to see the fly at the end of my line. I missed fish after fish, getting a tug here and a handshake there, but the trout had become active and the bugs filled the air.
They took their time, but the trout had stopped hugging rocks.
And I had managed to dodge those little storms all day.

Fly fishing feeling low with water low and slow

2009-08-08T19:08:00.002-05:00

Nothing seems to be in any hurry in August.
Even the grass grows slower, so the enemy of fly fishing sat idle for most of last weekend, surrounded by tall weeds and grass that remained to be cut. The mower had been rendered silent, for lack of gas.
But there is a skinny freshly-cut path from the road to the cabin, so I feel like I had accomplished something worthwhile and deserved some sort of reward. The trout beckoned.
The water was low and oddly quiet. A bright blue sky swept with little feathers of cloud reflected in the river’s surface, and here and there I saw little trout leave a dimples where they sucked in a bug.
These are often difficult times to fish. With glassy smooth water that’s way too low, the trout can spot you way before you spot them. And the wild ones spook easily. A sloppy cast will scatter every fish in the pool. A hawk passing overhead will send them under rocks. A slip on a rock will send them into the next county. A fly caught in the current can leave a trail like a motorboat pulling water skiers, which also puts trout off.
Strangely, I love fishing this type of water in this kind of weather.
Although you have to dodge rude thunderstorms in the late afternoons, the sky usually opens up again after a 20-minute pounding.
Trees sway in the wind like they were underwater. River rocks steam and hiss after the rain, leaving a smell like fresh cooked greens in the air. It’s a good time of year to fish those ant and grasshopper flies. Hoppers can be the most fun. They actually work best with sloppy, splashy casts. Larger than most of the little dry flies I carry in the flybox, hoppers can bring out the largest trout from undercut banks and rocks.
Fishing ants, especially in itty-bitty sizes with long, web thin leaders, can be productive when nothing else is happening, and you can fish them in the smooth, quiet water with those long, slow drifts. I often find myself daydreaming about something other than fish before being startled out of my dream world by the violent splash of a big trout hitting the fly.
Just before dusk, I like to flip the fly across the water and let it drift lazily downstream for 30 or 40 feet until it sails within reach of a feeding trout. After what seems to be several minutes, a trout will rise, hit the fly and either hook himself while I try to pull in all that slack line or swim away. I catch some; I lose some.
With the moon peeking through silver clouds, it just doesn’t get much better. And, just before it gets too dark to see where to climb up the bank to the road, I climb up the bank and walk back to the cabin … slowly.
The mower didn’t move.

Chicken of the Woods a fine find for a fly fisher

2009-08-01T19:16:00.002-05:00

Like the sage of the mountains says, some days you get the bear and some days the bear gets you.
It’s often like that with fly fishing for wild trout in that same bear’s back yard. While I avoided being eaten by the bear last Monday, I also managed to avoid catching any trout for the bulk of the day.
The attack plan included a return assault on Avery Creek where I nailed so many little rainbows the week before, and then hit Tanasee Creek, which I have never really explored. In between, I could try to catch some Davidson River pigs before heading for the North Fork of the French Broad, my homewaters.
But the Avery Creek fish snubbed my flies. I beat the water into a froth, to little avail. With a high sun and low water, I couldn’t get those skittish fish out of hiding. They wouldn’t hit any of the flies I tossed – ants, grasshoppers, mayflies, yellow caddis. Nothing was working.
I caught one fish the size of my little finger, tossed him back into the current and left for the next stop.
The sunny sky began to change, as gray clouds spilled over the blue like paint out of a bucket. A few sprinkles of rain dotted the water. The clouds, darkening and angry, rumbled.
It wasn’t looking too good for the rest of the afternoon, but then life throws surprises our way from time to time.
I caught a glimpse of bright orange out or the corner of my eye, and I splashed over to the bank to discover some of the prettiest wild mushrooms I have ever seen growing on a fallen log.
The orange spread across the log like a bird fanning its feathers, hence the name for this type of ’shroom, "Chicken of the Woods" a name it earned as much for its flavor as for its fancy way of showing off while sitting on logs.
I do not know that much about mushrooms in the wild, but I do recognize this type of sulphur fungi.
Years ago, when I lugged shotguns through the woods of Virginia, I never got to bag a wild turkey, and I guess that was another of those little nudges life gives us. Every shotgun I ever owned was stolen, so I figured hunting just wasn’t in the cards. So, I fish. And I hunt for wild mushrooms.
I learned from Mrs. Koontz, who studied this stuff, to leave the little brown mushrooms alone, for they are rarely good and often very bad, and stick to just a few popular types like puffballs and oyster mushrooms and Chicken of the Woods.
I gathered a couple pounds, put them in a plastic bag and took off to look for some water where the trout were more cooperative.
Following a few fruitless hours hunting for big brown trout, I headed for my old standby, the Fire Station Hole, and nailed a nice rainbow. I felt better. And, the next morning I had a little "chicken" mixed in with my eggs in an awesome omelet, which turned out to be almost as good as catching trout.

Fly fishing in the Tunnel of Doom

2009-07-28T15:37:00.004-05:00

The sky was alive with dancing, happy clouds. Gone were those huge puffy piles that turned angry black in the late afternoon.
With the lawn mower broken, it seemed a perfect time to return to Avery Creek, where I had fished about 10 years ago. It’s a nice little stream, full of little native rainbows. It empties into the Davidson River, which is invariably crowded this time of year, and there are campsites and a horse stable, so weekends are to be avoided.
I chose Monday. Most of the campers had gone back to the city. Only a few vehicles dotted the sides of the dirt road.
Now, a good portion of the creek is wide open, perfect for casting a dry fly 30 or 40 feet without some dumb bush grabbing your fly on the backcast.
The trout are willing but not easy, for they are quicker than a New York second. And an angler has to be sneaky. These guys spook like squirrels in traffic.
With a yellow caddis dry fly, I managed to catch some little rainbows, one the size of my little finger, in a section near the horse stable, then moved on downstream to where the sun drenched the banks.
Along this stretch, you can’t see the water from the road because of all the vegetation, which made it all the more interesting. I had to try it. With all that bushiness, there had to be some shady holes with trout of substantial size.
That’s the theory, anyway.
My decision proved a wise one at first. I caught a couple trout, moving slowly and quietly upstream, hidden by overhanging laurel and rhododendron.
The water was low, but I found some puddles deep enough to hold trout, and they eagerly splashed at the now-ragged fly. I missed more than I caught.
It was tough wading, but fun anyway.
Then the creek began to narrow to the width of a sidewalk.
The limbs hung lower and heavier. I was on my hands and knees, crawling in the low water, dodging limbs. There was nowhere to walk on the bank, so I was caught in a green tunnel of doom.
"Would I be able to get out of there," I thought. Upstream, the laurel thickened. My hat got knocked into the water. I slipped on a rock. Bugs ate my face.
Boy, was I having fun.
My mind drifted back about 15 years when I first heard the story of Casius the Bull, who many years ago got his horns caught in the rhododendron. He never got out. They named the town after him, and called it Cashiers. Go figure.
Would I ever emerge? Or would they find my cold, dead body next week? And name a town after me?
The limbs seemed like thick snakes stretching across the creek trying to wrap around me and squeeze the life out.
Regaining my composure, I noticed light at the end of the tunnel . Breathing harder than a fly fisher should, I stumbled up the bank as the berry bushes clawed more blood from my arms and face.
The Troutmobile never looked so inviting.
Catching my breath in the car, I thought about the deep, shady pools I had stumbled through.
I feel lucky to have survived.
So, I’ll go back today.

Fly fishing for wildness

2009-07-23T21:18:00.004-05:00

Well, it was moonwalk day, so I took off for a little adventure myself, heading for little Avery Creek, which flows into the Davidson, and tossing little yellow dry flies to quick-as-a-wink wild native rainbow trout.

They were willing, sort of, but I kept missing.

There were portions of the creek where the water opened up like a two lane highway, then it narrowed to a sidewalk-width trickle covered with dense vegetation.

I had been catching, and missing, a whole lot of little natives when I decided a sunny-looking stretch, which was hidden from view from the road because of the bushes. It turned out to be a tunnel of green, so thick I had to crawl on my hands and knees in parts.

The rhododendron hit me in the head, knocked off my hat and had me worrying if its grasping limbs would ever allow me to return to the car.

Still, a puddle here, a puddle there, and I caught fish.

If I didn't get a hit, or if I missed one, I just moved on to the next puddle or pool.

I caught a lot of tree limbs, sticks and grass.

And my fly survived, though a bit ragged for the wear.

I huffed out, following the light at the end of the tunnel, to the car.

I heaved a big sigh of relief. LIfe is grand.

Pretty fly that trout hate

2009-07-18T22:37:00.003-05:00

It was a pretty day on the Davidson River and the fly I had tied the previous night was also pretty.

But it did not catch trout. In fact, I never got a hit until just before dark and then all hell broke loose with fish rising all around me and then the tippet snapped. Dang. And too dark to tie another fly on.

Go home, fool.

Today and tomorrow (moonwalk day), I'm going to slay 'em.

I'll use the ugly fly.

It takes two to tangle

2009-07-11T18:50:00.004-05:00

Driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway feels a lot like riding giant green waves, rolling and dipping in and out of the clouds, and I invariably waste way too much time stopping to gawk at the beauty of our mountains. It’s the only place I know where clouds also come out of the ground, not just from above.
I was thinking they ought to call these hills the Great Cloudy Mountains.
Kinda catchy, ain’t it? Think the tourism department would be interested?
If those hills were not so pretty, I could have spent a lot more time fly fishing for trout, but I wasted all that valuable fishing time (VFT) stopping for photos and drinking in the views that go forever into the mists. By the time I arrived on the home creek, the sun was dipping behind the mountain and thunderclouds hung threateningly overhead. I had to hurry to beat the storm.
I fished a big yellow fly I had tied the night before with a biot body and huge gray wings fashioned form mallard feathers. It looked pretty in the vise. How could any trout resist gobbling this marvel? I expected to catch a ton of fish with my new invention.
I didn’t. I got nary a splash from the not-so-hungry fish.
The huge wings made the fly a little cumbersome to cast, and it didn’t always land where I wanted it to, but it did sit pretty on the water, like a little pirate ship with full sails puffed out with a stiff breeze.
But it did not catch fish.
So, I switched to my old summer standby, the little yellow stonefly.
It, also, did not catch fish.
What on earth was gong on here? Darkness began to creep in on me like a black tide, and I began to hurry my casts.
Earlier, I had rushed my casts and hung up on a laurel branch. When I reached for the flies, I discovered a mess more tangled than a Jerry Springer story, and I almost had to give up on the muddler minnow and caddis fly and leave them for early Christmas decorations. That rig didn’t catch any fish, either.
Now, with darkness falling like a huge, black curtain, I started to catch trout with the stonefly. One, two, three, four … bam, bam, bam, bam. I was locking into fish almost with every cast now, though all were little rainbows.
Boy, the trout turned on right at 8:50 p.m. One brown trout hit the fly, then a good-sized rainbow.
Then, a really big trout nailed the fly, shook its head violently and snapped my tippet.
Trout continued to splash and jump, and all I could do was watch as the day melted into night.
By the time I could tie on another fly, it was time to go. A bright moon painted a silver edge around the clouds, which opened just enough for it to shine on the river’s surface.
In all, though, not a bad day.

Remembering those big trout from the past

2009-07-04T21:37:00.003-05:00

I was cooking by the creek as the sun was waning when a shadowy figure emerged like a phantom from the laurel. He had on a wide-brim hat, light waders, nice boots and what I can only guess was a pretty expensive flyrod in his hand. At least, there was no duct tape holding it together. His vest was perfect. No stains, so he must have just bought it. Though I had never seen him before, he turned out to be a neighbor who had lived in that neck of the Pisgah National Forest 53 years.
He admitted catching just a few small fish before he quit. Nothing big. Nothing to write home about.
We sat by the fire, adding twigs to keep the flames alive.
I had quit fishing earlier in the day and was having my own private cookout by Courthouse Creek. Surprisingly, there were not that many tourists camping and hiking. As the sun dropped behind the hills, a comforting quiet filled the air, with just the song of water splashing over smooth rocks.
We told fish tales for awhile, recalling the days when huge trout fought at the end of our lines, not even realizing how much those long-ago fish had grown.
I told him about the big brown that had hit my caddis fly seven years ago, right there under that bridge just up the dirt road. And, there was the one at the church road bridge that nailed a slow-floating light cahill, and a couple of others that I had landed using a Tellico nymph with enough lead to sink it to the bottom of the shady pool downstream from the bridge.
And I admitted I had not caught a big one all year, and here it was half over. I had been fishing a tandem rig, with a muddler minnow tied to the hook bend of a small caddis dry fly. The idea is to fool the trout into believing a baitfish is chasing a small emerging fly and slam into the muddler, and it often works just like that with a big, head-shaking brown nearly tearing the rod from your hands.
An angler never forgets such fish.
We even remember the ones that broke off, like the one I lost on the Smith River in Virginia about, uh, a quarter century ago. He flashed all gold and silver in a late afternoon sun, leaping from his hiding place behind a log, and snapped that tipet as if it were a spider web. I remember my knees shaking from the excitement and shock.
This weekend, I’ll again try for the monster browns with the muddler and anything else big in the flybox.
And, while sitting around the fire late in the day, I’ll have a fresh yarn to spin if another fisherman drifts in through the laurel.

Fly fishing at dusk

2009-06-27T19:38:00.002-05:00

It’s enough to make you feel like a fresh French fry from the fast food place down the mountain but it is, after all, that time of year when corn pops in the field and frogs move across the asphalt with a little more pop to their hop. In a word, it is hot.
But it is definitely not the end of the world, at least for this fly fisher who is probably knee-deep in cool mountain water as you read this. This is the season fly fishermen love, though we love the other seasons, too. You can almost set your watch by when the river will erupt with rising trout trying to nudge each other out of the way in a frenetic feeding frenzy, just around 8 p.m .
In the hottest months of the year, the most comfortable time to fish is in the evenings, though some diehards I know get up with the chickens to fish at first light in the mornings. The anglers I talked with lately said they did not have much luck fishing nymphs in the early hours, while I, on the other hand, have had steady success as darkness folds over the hills.
It’s a peaceful time. Most folks are home from work. Few cars or trucks roar by. The crotch-rocket riders have parked their irritatingly whiny machines far, far away.
It’s a cool of the day time. You can sit on a still warm rock, watch the glow of the sun fade and enjoy a firefly light show while studying which rising fish you want to concentrate on. Beer cooled in the creek under a rounded rock adds to the irenic ambience.
Before it’s too dark, or if I’m fishing slow, smooth as a mirror water, I’ll fish the little yellow sallie dry fly. I’d like to think I invented the thing, but I’m afraid someone out there figured it all out years ago and just never bothered to tell those folks printing the fishing catalogs . I have never seen one, anyway, so I just tied some up to resemble the little stonefly that remarkably landed on my coffee cup, inside the cabin, upstairs, under the light on my fly tying desk. (See photo at right)
I thought that was quite considerate of the little bug. He didn’t have to fly into the house. I already knew what they looked like.
For years, all I fished were the standard, store-bought flies and had pretty good success. I guess I’m getting a little picky as I grow older.
On riffles or where the water is in a hurry, I like to fish a big old Corey’s Calftail, which has a yellow body segmented with peacock herl and big calftail wings that make it easier to spot in the whitewater. It’s also good right at dark, when all you have is a little moonlight left.
And with the darkness comes the cool air of the North Carolina mountains, and I let the heat of the day flow downstream.

Everything fell into place for fly fishing

2009-06-20T18:31:00.002-05:00

There are moments in sports that athletes remember the rest of their lives, almost like their first kiss and the first time they fell in love. Years from the time of the event, the details stay crystallized in perfect memory. I remember playing baseball in the third grade with a team that went undefeated with an error-free third baseman, me, getting hits to right field at every at-bat, but the detail that really stands out is when I broke my 8-year-old throwing arm at the city park while vaulting over a rail in front of the swings. Ouch. Our team lost the next day.
Among the other special sports moments in my memory : hitting the sweet spot driving a golf ball straight down the middle of a Halifax County, Va., fairway; crushing a winning backhand down the line to win the set at Hilton Head Island; feeling the "runner’s high" after completing a 5K race for charity in South Carolina.
It is a feeling all athletes have at one time or another. You get to feel like you are "in the zone" and nothing can go wrong. Life is good. Duane Allman called it "hitting the note" when the band members all played perfectly in sync.
All is right in the universe.
Fishermen have such moments, too.
We even remember big fish that broke off years ago. Last weekend was full of such moments, times when it all fell into place with the weather, the water levels, the insect hatches, the feeding trout.
I nailed ’em one after another in one stretch, and it was almost too easy. I also nailed the tough trout, casting different flies to the same rising rainbow under the bridge and the brown trout near the fire station pool. I had spotted the brown trout out of the corner of my eye as he came up out of the water to flash his golden flanks. I knew it was the same one that I had broken off the weekend before.
I got that brown on the first cast.
Later, I kept three of the rainbows, which were obviously stocked trout, and cooked them over a stick fire next to a well-shaded Courthouse Creek. Charred on the outside, they were wonderful with a little salt. I ate them like ears of corn, holding the head with one hand and the tail with the other, and then washing my hands in the creek when I pulled out the cold bottle of beer.
Few restaurants can top that.
You might say the entire weekend was like hitting the sweet spot.
Another perfect memory to file away.

June goes boom with blooms

2009-06-13T19:41:00.002-05:00

The river draws me like a light beckoning a moth. Honeysuckle and multifloral rose sweeten the air until it’s as thick as syrup, clouds drift overhead and trout begin to rise. A gentle June breeze whispers soft as a sigh.
You have to love June.
Winter’s a distant, brittle memory. The storms of early spring have gushed and rumbled, leaving plenty of water in the creeks and rivers, and the mayflies have begun to hatch by the thousands, filling the air like confetti in a victory parade.
Wildlife arouses from their slumber. Two deer crossed the dirt road at noon the other day, paused for just a blink, and then scampered into the Pisgah National Forest while a hawk hovered overhead. Bear begin to appear in folks’ yards, overturning trash cans and raiding bird feeders.
The forest is alive.
Normally, a fly fisherman would clad himself with dark greens and browns so as to hide from wary wild trout. I have heard this all my life, but in reality it’s really the goofy, clumsy movements of anglers stumbling over rocks waving long sticks over their heads that give pause to the wild fish and put them down.
If you watch the blue heron fish, you will notice hardly any movement until the moment of truth when he stabs at the water to catch dinner. When the heron moves, it moves sloooooooowy. It takes delicate, gentle steps. There are no splashes.
Herons, unlike anglers, never slip and splash in the water. These birds know if they mess up, they go hungry.
I generally wrap up with camouflage shirts, tan waders and a dark green hat so I can blend in with the surroundings. I’m sure it helps.
Now, it’s June. The laurel blooms dot the forest like white butterflies, so I can now blend even more, almost disappearing amidst the green and white with my white whiskers and Virginia Tech Hokie hat. In other seasons, that hat would flash like headlights; in June it’s just another part of the scenery.
Fish can’t see me.
Last week I spent an hour at the fire station hole, caught about 15 rainbow trout using just about any fly I chose out of the box and had a ball.
Fish couldn’t see me.
A sudden storm drove me under the bridge for 30 minutes or so, and I kept on catching those rainbows, though I kept my hopes up for a big brown somewhere.
Out of the corner of my eye I caught a flash of gold coming out of the water for a carelessly drifting mayfly. Ka-splash, the fish went. It was a brown trout. I did not catch him, though I spent way too much time trying.
I just kept on catching those rainbows, which I’m sure were not raised in the creek but in a hatchery. They were a little tame, pretty stupid and scarred from an early life in concrete tanks. I tossed them all back, but resolved to return and cook a few later this month — a streamside meal of smoky trout roasted over a stick fire is hard to beat. And the scenery beats any restaurant’s ambience; I got flowers on every table.
And with my white hat and whiskers, I melt into the surroundings with the ease of a laurel petal floating to the ground.
Fish can’t see me.

Bugs are out, so are trout

2009-06-06T19:47:00.001-05:00

You can’t help but love fly fishing in the month of June, especially during the early days of the month after Memorial Day when the air begins to fill with the sweetness of wild rose and honeysuckle.
Though winter was not a hard one, it will not be missed by this fisherman.
I like warmth. I like splashing around creeks and rivers. I like naps on the banks.
I like building little stick fires to roast wild trout at least once a year.
I like the explosion of laurel and rhododendron, their blooms sitting like flightless white doves along the banks and deep into the forest.
The Pisgah National Forest, which stretches for miles and miles behind our little cabin, has undergone an overnight makeover.
She’s a new girl today, all spruced up for summer with new clothes to impress her suitors.
Hey, did I mention the recent heavy rains filled my little creeks to the brim?
And today the rain has stopped.
Along with the plethora of flora sparkling all around, the air over rushing water fills with mayflies dancing and trout splashing at those who sail along too comfortably on the surface, as if they had not a care in the world, and then disappear with a gentle sip from below as another fish has dinner.
These are the times fly fishermen dream of during those dark, dreary February days.
There are times when the bugs hatch and the trout feed all day long, and there are times when there is nothing at all happening for hours before the caddis and stoneflies and big sulphurs and little yellow sallies come off.
The atmosphere can change in a flash.
Usually, it happens around dusk.
This begins in May, with a surprising number of bugs seeming to shake the reluctant trout out of their winter slumber just as the sun sinks behind the mountain.
The once flat surface of river becomes dimpled with rising trout, one here, another there, and a fly fisherman frantically trying to catch them all.
There was a special place on the Davidson River that Mrs. Koontz loved, especially at 8 p.m. Once, we arrived a little early, only to discover our spot taken by a man and his son.
They were not having any success. We watched, hoping they would give up so we could have the spot for ourselves.
At 7:45 I was getting nervous, for this was a highly anticipated mayfly hatch we were awaiting.
At 7:50 the man and his son reeled in and quit for the day. We almost whooped with delight.
Once out of the water, we slid down the bank just in time for the hatch.
The air lit up with golden mayflies in the dying light.
Trout began their frenzied feeding, like teenaged boys gobbling burgers after a baseball game. We fished with big light cahill dry flies and hooked or missed a strike with almost every cast.
We caught a lot of brown trout, along with some rainbows.
We had a ball.
The trout, usually a little more than reticent to rise with such reckless abandon, came close to jumping into our fishing vest that night.
A lot of them had some heft to them, too.
It was a perfect way to end the day, and as darkness slammed its door on us, I couldn’t help but wonder what the father/son team was talking about as they rode home.
I know what we talked about. We still talk about that night.
Perhaps, tonight I will catch it just right again.

Clouds follow from creek to creek

2009-06-03T22:30:00.001-05:00

I noticed some clouds the other day that did not scare me but rather got me thinking about cloud-watching when I was a kid.
My sister and I would pick out little critters, pointing to a dog or pig we spotted in the puffy clouds.
Lately, all anybody could see was ominous dark storm clouds rolling over the mountains like an advancing army. It has rained on my personal fly fishing parade just about every time I venture to the creek, though most of the time it would stop long enough for me to get a little dry fly angling in for the day.
A couple of Sundays ago, I drove through a steady shower to the river near our cabin, for I knew if it got really bad I could still fish some from under the bridge until it got too dark to see the fly on the water.
When I got there, the sulphur mayflies were hatching and the trout were rising. Gulp, gulp, gulp.
But even with the steady rises and the constant flutter of mayflies over the water’s surface, I was having a tough time getting one to hit my fly.
I caught one of the bugs with my hat, looked close and figured I had the correct fly tied on to the tippet. If they won’t hit this little yellow fly, they won’t hit anything.
I tossed the fly out into the current where I just knew there had to be a trout lurking, and the fly just kept going down the river unmolested.
In fact, the fly actually floated by one or two as they came up for the real bug.
The trout came up out of the water once, nudged the fly out of the way and then disappeared into the depths. He did that three times, with my issuing forth colorful fly fishing oaths with each teasing miss.
Birds sang, even with the rain steadily peppering the water. And the bugs kept on hatching. It began to get a little dark and I figured I must might get skunked before going home.
I felt something tug.
But I wasn’t quick enough, and as soon as I felt a fish I lost him.
Dang.
I flipped the fly out again, let it bob a little in the current, got a drag-free float in the feeding lane I was aiming for and ... BANG, gotcha.
I knew it was a good sized brown for, after all, he had poked his big ole head out of the water three times earlier.
I brought him in quickly. The rain peppered harder. The sky got darker.
That night I listened to the neighbors’ dogs howl and the birds sing in celebration of another hot, humid summer’s arrival. It was a good, deep sleep that night.
The next day I dodged the clouds some more, hitting my favorite pools downstream with phenomenal success.
There was a little white caddis hatch and the trout were having another buffet dinner right in the middle of the afternoon. Sometimes it happens at dusk, sometimes at lunch and sometimes it just doesn’t happen at all.
I was in luck. It happened three times within the week. I caught 17 trout, mostly rainbows, the first time. Then, the next day I caught fish until I got tired of the ease of it all. Fly fishing for trout is not supposed to be this easy, so I got back into the troutmobile, headed downstream fore more of a challenge and promptly caught nothing but air.
The next day I returned to the bridge pool and caught 15 more trout, but this time I took a closer look at these fish and noticed that they all looked to be the same size. They even had the same pale, just out of the hatchery look of fish that had just been dumped into the water.
The hatchery truck, though, was not supposed to dump trout up this far. It must have been some Buddy’s pet fish he keeps nearby for his mom to catch. He stocks his little stretch of the river, mostly because momma likes to eat trout.
I, on the other hand, just like to catch them. And I did .. until I actually got tired of it.
Today there should be no angry clouds overhead threatening to unleash a fury of torrential rain. I noticed while driving Friday that some of those mean clouds started to look like cute little animals. There was a little poodle’s head, an elephant, a pig and a ... whoa, that one’s a trout.
That was the first time I ever saw a cloud shaped like a big brown trout, and I took it as a good omen for the weekend.
It was a sky full of frendly clouds.

Congrats, Dan and Jennifer

2009-06-01T13:09:00.002-05:00

Memorial Day on a trout stream

2009-05-23T19:23:00.000-05:00

Fly fishing for trout is always a little different on Memorial Day weekend. The most popular creeks and rivers are as crowded as Styrofoam cups of worms wiggling elbow-to-elbow. Lakes are no better, perhaps worse, with high-powered boats piloted by merrymakers carving huge wakes through the water’s surface.
Not for me. .
I head for the hills, far up the mountain near the headwaters. The creek turns into a mere trickle up high, but the adventurous fly fisher can come up on the occasionally hefty trout hiding next to a little rock.
Though I try to escape, I keep coming back to the reason we even have such a holiday. It is, after all, more than just an excuse to burn burgers on the grill and toss cans into the trash.
Memorial Day is set aside to mourn those who died while fighting in our armed services.
And the weekend always sends me back to the summer of 1967. It had been a hot day on the beach, and we had all turned red as lobsters.
The cool air inside The Raven soothed the burn, as did the sweaty mugs of cold beer.
There were four of us, Johnny and his girlfriend and me with mine.
He had just left Parris Island triumphantly as the No. 1 recruit in his company while I was just a few days away from taking that bus trip to Marine boot camp.
Johnny had been on the high school wrestling team with me. I was the littlest competitor, the kid who always went on the mat first with every nerve jangling like chimes. Johnny was one of the biggest, often wrestling in the heavyweight class against larger guys.
He had a lot of heart, and that made up for any physical disadvantage.
Johnny also played football.
He was good enough to win a scholarship to the University of Tennessee in the days when college free rides were rare.
He went on the graduate, joined the Marines and eventually became an officer.
I wonder what he would have turned out like. You see, that night in The Raven was the last time I talked with Johnny.
He went to Vietnam and came home with a flag draped over his coffin.
Today, he’s a name etched in the slab of black marble that makes up the Vietnam Memorial.
When I saw the Moving Wall, the smaller version of the memorial in Washington, D.C., I had trouble finding Johnny’s name and at one point thought perhaps it had all been one huge, horrible mistake that night in Norfolk, Va., when Dad told me the news.
I had just come in from work at the shipyard, all dirty and sweaty. Dad was watching the TV news.
"Your buddy got killed in Vietnam," he said.
I could not think of a single thing to say.
Johnny’s death was like a drill instructor’s punch to the gut.
I felt empty.
About two years ago, the British military began driving the hearses carrying slain soldiers through the town of Wooten Bassett en route from the airport to the military morgue.
The first time this happened, an elderly man stopped what he was doing, stood silently alone and saluted as the hearse carrying the flag-draped coffin drove by.
a shopkeeper noticed. The next time a military hearse passed through, the elderly man was not alone.
Without saying a word or having any meeting to discuss the matter, the townspeople simply began to line the streets. Silence fell .
I thought that gesture good enough to steal … sort of.
This Memorial Day, while certainly fishing that red and gold dry fly, I’ll again take a silent moment to remember Johnny scaring me with boot camp horror stories that hot night in the cool tavern.
And salute as that memory passes.
Semper fi.

Fly fishing the cahill and sulphur hatch

2009-05-19T11:26:00.003-05:00

Even with a steady, stiff breeze, the cream caddis and cahills kept coming off, provoking not so steady rises in the high, in a hurry water.
I caught 17, mostly on a cream caddis.

Brown trout and a sulphur hatch

2009-05-18T00:12:00.003-05:00

These guys were hatching late in the afternoon. Fish, though, did not turn on until about 5:30, which is when I caught this fellow. He refused or missed the fly three times before I hooked him. A fairly steady rain peppered the water. Fish kept rising.

Nothing on Tanasee creek on first visit. Water up, discolored. Plan return trip today.

Fly fishing with the New York Times

2009-05-16T22:35:00.002-05:00

I was just about to toss out the New York Times when a photograph of a suspiciously familiar waterfall shook me up more than a broken tippet.
I would never had seen the picture because it was on the back page of the Weekend Arts section, which never has anything in it about fly fishing, but closer examination revealed that the photograph was taken in my back yard, the Pisgah National Forest near Brevard.
Wait just a minute, I thought.
That waterfall is Looking Glass Falls, one of the more popular and accessible tourist and fisherman attractions in Transylvania County, where I call home on the weekends away from work and where I fly fish for trout any chance I get.
Looking Glass Creek feeds in the Davidson River, which is touted as one of the top 50 trout waters in the nation by Trout Unlimited, a conservation group dedicated to keeping trout waters clean and trout healthy.
And now the NYT is telling all the world about my neighborhood, which includes all of western North Carolina when it comes to fishing for trout.
We already have enough fishermen crowding out water like a Mal-Wart store on sale day.
What’s going to happen now?
Will droves of Yankees begin flooding our riverbanks? Will all the frustrated tarpon fishermen from Florida decide to re-locate in a cooler clime? (Tons already do.) Will I have to share every pool and perhaps even every fish with a stranger from a strange land?
It’s sometimes almost elbow-to-elbow on the Davidson, and Looking Glass is often hard to find a spot to park during the summer.
I was aghast at the dismal possibilities.
Then, I noticed the inset map. Hold on there. The photo of the falls was correct, and the other picture showed what looked like Keven Howell’s chubby fingers tying a fly in the Davidson River Outfitters fly shop.
But the map was wrong. Way wrong. Across the country on the other side wrong.
The map showed a portion of California, on the coast, just south of San Francisco at San Luis Obispo, which to my knowledge is a far rock-hop from the mountain trout in the northern portion of Governor Arnold’s state.
That made me feel a little better. Out of state fly fisherman may not notice and fly out to California looking for Looking Glass. That’s a good thing, perhaps, for like I said before, our little creeks can get a little crowded and really do not need all that advertising.
The Times also mentioned my neighbors in adjacent Jackson County, where this year the county’s Travel and Tourism Authority has published a fly fishing trail map (it’s waterproof) touting 15 primo trout streams.
Our cabin is just over the county line, so we could possibly have to endure some tourist spillover.
After I calmed down, I noticed the fish in the other photograph was a native Appalachian brookie, which is actually not a trout but a char but that’s a different story altogether, that the NYT identified as a rainbow trout being released into the Nantahala River. Even in black and white, you could tell it was a speck, as we affectionately call them here.
They have little speckled spots, not streaks of rainbow red, on their flanks.
My guess is that some copy editor daydreamed his way through the story, misnamed the fish and put the deceptive inset map with the article.
Being a copy editor, I am not going to come down hard on the Times for those slips.
It may not have been a slip. I’m thinking in the back of my mind, it was a trick, and that copy editor is probably casting dry flies now near my cabin.
Everybody else can send us postcards from California.

(That's a Speck in the photo above, just like the one in the Times. Oops)

Fly fishing invasion

2009-05-09T22:29:00.000-05:00

The plan for the long weekend was to invade neighboring Jackson County and conquer as many of its much-publicized trout streams as possible, take a lot of photos and throw back a lot of wiggling fish.
The county put out some nifty waterproof maps recently that show where 15 of the more popular trout streams are located, how to get there and what to expect when you do. You learn what kind of trout are there, what size to expect and how many.
They call it the Western North Carolina Fly Fishing Trail.
For several weeks I planned the invasion, even though I hate planning for anything. Planning is bondage, the swami said, and I tend to agree, especially when it comes to getting out for some fun. You have to remain flexible. The weather may change, and probably will, or the car will break down, and hopefully does not, or I may just get lost, which is always a good bet when I explore new mountainous trout country.
Last week I never had a chance to get lost. I just never drove in the correct direction, which really does not count as being lost as much as being just another adventure, and ended up in barely familiar land. Passing by some promising water, I finally stopped at Balsam Lake, which feeds nicely into Wolf Creek. I just like the name of that creek, though I haven’t fished it much.
I should have turned left instead of right out of the driveway. The little creek, numbered "4" on my handy trail map, was in the other direction.
No matter. I can fish lakes too.
Fishing on two weekdays, I had the place nearly to myself. An elderly gentleman clad in bib overalls and a plaid shirt stopped by the car to tell me nobody was catching any fish lately, then he continued to the picnic shelter with his can of Vienna sausages and crackers.
Well, I hope he wasn’t planning to use those sausages for bait. I wouldn’t, since I prefer using flies, but I guess one could fashion a Vienna sausage fly and perhaps catch an unwary catfish somewhere. That can wait. I have entirely too many trout streams to haunt.
Watching to slow water for feeding trout rise rings, I perked up when a fish splashed at something near the parking lot. It was an overcast day the color of an old battleship. Rain threatened. I hoped to see some blue winged olives. Tiny flies, long tippets and delicate casts can be fun, or frustrating. It all depends on the trout.
I moved out to a point where the lake and creek met. There were a few rises, here and there, but they were not hitting the little olive fly.
After about 30 minutes of fruitless casting into a stiff wind, I angrily stripped in the line and hooked the brown trout just as I was lifting the fly from the water. Then, he snapped off the fly.
Switching to a soft hackle wet fly, I inched out on a tiny peninsula, flipped the fly into the current and gently stripped it in.
I caught two browns and lost a rainbow that flashed a little silver and red when it came out of the water and broke off.
A hard rain drove me away, but I knew it would not be very long before returning. Turned out the lake was just 11 miles from the cabin. I am surrounded by so much trout water that I rarely make it too any destination without a stop or two to toss a fly.
Like on the return trip.
The wind died, the rain subsided and I stopped at a little bridge. The trout was there. I put the fly softly next to the rock. A red-cheeked head came up, looked at my fly and splashed away.
That bridge is almost always a part of my plan. Perhaps soon I’ll make it to some of those other rivers, though I suspect there will be a ton of stops along the way.
It’s all part of the adventure.

Finding new trout water

2009-05-08T22:46:00.003-05:00

Well, I took the wrong turn, went UP the mountain when I should have been going DOWN. I had misplaced the maps.

But I did find trout willing to hit the fly while I dodged rain showers Monday and Tuesday. There were some rising fish Monday but they quit after the hard rain that drove me away. Nothing happening much Tuesday.

More later.

Fly fishing for adventure

2009-05-02T22:33:00.002-05:00

Well, this is the day I invade my neighboring county in search of new trout streams full of wild and sparkling fish. Jackson County has bragged for some time that it had the best trout fishing in the state, and they even got the local chamber of commerce involved in promoting a Trout Fishing Trail, complete with a map of a plethora of tumbling, twisting water.
Funny I never really get over there, even though our little cabin is almost on the county line near the Blue Ridge Parkway. I have problems passing up the creek and rivers in my own neighborhood.
You know, you just never know what to expect. I discovered this sun-bleached skull off the beaten trail a couple weeks ago just a few feet from water I have pounded for the past seven years on a regular basis.
Never know what you'll find.
Wonder what Jackson County surprises are in store for me? I have three days to find out.
I plan to slay 'em.

Fly fishing adventure on menu

2009-04-30T22:59:00.002-05:00

There should be some fine trout fishing weather this weekend in western North Carolina. The forecast is for some clouds and possible showers late in the day, about like summer around here. The sulphurs were coming off near the Davidson River bridge right at dusk but I had no luck in the 20 minutes it lasted. Perhaps my splashing around scared them.
This weekend, I am armed and dangerous, so wipe that smile off your soon-to-be-released face, brownie.

Fly fishing weather is back

2009-04-25T22:59:00.003-05:00

Well, it's been almost two weeks since I returned form an unsuccessful fishing trip to Va. Beach for some surf casting. For the record, I hooked not a single marlin.

Actually, the trip was for the 5-year-old's birthday and a visit with family. On my last day, I bought a $20 rod thick as my ankle and slung some heavy jigs into the surf with the wind and cold rain in my face. I thought it was going to sleet. How did it get into the 40s so quickly when it was nearly 80 just a day before.

I did managed to get back to the mountains last weekend. The browns really turned on late Sunday evening and the water was up and in a hurry after some heavy rain.

My first fish

2009-04-22T16:22:00.001-05:00

There are events in a man’s life that stick in the mind with crystal clear lucidity for a lifetime, moments to be recalled in pictures sharp as new televisions. There is the first day of school, the first real kiss from your first real girlfriend and, I am sure of this, your first fish caught with a rod and reel.
The first day of school, as I recall, was a dreadful affair, and the first real kiss from the first real girlfriend turned out to be the first real broken heart.
Really.
I never forgot any of those.
But the first fish I ever caught stands head and shoulders above all the rest, for there is nothing quite like being eight-years-old and wrestling with a wiggling fishing rod with something mysterious shaking at the other end and having no idea what kind of monster you may have hooked.Is it a shark?
My first fish, a little spot caught in the Elizabeth River in Virginia, was followed by a bagful of flopping silvery fish dancing on the grass. Mom cooked them, but only after I had gutted and cleaned each in the backyard, the only part of the experience I hated and one that eventually led to my catch and release practice today. The thrill is in the catching, not the cleaning, and you tend to waste way too much valuable fishing time (VFT) slitting fish bellies and lopping off heads.
Just toss ‘em back and keep casting.
I also vividly recall that first mountain trout. I caught that one, after several days of lashing the river with my new flyrod, in the Smith River near Martinsville, Va. It was in shallow riffles about 8 inches deep, close to the far bank near a furniture plant. The little rainbow hit a hare’s ear nymph. Boy, was that fun.
After that first taste of fly fishign success, I spent the next year fishing 229 out of 365 days.
I had turned into a fishing monster.
I fished before work. I fished at lunchtime and even in the evernings just before the city council held its meetings, prompting some witty remarks from the mayor about my wet clothes.
Well, little Carson Wince of Fallston caught his first fish this month on a rainy Good Friday in South Mountain State Park.
The three-year-old first-time angler caught the fish on a fly rod, too. On a wooly bugger, size 8 and black as a new Bible, also one of my favorite flies .
Carson’s trout was a big ole 16-inch brook trout.
Whew, that’s some fish.
His proud dad, Kenneth, sent us the photo of his son hold ng an obviously wiggling trout that was about as big as the grinning little boy.
I’m betting Carson will tell his fish story a hundred times or more during his life and, if he matures into a serious fly fisherman, the trout’s proportions promise to grow prodigiously with every passing year. Perhaps Carson and I will swap fishing lies one day.
Hey, I think that first trout I caught 24 years ago just grew a couple of inches.
It’s something that’s never forgotten, though often embellished.

Having faith when fly fishing

2009-03-31T22:53:00.001-05:00

If you are a fly fisherman, you have to have a certain degree of faith in what you’re doing on the river. You hope, of course, to catch fish. To do such, you have to have faith in the fly you’re using and a belief that the water you’re fishing actually is home to some nice, fat fish, which do not have to be trout but do have to be eager to hit your fly. Where I spend the weekends, the water is full of trout.
We got rainbows, browns, brookies and the rare tiger trout in the mountain streams of western North Carolina, where I skip from rock to rock in the creeks and rivers every chance I get, searching for some of those hungry trout.And I have faith I will find some every time. I never leave the house harboring the belief that I will not catch a fish — of course I will.Without that belief firmly imbedded under my ragged, green fishing cap, it would all be close to a waste of time.
Actually, you would call it hiking. That’s what Henry Thoreau, who was not a fly fisherman, did. He liked to saunter through the woods around his little pond, without a fly rod, just to drink in nature’s beauty. Good for him. I have to have fish to hunt.
Today I expect to hunt trout.
As I type this, a vicious rain is peppering the rivers and creeks and perhaps even startling my little wild rainbows and browns. There was even talk of violent tornadoes and thunderstorms.It will clear. I have faith.
The sleepy sun will peep from under that thick quilt of gray sky, the air will sparkle with astonishing brightness, and trout will rise to gobble mayflies, with perhaps a sprinkling of tiny midges for seasoning. I am ready.
I spent way too much time tying flies last weekend. Randomly, I switched from a couple of huge monster streamers to little mayflies, with no sense of rhyme or reason. Some tyers can sit and tie dozens of the same fly over and over. My attention span when tying trout flies is akin to a butterfly hopping from one flower to another. Lack of focus, I guess.
But I keep the fly boxes full.And I have an unexplainable faith in their effectiveness, though few resemble what you would find in a catalogue or fly shop because of their natural scruffiness. I tie scruffy flies. They mostly look like one of my border collie’s chew toys, ragged and about to fall apart, but trout seem to like them. I generally catch fish.
And I have faith in those scruffy flies.How can a fly fisherman not be full of hope and high expectation upon spring’s arrival? This time of year, we fly fishers tingle with anticipation, knowing the air will soon fill with fluttering caddisflies and the splashes on the water’s surface will be feeding fish, not torrential rain. Life is good and all is well with the world.
You’ve got to have faith.

Fly fishing stump time

2009-03-21T22:24:00.001-05:00

Spring has been teasing me like that redheaded high school cheerleader who stayed just out of my reach for four long, lovelorn years. I cannot seem to catch up with it. For the past several weeks I have watched trees explode with blooms like popcorn. Wild violets dance among the grass and now the redbud blushes along the highways I have to drive each day.
And each of my past two weekends has been a bust, with bitter cold snow and ice followed by steady, miserable rain, each sandwiched between five wonderfully spring-like (work) days.
Dang.
It’s becoming a bit too much to handle. All the dry flies have been tied, plus some bigger experimental streamers and nymphs, so I’m through with dreaming and ready for the mayfly hatches that fill the air with snowy golden bugs enticing hungry wild trout. I am ready. Boy, am I ready.The Troutmobile is ready too, sporting new brake pads to keep us from running off those snaky mountain roads. We changed the oil too.And though the world sparks to life with each spring, the tempo on the water eases. There is no rush. The sun sets later in the day, so you can fish way past dinner. There’s more time to study the water, if you please. There’s more time to watch and learn.I call it Stump Time.It’s time to spend sitting on a stump, waiting for the inevitable stonefly hatch or searching for tell-tale rise rings where trout are feeding. It’s a time to spend watching other fly fishermen, which can be a thing of beauty when the show is put on by a master. It also can be torture to watch a novice lashing the water’s surface with sloppy casts.
Stumps can be fallen trees, smooth rocks or just soft spots on the bank. I have found some rocks so smooth and comfortable that they put me to sleep in the afternoon sun almost as like a Lazy Boy recliner. Since I am slower than molasses when changing flies, these stumps also provide brief resting spots.
Stump time also can be the obvious period for reflection when the trout will not hit any fly tossed on the water. These are the times the trout have you … stumped. You have no idea which fly they want, or even it they want any fly at all. So, you reflect.
You can think about the fish, which is paramount, or you can lose yourself in the wonder of nature and just zone out for a while. I tend to the latter more and more. Drink the air in big gulps, wrap up in the comfort of the wild and drift off. Hawks and turkey buzzards soar in the sky. A beaver startles with a loud splash of warning. A doe shows up unexpectedly, looks you straight in the eye, and then is gone quick as a wink. Wow, where was that camera?
You have to love spring. It’s when all these things that really count brighten with a sharper focus. It’s flowers on the banks, buds on the trees and insects hovering over hungry trout.Spring is a season to be embraced.
Perhaps I can catch up today.

Trout don't mind the rain

2009-03-17T21:39:00.003-05:00

In two miserably wet days I caught one trout, but mostly that was my fault not the weather's and certainly not the fish's. What's to whine about? We need rain. Still. I managed to kill some valuable fishing time (VFT) while running senseless and meaningless (to me) errands for someone who believed with all her heart that those errands were important, more than fly fishing for trout.
There is something just not wholesome about that.
Fly fishing for trout, on the other hand, is entirely wholesome, healthy and balm for the tattered soul.
Ah...just one fish?
Yep.
And it felt good out there.

Trout rips into ragged fly

2009-03-14T21:20:00.002-05:00

It was just a ragged CDC caddis fly that was handy, so I tossed it into the fire station pool and watched in disappear in a splash.

I had hopes of hooking into the monster brown that resides in the area, but it was still fun to catch this acrobatic rainbow.

The water has warmed some, what with the temperatures in the 70s lately, so it did not kill me to hold the camera underwater for more than one shot. The other underwater photos were either fuzzy or the fish wiggled out of view as I snapped the shutter.

Rain forecast for today and Monday.

Perhaps I'll find a BWO hatch.

Another warm memory in the net

2009-03-07T22:25:00.002-05:00

What does your average, fanatical fly fisherman do when the sky erupts like an angry beast spitting cold wind, sleet and snow?

Go fishing, of course.

The temperatures had dipped like crash-diving planes, forcing me to sit inside the troutmobile with the heater blasting while I tied on a fly. Sleet sprinkled the hood of the car like salt. The wind howled. Sunday’s storm was on the way.

So, naturally I tied on a big ole’ bushy dry fly, a parachute Adams with a yellow post that made it easier to follow while the white stuff fell on the water. I had no luck out in the open but just before dusk I made one last stop to try for one of those little brown trout that love to hide under the bridge up the street.

I kept in the shadows so I wouldn’t spook any trout, though I hardly expected to find any. I moved slowly. Each step took about half a minute. When I got close enough to rollcast the fly into the current, I put it into the middle of the current just outside the shelter of the bridge. This happened a couple of times, with no success, and I was about to head for the cabin when I saw the splash and felt the tug at the end of the line.

The line cut one way and then another through the water’s surface, then the little rainbow gave up the fight, wiggled in my freezing hand while I tried to take a photo and then slipped back into the creek. The little white pellets of ice kept falling. The wind continued its angry howl and I called it a day.It was time for hot coffee and a night tying flies for the next day, which I thought would prove interesting with the oncoming snowfall. We expected a half-foot to 10 inches up the mountain, but it never happened. We got 4 inches, at best. By lunchtime Monday, just a muddy mush was left. The snow was pretty for a couple of morning hours.

Now, the roads were clear as the blue sky.Armed with a box of newly tied flies of all sorts and sizes, I assaulted the East Fork of the French Broad River, stopping along the way down the mountain at some of my other favorite spots.

I threw everything at them. I tried a fuzzy streamer. I tried a gray nymph. Then I tied on a yellow sparkly CDC dry fly. My Royal Coachman was ignored, as was everything else I tossed into the water. I was ready to just toss the whole box into the water.

Elsewhere in the state people we still digging out of the snow. Somehow, we had dodged the storm bullet, which allowed me enough mobility to get to some other water but which did not help me catch any trout.

Monday was a bust. I got skunked.

But, like that one good golf shot out of 80 nor 90 bad ones, that Sunday trout caught on a dry fly under an unpleasant sky was all that I remembered later.

A psychologist would call that selective perception, or something like that.

To me, it’s just another warm fishing memory that I am as comfortable with as a hot cup of coffee.

Happy trails to you

2009-02-27T23:29:00.003-05:00

If you have never heard of such a thing as a fly fishing trail, do not feel like a dry fly snapped off in a tree. You are not alone.

There is one, and only one, in the nation and it is just over the county line from our cabin. The Jackson County Chamber of Commerce has published a nifty map — waterproof of course — that shows 15 different spots for fly fishing in the Great Smoky Mountains.

The map points out four major rivers — Tuckasegee, Chattooga, Whitewater and Horsepasture — where a wily trout fisherman stands a chance of catching a trout as big as the family dog. The last two state records came out of the Horsepasture, the Chamber claims.

There is an abundance of neat little streams too, some remote and others not so far off the beaten path.

The maps, free to all who want them, show a couple streams I have fished and a few I never heard of that are just up the road from the cabin. Panthertown Creek splits Panthertown Valley, which has been called “The Yosemite of the East,” and is home to exotic flora and gorgeous brook trout. I remember catching little brookies with a royal coachman dry, then walking up the trail encountering a coiled and docile black rattlesnake on the edge of the narrow path. It did not faze Mrs. Koontz.For the past two weeks since I got the map in the mail, I have tried to get to check out some of the streams that I had not fished, but I am surrounded by trout waters. I must run a gauntlet to get to any river or stream outside of home county. They seem to reach out as I drive along.I cannot even drive into town to run errands for Mrs. Koontz without stopping at a bridge or pulloff. I took most of the afternoon Monday just to pay the phone bill. Sometimes it takes all day.

My personal Fly Fishing Trail consists of a couple big waters and lots of little creeks. I have two routes from the cabin to Brevard — one follows the Davidson River, considered one of the top 50 in the nation by Trout Unlimited, and the North Fork of the French Broad.

Then there are Chestnut Creek, Courthouse Creek, Kiessee Creek, Wash Creek, Beegum Creek and a couple so small streams that may not have names. Down near Rosman is the East Fork of the French Broad, a Delayed Harvest section full of trout in the winter. A little down the road toward Asheville, you can fish the North Mills River, though generally you will have a lot of company there.

You can get one of the maps by calling 800-962-1911 or download a smaller verson via http://www.flyfishingtrail.com/.

I got my map but have no idea when I will ever get over the county line to test it out.

I have my own Fly Fishing Trail.

Caught off the coast of California

2009-02-26T17:43:00.008-05:00

This report came in the e-mail today from my roommate who got it from somebody out there. I couldn't resist posting it.

"Caught 1-1/2 miles offshore while Fishing! (after the fires in Southern Calif.) Look what the fires brought! "

Look closely at the first photo. See anything unusual?

"Not too much of a struggle? Poor guy!!!
He was very glad to be on board. No doubt!!!
He was sooo tired and was glad to get into our boat and rest!
And yes, we turned it loose when we got back to shore.
Just try beating this Fish Story!
Nice to hear a fuzzy story about a wild deer during deer hunting
season.
Note that the kind fisherman has a Marine T-shirt on. What
else!! Known throughout the world as kind and compassionate men.
Huuuh-rah! and semper fi"

That's all folks.

It was cold out there

2009-02-25T20:46:00.002-05:00

Ah, yes, the ole Frustration Pool and ice on the side of the dirt roads. What a Monday for fly fishing!

For the record, I saw plenty of trout in the pool but caught none. Didn't even get a look. Threw everything at them. No hits.

Went upstream to another river and fished the little caddis just under the surface and ... got two hits...firm handshakes, to be sure...but just hits...no trout.

I wasn't even supposed to be out there for there were errands to run, phone bills to pay, groceries to pick up...and water to be fished.

I have no idea why it had to chill up on the two days of the week I had off.

Two ice days sandwiched between all these wonderfully warm winter days.

Ice dreams not nice dreams.

It's supposed to warm some for the coming Monday.

Some days on the river are keepers

2009-02-21T22:04:00.004-05:00

Snow was falling like spilled grits. You couldn’t see the road. Fools who did not know snow drove too slow. Mrs. Koontz slipped off the road twice, but she made it home OK about the time I was getting up to go look for her. It was quite a snowstorm, she said.

When I went out to check the sky Sunday night, though, all I saw were stars blinking in a winter sky. I thought I saw some snow and clouds about 10 miles up the mountain, which turned out to be right where the snow stopped, like someone had slammed a door at 4,000 feet.

Down at the cabin it’s 3,500 feet above sea level, and that made all the difference. Monday morning, I left the frost-covered cabin to hit the sunny East Fork of the French Broad River near Rosman where the air is warmer and the water is always filled with trout in the winter.By the time the temperature began bumping the 50-degree mark, the water was crowded with off-work fishermen trying to hang into some of those Delayed Harvest trout.

Sunlight bounced off the water’s surface like flashbulbs, the river was clear and cold and I began fishing with a nymph tied behind a parachute dry that had a brightly colored and easy to see wing. At the first stop I nailed a rainbow with the dry fly.

That was all for that first bridge. I never got another hit.I ripped the nymph off to make room for a scruffy dry fly I had tried to fashion the night before. It barely resembled the Yaller Hammer fly I saw in the fly shop, but nobody told the trout. Bugs aren’t always pretty, I reasoned.

At the next stop, there were more fishermen than trout, so I kept on getting on.At the second bridge I was surprised and delighted to find I had the rest of the river to myself. The water was smooth and quiet. Sky, clouds and trees bounced images off the surface, but at first I didn’t see any feeding trout. I kept trying with the dry fly, with no luck.

There are moments in fly fishing that stand out like no other event. We always remember the monster trout that shake us out of our day-dreaming trances and the beautiful wild brook trout caught near tiny waterfalls. Moments like these get etched in our minds. They’re forever. They keep us coming back for more.

Another such moment is when you spot a fish feeding, figure out what it’s eating and then put the fly softly near the trout without spooking him.Like Monday at that second bridge. Off to the left, I saw the ring spread from where a fish was having a bug lunch, let out some line and put the scruffy fly within inches of the trout.

The Yaller Hammer floated just a nanosecond before it disappeared in a violent splash. Bingo.I tried photographing the rainbow underwater with the waterproof camera, but the fish would not stay still and the water was bone-crunching cold, so all I got was a little fuzzy shot.

My hands ached, and I thought about what a good choice it had been to avoid the north side of the mountain, where all the snow had fallen, and keep to the sunny side of life.

This moment on the river was a keeper.

February can be cruel, too

2009-02-14T22:27:00.008-05:00

I saw the fish rise to slap the water’s surface as midges bounced like popcorn in the air over the water. You just knew it was going to be a stellar day for fly fishing. Even though the sun was way too bright and the water way too clear, I was ready to settle into the groove of an unseasonably balmy February day.

The cloudless blue sky seemed to beckon. Come on out. Have some fun in the unheard of at this time of year warm sunshine.

I remember most Februarys as months that should have been abolished, ripped from the calendar with authority to bring spring closer. I have always hated February. The month has a long history of cloudy, drizzly, unbearably chilly and stinky days on the river.

Bring on March. It’s blustery and often nasty, but it’s not February, which is always lifeless. It’s the month between two others, and that is all.

But here I was on the river, watching trout rise to hatching insects when the outdoor world should have been snoozing under a thick blanket of gray clouds.

I even caught that brown trout on about the third cast. It felt like a big fish at first, then I discovered the little caddis fly was stuck in the fish’s tail. I guess I jerked the fly too quickly, or the trout missed or just changed its mind at the last minute, or it was just a lucky hookup.That fish felt way heavier than he turned out to be. I unhooked the fly, slipped the sparkling brown back into the water and looked around, a little embarrassed, to see if anybody was there. Snagging fish is not a skill of which to be especially proud.

There was a break in the action, some errands to run and lunch in the city before I got back into the fishing, this time on the Davidson River along the other road to our cabin. There were few rising trout. There were fewer fly fishermen.I snapped off the little caddis dry fly and knotted a super-small midge, a speck of a fly I thought would surely interest these picky trout in the Catch and Release section. That caddis fly would never work.

An hour later, I had not enticed one hit.It began to get dark. The sun slipped behind the ridge. Soon, it was just me, and one other fisherman, a little bit upstream. The light waned just in time for the fish to begin popping the surface, jumping and gulping whatever it was floating on the surface. The fellow upstream — barely out of my casting range — had trout splashing all around like little children hopping up and down in a swimming pool.

I watched his rod bend and shake. I kept casting my little midge, with no takers. I’d stop, and see that guy fighting another hefty trout. Then another, then another.

I was catching nothing but air, and that was getting darker and cooler with each cast. It was too late to begin fumbling for another fly, and besides, that guy had all the action within reach while the rest of the river was quiet as church on Monday. Those fish almost jumped into his fishing vest.I kept catching air.

When I finally gave it up in frustration and despair, I asked the fellow catching all the fish what fly he was using.“Little caddis fly.”Violent and unseemly thoughts erupted in my mind. I felt this strange desire to wade into the water to whack those stupid trout on the head with my rod.

You see, even when February days are warm and pretty, they turn cold and ugly just for spite.

Life’s not always fair. Especially in February.

Love waterfalls

2009-02-13T23:58:00.001-05:00

I do love my neighborhood waterfalls and the trout that live nearby. I usually catch one or two in this pool, but last week had no luck. Upstream was a different story and I nailed a few with a little cadis dry fly. They were quick. I missed a lot of them.

Trout makes fashion statement

2009-02-07T22:34:00.002-05:00

Her cheeks were so red they could stop traffic on a big city street. I cannot verify if she was the largest rainbow trout I had ever hooked, but her eyes were big as the buttons on my camouflage jacket and as sad as a guilty dog. I was startled when I got her close.

I had been fishing the Davidson River again. It’s almost in the backyard, and if I have to make a trip to the store or bank, I have to pass the river and invariably I have to stop and at least take a look, though mostly I stop and fish. Mrs. Koontz knows it takes me 3 to 4 hours to make a simple trip down the mountain to the store. She expects it.

This trip was no different. I had tried to fish a little late Sunday, but the sun was high and bright and the fish were skittish. I just walked along the bank and watched for rising trout. There weren’t any.

Monday appeared to be what all winter fly fishermen dream about, cloudy with a light, drizzling rain that makes for perfect blue wing olive weather and rising trout. My flybox was loaded with all the various sizes of BWO, as well as the regular midges and nymphs that seem to work on the Davidson.

I began the day with the tiniest nymph – a Christmas present – that was about the size of a capital “C” on this page. It was red with a little gold ribbing and unspeakably small. I had a heck of a time tying it on.I had caught some hefty browns in this run near the parking lot just a couple weeks ago. It was worth a shot. I began tossing the tiny fly up and across the current and let it swing down through some riffles, hoping it would get down deep enough to catch the attention of one of those monster trout that reside there.

It did, though at first I thought it was a log. I am not a very good nymph fisherman. I miss those subtle hits where the fish mouths the fly, then spits it out quicker than I can react. I almost never see the line jerk in the water when a fish takes it. I miss a lot of good fish, I bet.So, I was a bit surprised, as was the big trout looking up at me with those baleful eyes, when I got the fish close in the shallow water.Wow, I said. Then, she showed me just how educated and smart she was and, with her tiny teeth untied my knot, kept the fly as a souvenir and swam away, leaving me holding a rod with a slack line swimming in the water.

Davidson River trout have a reputation of being a little smarter than the average mountain trout and they often leave grown men grumpy and almost in tears with frustration. They have, I bet, seen every type and color and size of fly made. That’s why, I guess, we generally have better luck fishing the itty-bitty flies.

I’m thinking they like to wear those shiny things in their lips like punk-rock jewelry, but who would ever have thought trout were into body piercing? But then, the fly that fat trout stole matched her ruby red cheeks. She’ll be the envy of the others.

Fishing with the duck

2009-01-30T23:36:00.003-05:00

I almost had the Davison River all to myself, except for this silly duck perched on a rock in the middle of a pretty good run near the parking lot.

Neither of us caught anything.

The trout were splashing and laughing in mid-afternoon, but I never figured out just what it was they were feeding on.

I did hang one huge rainbow with an itty-bitty nymph somebody gave me for Christmas. I thought I had hung up on a log or rock, then noticed that the rod tip was shaking like a wet dog in the kitchen. I got to see the monster. That's all.

The fish had this dumb, sad look on its face, as if it was feeling exasperated at fly fishermen trying to land it in a net.

Fat chance. It somehow untied my knot, kept the fly for a souvenir and left me with a slack line.

Sometimes, I hate these fish.

But the duck didn't do any better.

Fly fishing for a gentleman's fish

2009-01-24T22:06:00.002-05:00

A thick crust of ice covered the storm door, so I had to go outside to see if it was snowing. The air had a sharp bite to it, and snowflakes danced around like feathers from a goose fight.

After about 15 minutes strapping the tarp over the trash in the truck, my fingers ached. I decided the landfill trip could wait. It was overcast with battleship gray skies, perfect for some blue wing olive action on the river. And it was snowing.

Trout don’t mind the cold. It was time to fish.So, with the remote intention of running some errands, I headed for the Davidson River. When I arrived at the hatchery parking lot, I decided to hike a bit up the trail to seek out some new water.

A portion of the trail was layered with a challenging coat of ice, and the rest of the well-worn path was full of tree roots looking like piles of snakes, so you had to watch where you stepped.After about 30 minutes, I veered off the path, down a slippery bank past some old campsites and to the riverbank where I could cast without getting into the water. I was traveling light, with no waders, so staying out of the river was of paramount importance.

Right off the bat, the little black caddis fly was nailed by a medium-sized rainbow trout that leaped twice before shaking the hook. I had tied a half dozen of the tiny CDC flies the night before, and they were working well. Black was back.Snowflakes continued to flutter like little butterflies, but the snow wasn’t sticking.

And the air began to warm.Back upstream, I stopped at the mirror-smooth pool where all the well-dressed fly fishermen gathered to toss nymphs and streamers and impossibly tiny flies into pods of humongous trout. These fish get big as pigs mainly because of all those nutrients coming from the hatchery and the fact that you cannot keep any.

There were rise rings all over the surface, and a few fishermen were landing trout here and there. You can see those big boys, the fish that is, from the bank, but they are not easy to catch. They are educated in the ways of fly fishing and can be exasperating. They can make grown men cuss and cry.

Today, though, the little fly that was nothing but black thread and feather fooled a few of of those educated trout. I cast the fly across the water while standing high and dry on the bank. It would float downstream over a ton of fish before it would begin to drag. Then, I would cast again.

I was getting into a rhythm. Snow kept falling. My mind wandered. What a nice day.

Wake up, said a monster brown as he tried to jerk the rod from my hands. Lord, was he huge. I was certain he was going to break the tippet, but the 6X held. I got him to the bank, slid him up on a shelf of ice and was almost ready to snap a quick photo of the biggest brown trout in the history of the world when he shook the fly from his mouth and slowly slid back into the river.

My heart was thumping.

The guy downstream smiled when I told the story.

“That was a gentleman’s fish,” he said. “He got off so you wouldn’t get your hands wet.”

That was good enough for me. Three trout on dry flies from the snow-covered bank made for a fine day.

Perhaps I’ll go to the landfill next week.

Let’s see what the weather’s like.

Fly fishing in the snow

2009-01-23T22:47:00.002-05:00

Yeah, I know. It was cold. The trail by the river was covered with a frosting of thick ice and the banks were fringed with snow.

Actually, the frigid temps of the early morning eased off in the afternoon, though the snow continued to fall like tiny feathers all day.

Most importantly, the trout were hitting on top. I nailed a couple of nice browns, one over 20 inches, in the Davidson River on Monday.

I slipped him up on the icy bank for just a second, then he popped the hook and skipped back into "The Trough" just below the state hatchery. He was a brilliant gold and silver.

Fellow downstream said it was "a gentleman fish" because I did not have to get my hands wet releasing him.

Hmmmmmm...a gentleman's fish?

Fishing for a mermaid

2009-01-17T23:41:00.003-05:00

I have a new fly that should work. I use a 2-carat diamond at the head of the fly, with the body wrapped with $100 bills.

I figure if I fish it slowly, very slowly, under the icy surface I just might catch one of these gal-fish.

What to you think?

I know what Mrs. Koontz thinks.

She thinks it's too cold to go fly fishing.

Ha.

Fish poop helps balance ocean's acid levels

2009-01-15T23:47:00.000-05:00

This is some good ... uh...stuff

WASHINGTON (AP) — The ocean's delicate acid balance may be getting help from an unexpected source, fish poop.
The increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere not only drives global warming, but also raises the amount of CO2 dissolved in ocean water, tending to make it more acid, potentially a threat to sea life.

Alkaline chemicals like calcium carbonate can help balance this acid. Scientists had thought the main source for this balancing chemical was the shells of marine plankton, but they were puzzled by the higher-than-expected amounts of carbonate in the top levels of the water.

Now researchers led by Rod W. Wilson of the University of Exeter in England report in the journal Science that marine fish contribute between 3 percent and 15 percent of total carbonate.
And the contribution may be even higher than that, say the researchers from the U.S., Canada and England.

They report that bony fish, a group that includes 90 percent of marine species, produce carbonate to dispose of the excess calcium they ingest in seawater. This forms into calcium carbonate crystals in the gut and the fish then simply excrete these ``gut rocks.''
The process is separate from digestion and production of feces, according to the researchers.

The team estimated the total mass of bony fish in the ocean at between 812 million tons and 2,050 million tons, which they said could produce around 110 million tons of calcium carbonate per year.
The carbonate produced by fish is soluble and dissolves in the upper sea water, while that from the plankton sinks to the bottom, the team noted.

The research was funded by the U.K. Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, The Royal Society, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, United Nations Environmental Program, the Pew Charitable Trust and the U.K. Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
———
On the Net:
Science: http://www.sciencemag.org

Water clear, air cold, trout hiding

2009-01-13T21:00:00.002-05:00

I have no idea where the trout were. Presumably, they were lurking in the neighborhood, under rocks or tree roots. I don't know. I never saw one.

I just wanted to get outside and feel the sun, which turned out warmer on the Haywood County side of the mountain than on the Transylvania side.

The aid had bite to it.

I shoulda brought a rod

2009-01-10T23:02:00.004-05:00

I spent a few days at Virginia Beach but, alas, I did not take my fly rod. I really don't have one big enough to fish in the surf and I almost went to the store to get a el-cheapo special just to have something more to do than take photos of other guys fishing.

In winter, you can fish almost from your car in the nearly-empty parking lot.

The only fish I saw was in my grandsons' bathtub.

Look out trout...I'm ready

2009-01-03T22:17:00.003-05:00

I sincerely hope my first fly fishing excursion of the year is not a portent of what’s in store for the rest of 2009.

With a couple of hours on my hands Monday, I tackled the water across the road. It was still rocking and rolling after recent rain. I had gone for several months without fishing there because, well, there wasn’t any rocking water due to the drought. I guess it had been six months or so, until we got those recent showers.

The one sure thing about fly fishing — you cannot do it without the water. Trout do not sun themselves on warm rocks like snakes.

Didn’t matter. I got skunked.

I spent a good portion of last Sunday night tying Tellico nymphs, muddler minnows and Sheepflies, all of which are good, all-purpose flies you normally fish below the surface. One exception is the muddler, a ragged bushy looking thing that can resemble a small minnow under the surface or a struggling grasshopper on the top. It’s a messy fly to tie. Deer hair trimmings fall like dead mayflies on my floor, and I almost never clean up the mess.

Most fly fishermen carry some form of the muddler minnow in their fly boxes; it is a universal favorite and a good producer. If you had to fish for your dinner every day, most fishermen would opt for using this fly.

It’s also good for attracting the attention of big trout, especially early in the mornings just as the sky begins to lighten.That’s just one of the objectives on my list of things to do in 2009, if only I could muster the strength and willpower to get up that early just to fish.

The Sheepfly is a local concoction that was originally fashioned by the late Don Howell of Brevard, I believe, and it is tied on a big hook. I usually go to a size 8 for my streamers, but the boys down at Davidson River Outfitters swear it works with really big hooks, especially on the Davidson. It’s tied with a gray body, brown hackle at the collar and two grizzly hackle tips for wings laid flat on the back. I guess it looks a lot like a small baitfish to the eye of a big brown trout.

The Tellico nymph, on the other hand, looks like a bug. No doubt about it. It has the peacock herl ribbing, yellow body and bushy hackle collar that makes it look like a wiggling insect tumbling with the current.

Trout have no choice but to bite.

The biggest rainbow trout I ever caught was hooked on a Tellico nymph. I had borrowed a fly rod from a friend after all my stuff “went missing” due to financial and legal disasters, and it turned out to be a fortunate coincidence. It was a big ole stiff bass fishing rod, a 7- or 8-weight stick with the backbone of a Marine drill instructor. It had to be on that day.

I let that Tellico nymph drift through some riffles into a deep dropoff, and let the fly do its little dance. Of course, I first thought I had caught a rock or stick on the bottom, but then the rock shook. The rod tip bent over like it wanted to drink some of that river water, and I knew I had a big’un on.

Without a net, I had to guide the fish, big as a football, to the bank. I could not wrap my hands around it. I almost lost him several times.

Last Monday was not even close to that experience, though, and I quit after an hour or so. Skunked again.With a flybox full of big-trout flies, I’ll be ready to get serious next time. I don’t believe in portents.

Winter's sparkle

2008-12-27T21:52:00.002-05:00

It was the kind of winter day you’re almost embarrassed to admit was unexpectedly cold. It was, after all, officially winter. It was almost Christmas. Smoke curled from neighbor’s chimneys.It’s supposed to be cold.

But, up until this past Monday, it had been wonderfully temperate, even warm. There had been some great days to fly fish for trout and have pretty good success while wading with just a light shirt and cap. No need to bundle up too much.Monday’s weather turned like an angry beast. The wind howled.

I had an extra cup of coffee, wrapped in fleece and wool from head to toe. Our storm door was covered with a thick sheet of ice, giving it a fancy, old-timey window appearance. Sunlight struggled through the thick crystalline crust.Well, against my better judgment I left the cabin. I had a couple of hours to kill.

I rode around trying to spot some trout from the banks, but nothing stirred except trees in a brutal wind. Gusts gave the air a razory touch with enough punch to slap you back into the warming car. I checked the usual bridges too, but abandoned the water along the main road to head up into the forest.Up the dirt road the air calmed.

Hovering on either side trees blocked the wind like protective grandmothers with large, wrinkled fingers. A little sun came through.

But the air still had that cut to it and by the time I had the rod out of its tube and the reel screwed on my hands felt like they were being squeezed in a vise. I got back inside to tie on the fly.

After a few minutes I had soaked enough warmth to attack the water. I wasn’t ready to splash around but I could flip a bushy fly from the riverside rocks without getting wet. Everywhere there was ice. It wrapped itself around mossy rocks like fine lace, and ringed others with the sparkle of diamond necklaces. Drooping rhododendron leaves dripped pendant-like globs that reminded me of earrings Elizabeth Taylor might have worn in her heyday. One particular boulder sported a tiara, with icy jewels the size of grapes spaced evenly around its top.

Everywhere it dazzled and sparkled.Not getting any hits at the first campground, I warmed myself with a short ride upstream to the little wild creek, hoping those little rainbow trout were stirring a little.I always get some action there, I thought. It may just be a splash and a miss, but I at least get one or two shots at catching a trout and I don’t have to get into the water to do it.

Steep slopes on both sides held off the roughness of the wind. I could get a couple of good casts in without worrying much about where the fly would land. Ice dripped all around. In winter my creek becomes even more beautiful, with an added quiet that lends it a certain degree of grace and charm not found in the summer.

Within ten minutes I realized the fish were not interested in anything but hanging out under rocks, retreating into their winter mode where the metabolism slows. Trout eat less in winter. I eat more. That got me to thinking I should be taking Mrs. Koontz to lunch. Something hot and wintery.

It’s that time of year.

Pretty cold but pretty just the same

2008-12-23T22:57:00.002-05:00

Everywhere I looked along the banks Monday there was crystalline sheets, needles, blocks, coats, drooping globs like diamond ear bobs...

But it was way too cold until I got up the dirt road and lost the wind. The sun felt good on my face. Soothing.

It was still cold enough to hurt.

And the fish hid.

Release and catch not for me

2008-12-20T23:21:00.002-05:00

An angry rain beat the metal roof with ferocity, like someone had just dumped a truckload of gravel on our cabin, and I rolled over under the blankets hoping to sleep through it. Outside the sky bubbled with dark clouds.Well, we’ve had a week of rain in the mountains, the rivers and creeks are up again and I was ready to get out and catch some trout. I struggled out of bed slowly, for I feared the water would be muddy and hard to fish. It turned out to be clear as jar whiskey kept in a freezer, just not as cold.I wrapped up well, rigged up with a black wolly bugger that usually works in high water and crossed the street to the front-yard stretch of my river.

Surprisingly, I caught nothing. Not even a bite.You could tell how high the water had risen by the flattened grass on the banks. The North Fork of the French Broad had gotten rowdy during the week. Downed trees blocking the water had shifted or moved on. Most of the trash had been swept away.

Overhead, a bald eagle circled the neighbor’s pond four times, then disappeared as I reached into the car for the camera. He was fishing also and not having any luck, neither.I moved to the fire station hole, changed flies after that black wooly bugger failed to get even a bump, and began to catch fish on the yellow Tellico nymph. Boom, boom, boom.The relentless drizzle continued to kiss my cheeks, but the air stayed warm. Over the bank an old barn rose ghostlike through plumes of mist. I was having more fun than the law should allow.Then it happened.

While photographing one of the trout I caught, I unhooked the net because the cord was in the way. Dumb move. I dropped the net, cussed and lunged as it scooted downstream like a frightened duck.I began to run along the bank, trying to get a little ahead of the bobbing net.

After about a couple hundred feet of running with waders and rain gear and wading boots too large for my feet, I splashed into the river, stumbled over river rock round as bowling balls and reached for the net that was one foot beyond my reach. And missed as it sailed by.More colorful language followed.

And I began to run again with those boots flopping like clown shoes. They are great for gentle, cautious wading. They are, however, not New Balance running shoes. I leaned the rod against a tree and ran harder.My lungs were burning like fire. Again I splashed into the middle of the river, got downstream of the approaching net that was picking up speed like Michael Phelps on the last lap.

I reached for the wooden frame, stretching my arm as far as I could ... and caught it.

That catch felt almost as good as landing a huge trout. What a triumph.Normally, with a few exceptions each summer, I am a catch and release type of fly fisher. Monday, I tried release and catch. It sucks.

I’m going back to the old way.

My knees still ache.

Catching trout in the rain

2008-12-17T22:40:00.008-05:00

Well, we have plenty of water now. There was a steady and relentless drizzle Monday and the water, though a little high and rough, remained clear as whiskey in a jar.
When I switched from black to yellow, I began catching trout, rainbows and one nice brown. The Tellico nympth did the trick when all else failed, which now that I reflect on the matter makes perfect sense.

High and muddy, fish dark flies...and fish something bright and yellow when it's high and clear.

It never got too cold all day.

Just wet.

Time's fun when you're having flies

2008-12-13T23:03:00.001-05:00

Sunlight sparked off the water in the silver winter air. It was cold enough to sting your fingers in the shady spots, but in the open it was a nice day, too pretty to stay inside.
The fog that had draped the mountains during the morning had fallen off, way back behind the ridges, so even though the forecast for fish activity was poor, I headed down the mountain to the “Delayed Harvest” waters.
It’s a dizzying ride down my hill to Rosman, with more twists than a plate of linguini. Then, you follow another little curvy road. Once there, though, it’s usually worth it. And it gets easier.

It is so easy that you can just about stop your car, roll down the window and cast a fly from the road.
It is that accessible.

And, it is guaranteed that there are at least some trout in that water to fish for. You may not catch them. But they are there, for from October to June the fishing is entirely catch and release. After the second Saturday in June, you can keep ’em, gut ’em and cook ’em if you like.
Sometimes, I do.

But this is December. I toss ’em all back, if not because of the law, then because it is too cold to hold a trout, dress him out and stuff him in the vest for later. By the time you finish all that fuss, your hands are numb as river rock.
The air had a briskness to it earlier, then warmed a bit into the high 40s, but I saw no fish rising in the usual spots.
Since it was Monday, I had most of the water to myself, and I took my time. There was really no hurry. It was early in the afternoon.

But nothing was hitting, bumping or even for all I know looking at the two-fly rig I drifted through the riffles and runs. At least the waterfall was pretty, and the air around such falls always makes me feel good, for which there is a scientific explanation but I did not care.
All was well in the world. I was at peace.
But I was determined to catch some trout this time, so it was more than a little encouraging to see rise rings downstream.

I eased within casting distance of the first feeding trout, figuring they were either gobbling up blue wing olives or dark caddis flies from the surface.
I changed flies. The little olive CDC flies seemed to be just the trick, floating low in the film because of its lack of hackle. The first fish sipped the fly as it drifted across and down the river, jerked his head, cut a zig-zag pattern with the line through the water and even jumped once.

I caught a handful during the next hour, all fat and pretty for hatchery-bred brook trout. I fell into a mindless groove.

I had intended to return to the cabin after about an hour or two but managed to kill the entire day.
Was there something I was supposed to do for Mrs. Koontz at the cabin?

Like they say, time’s fun when you’re having flies.

It was cold but.....

2008-12-10T23:59:00.005-05:00

I tried to get some photos of myself fishing near the falls, but the camera counted to 10 faster than I did.

Fish pictures turned out nicely.

It started cold, then warmed a little in the sun, then the sun disappeared and, lo and behold, trout began to rise...I caught four with a BWO dry. About 2:30 to 3:30.

Full report Sunday after my column gets written.

There's a bunch of rain coming down outside. Augers well for the weekend, and I have Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to fish next week.

They said it was cold

2008-12-09T22:31:00.002-05:00

Ice on the rocks, and this is DOWN the mountain near Rosman.

Few people, and no fishermen, there Monday. All to myself and I caught all the fish in the river, though they looked suspiciously similar...all hatchery raised brook trout about 12 to 13 inches long.

All hit the same BWO dry fly late in the afternoon, from 2:30 to around 4.

Cloud ate the blue sky

2008-12-06T22:24:00.003-05:00

With a couple of hours before Mrs. Koontz was ready for the drive into the big city, it seemed only natural to ride up the road to my favorite little creek. The sky was clear as new glass. The sun was achingly bright. And I had the itch to get outdoors.
It seemed foolish to do otherwise.

You know such conditions do not auger very well for trout fishing, for those little wild fish I like to catch are more than spooky in the gin clear water under the sun’s spotlight. They are near impossible to catch. Cloudy days are usually better.

There were no insects hatching but, hey, this is winter. It was an in between type of day that was not quite warm to get the fish dimpling the surface with their rise rings but not cold enough to keep a fly fisher inside tying flies for next year.

Yeah, I bundled up and went.
Out of the path of the wind, the sun felt soothing. I took my time, in no hurry for anything since I had at least two hours to kill. I lazily got my stuff out of the truck … waders, boots, rod, vest. As I began putting on the waders I felt a little chill and looked up.

Aghast, I realized that a cloud black as a new Bible was eating my blue sky sunshine in one big voracious gulp. Within a minute the entire afternoon changed complexion and the temperature dove like a falcon after a rabbit.
I wrapped up some more, adding a sweater and a fleece jacket over my camo jacket.
The air snapped at my fingers like a hungry dog. I decided to get back into the Troutmobile, fire up the engine and defrost in the dragon breath roaring out of the heater.

It got colder, it seemed, when I emerged from the car to string up the rod.
A thin snow fell like petals. The only sound was the creek dancing over rocks.

I tried the old favorite spots where trout had hit the fly in the past. With a little dark caddis tied on, I flipped it into the little pools and puddles against the bank. I caught a tree and a bush, but managed not to lose the fly. This was no time for changing flies with numb fingertips. I almost cried when I dropped my pliers into the water. My hand came out numb.

The creek opened a little, allowing a full-throttle cast to the gentle water upstream. There was plenty of air be-hind me and no trees to reach out for my fly. It felt good to let a long cast loose on this little creek.
It would have felt better to catch a trout.

But there are times when you just go fishing because you can. Life never promises to let you catch the fish, so you go out and just try and breathe deeply. That cold air seems to have a healing effect, and it makes a heart merry.
The snow kept falling like little mayflies boogeying in the air. The dark cloud hung overhead.

That night while driving home from a big city dinner, the sky opened just a tad, almost like a curtain drawn back from a round window, and presented one of nature’s rare visual treats, a light show with a cosmic theme as Jupiter, Venus and a sliver of the waning moon grouped tightly.

Perhaps they meet to catch up on solar system gossip. It doesn’t happen often. And it won’t occur again for many years.
For a moment, it was there for us. The clouds took away my sunny afternoon but returned to give us something special at night.

Great fly fishing gift for Christmas

2008-12-05T23:14:00.002-05:00

This Christmas, give that fly fishing friend a special gift he/she certainly will love.

For $14.95 you will receive a Smoky Mountain Fly Club newsletter and a FREE FLY every other month.

Each fly is unique to the Southern Appalachians and cannot be found in your regular fly shops or catalogs.

These flies were fashioned by mountain fishers using the materials they could find, including some that are today illegal because the feathers belong to a protected species (the Yellowhammer, or locally the Yallerhammer)that used the feathers of the endangered yellow flicker.

Others include the Smoky Mountain Forktail, the Tellico nymph, the Sheepfly, the Rattler, and the Jim Charley.

Send check or money order to SMOKY MOUNTAIN FLY CLUB
582 PARKWAY ROAD
BALSAM GROVE, NC 28708

Guaranteed to fool trout. Give it a try.

Let the chips fall where they may

2008-12-03T22:43:00.003-05:00

These buck-toothed critters are really something. They just let the chips fall where they may, along with trees.

The stump shown here once held up a pretty tall tree, which now blocks the path by the Davidson River just below the visitors' center parking area.

Not much of an obstacle, though. You can easily walk around.

After I shot this photo, I checked out the smooth, glassy pool. There was one flyfisher a little upstream, but nobody else. It's getting too cold for some folks, I guess.

I saw a nice splashy rise, let out a few casts and decided I really did not want to handle any trout...my fingers already were like popcicles.

The beavers know there's trout there

2008-11-29T22:52:00.001-05:00

Monday was a miserable day in my neighborhood. The air was cold enough to force me to switch hands carrying the rod every minute or so, and a rain as steady as life’s miseries spit in my face. There were no insects hatching over the Davidson River’s surface, but that was no surprise since winter is almost here. And, I saw no rise rings dimpling the smooth pools.

On the plus side, there were few other anglers to crowd the river. I think I saw three, and they were near the visitors’ center next to the hatchery.
I pretty much had the place, dreary as the weather was, to myself.

I set out to find new water. I left the three lonely, fishless fly fishers and strolled along a soft carpet of leaves soggy as cornflakes. The path, when I could see it, felt like a thick rug.
Bundled in fleece and thermal and vinyl, I kept dry and warm mostly.
I walked where I had never gone, past the usual stops and campsites that just a few weeks ago had been alive with voices and laughter. These are easily accessible and popular places to spend a night or two outdoors.
I kinda like it quiet. Even the leaves, now drowned with the cold drizzle, were mute. There was a little breeze, just enough to throw my fruitless casts astray.

I tied on a yellow fly I could see easily while searching for reclusive browns. I had no luck.
After a half-hour trek, I veered off the beaten path, down a slippery slope and through some rhododendron to find the river.
When everything opened up, I found myself carefully stepping through a bog surrounding several dammed beaver ponds.
Hey, I thought, this is the stuff of magazines. I’m sure to find some trout in these waters.

As engineers, beavers have few peers. While their abodes did not impress me with their aesthetic qualities, they were sturdy.
It really looked like somebody spilled a truckfull of sticks.
It was pretty though. After a couple tries with the yellow fly, I sat back to drink all this in. Tall brown grass rimmed the ponds. The mountains were smoking through the mist. The sky looked like a freshly painted battleship from my hometown of Norfolk, Va.

And the air tasted sweet and clean.
I asked Kevin Howell of Davidson River Outfitters if there were, indeed, trout in those ponds, and he assured me there were but that late spring and early summer were the best times to fish there. Come back later.
Elsewhere, fishing has been best on cloudy days, with dark caddis dry flies No. 14-18 doing the trick. With a high sun and clear skies, the trout are just too spooky this time of year, Kevin said.

I had a heck of a time getting back to the path, which had completely disappeared from the face of the Earth during the hour or so I wandered around the bog dodging beaver holes and stumpy grass. When I at last found the path, it felt like a triumph of will and determination. Or relief.
Back near the hatchery I stopped, looked over the cold, cold water and spotted a splashy rise near the far bank, so I inched my way into the water, let out some line and let the fly sail.

It was a pretty cast, an almost perfect roll cast, and the fly floated exactly where the trout was supposed to be waiting for his next morsel. I waited and waited. The fly floated and floated.
And the trout just ignored it.
Miserable, huh? Not really, for I know where the path leading to the beaver ponds is and I’ll be back in the spring.
For now, I’ll just leave it to the beaver.

Leave it to beaver

2008-11-26T16:40:00.002-05:00

I was stumbling around in the cold rain Monday, wandering along the banks of the Davidson River. I veered off the path.

When I looked up, I found the beaver ponds. Looks like just a pile of sticks holding back some slow water, creating some nice ponds that had no trout in them at the time. Well, they weren't feeding. There were no rise rings. It was cold. It was raining. No insects hatching, either.

And then I came across the front door of Beaver's home. I started to ask if Wally was home, but The Beav did not answer.

Oddly, the cold rain warmed about 2 p.m.. I was wrapped pretty well, so I stayed relatively dry and warm.

But I never caught a fish.

Didn't step in that big hole in the ground either. I left that to The Beav.

Delayed Harvest, instant joy

2008-11-22T23:38:00.002-05:00

The sky had a deep blue to it, with the clouds wiped off to the side. Only a few white streaks remained, and the sun felt good when the wind died for brief periods. It wasn’t too cold, either.

It was a perfect day to attack one of the Delayed Harvest Streams where you are guaranteed between October and June to have trout to fish in the water waiting.
Now, there is no sure bet you are going to actually catch one of those fat rainbows they stocked a couple of months ago, but it’s always fun, especially as winter approaches, to get out before winter stomps all over our weekends.

The Delayed Harvest designation was a great idea. Between October and June, all fish caught must be returned. None can be kept. When June rolls around, the stream goes from catch and release to catch and keep. This ensures that the water is not fished out during the cold weather.
There are other fishery designations where you can keep trout and there are year-round Catch and Release waters where you cannot keep any trout.
There is a good balance.

But the Delayed Harvest may be the most popular, especially in winter. They are sprinkled around the area at the Pigeon River in Haywood County, the East Fork of the French Broad near Rosman and a portion of the Laurel River in Madison County and they are all full of trout.
I hit the East Fork about 2 on a Sunday afternoon, which was a little late to take advantage of a warming sun that can sometimes get the water temperature up enough to stir some trout appetites. Before lunchtime would have been ideal, like just after a lazy morning watching my breath puff clouds in the chilly air. As the chill eases, the fishing can pick up.

I fought through a jungle of rhododendron to get to the river and, along the way, managed to lose a battle with a broken branch, which stabbed my eye. And that reminded me of an old saying I heard 20 years ago.
When you asked old timers in the mountains, “How’ya doing,?” they would answer, “Better than a sharp stick in the eye.”
Always wondered where that one came from.

I took a few photographs, focusing with my one workable eyeball while the other continued to tear up, then got down to business. I rigged up with a big ole Sheepfly, a popular wet fly for the nearby Davidson River, and hit a few likely spots. Trouble was, of course, it was a Sunday and everybody and his brother was also out there pounding the water, spooking all the trout.
I got no hits.

In the past I found that yellow flies really work great on the DH waters. I also discovered that changing flies after every catch seemed to keep these hatchery-bred trout interested in my floating buffets. It has been a rare day for me to fish the same fly, dry or wet, all day. It happens, just not often.

It’s also nice to know that there are some whoppers out there waiting, probably under that ledge by the big boulder or by a big ole tree root. Last year on the East Fork I spent a couple Sundays just trying not to break off the fat big-uns that snapped my tippet easily as spider webs.
Later, I got the hang of it.
Sunday afternoons fishing on DH trout water are sweet as Thanksgiving pie.
But you know what? Weekdays are better. Those others guys went back to work.
The trout are waiting.

What's with the house addition?

2008-11-19T21:09:00.003-05:00

I just can't seem to get it into my head that the newest addition to our montain home is a good thing.

Now, it does adds something to the cabin's appearance, something akin to FEAR and LOATHING.

Cabin of the Monster Bugs. Enter at your own risk.

Funny thing is...nobody noticed.

I'm glad for cold weather, for now we (I) can take care of our little addition.

It is time for the little buggers to move. They do not pay rent, do not contribute to the upkeep of the lawn or take out the trash and they sleep at night so there is little chance of them stopping a burglar.

I've decided to evict them. Goodbye bugs.