Flying on the wild side

I found this dragonfly perched on my car's radio antenna the other morning. He looked as if he was trying to tune in a station. Because he had a brownish-red tint to his body, I figured he must be one of those Ashy Clubtail (Gompus lividus) but I am not certain. They are found throughout North Carolina and are frequent springtime flyers in the state.

We have some new guys in the newsroom and they have been helping me hold up the roof while the roofers do their thing fixing the leaks. Here is a photo of us in the newsroom. Note: they are CUB reporters.

Photo by the late Hugh Morton

walk some more on the wild side

Trout fishing has been a little spotty, as well as hot and dry, for the past month but we did get a little new water for the ancient rocks in my favorite rivers. The Davidson River, though hammered almost every day during the summer, continues to give up trout, even to each other. I watched, fascinated, for about 20 minutes as a brown trout about 20 inches long tried tyo swallow a 10-inch rainbow. He wallowed from one side of the pool to another, never getting his meal all the way down. I thought something was weird when he ignored every fly I tossed his way ( I thought he was sipping mayflies, ha). I don't know if he ever got that lunch down. Talk about indigestion.

I had a little luck on the French Broad, using a #20 black caddis on smooth, quiet water the color of cafe a'lait. I had a long float, my mind wandered and then the fish hit. I jumped. He was a nice wild brown. I scared the rest of the fish in the pool, I guess, so I moved up to the fire station where my pet trout hang out less than a mile from home. Nothing much happened until almost dark. With a #16 tan caddis on a 6X tippet, I got a brown to hit when I twitched the fly across the surface. A couple more smacked my fly upstream.

The rhododendron has exploded, leaving puffs of pink and white throughout the Pisgah Forest. The look like little snowballs in the branches.

I saw very few yellow stones this time (July 1, 2,3) Caught one sized 16 and put him inside my flybox, then caught another the next day that was about a size 20.

When the water turns dingy, I like to fish black marabou streams. My favorite is a one-feather fly I tie on #6 hooks or larger. (see photo) It's the easiest fly I can think of to tie in a hurry, perhaps at streamside (I keep a briefcase tying kit in the car). Use a really big fly, and you're good for fishing largemouth. A little smaller and you're ready for smallmouth bass. I start with wetting the feather, tying in at the bend of the hook, making the tail, then wrap up the rest over the shaft to the head, tie it all and voila.

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walking on the wild side

Some more walking on the wild side.

I have some friends in Asheville who, in the middle of the city, encounter more wildlife than my wife and I do in the middle of the Pisgah National Foresty. They have been having problems with black bears sneaking into their backyard and now they have a turkey that likes to park atop their car. They shooed it off before it left any deposits on the car roof.

Strange happenings everywhere.

The laurel has been awesome this past month and the rhododendron are now in full bloom also.

Despite the recent rain, our rivers and streams west of here are still agonizingly low. the Davidson River, I am told, is the lowest its been since World War II. Pitiful.

Speaking of pitiful, I watched a rather large brown trout try to swallow a moderately sized rainbow trout in the Davidson River a couple Sundays ago. I tried to cast a fly close to the brown and then realized he had his mouth full. I watched for about 15 minutes as the big trout struggled to swallow the smaller fish. He never did while I was there. I guess his eyes were bigger than his stomach (or mouth).

THE craziest thing I've ever seen on the river

Of snakes and fishes

One of my cats brought home a little ring-necked snake the other day to play with and torment. The snake was dead by the time I noticed her jumping and dancing around with the little reptile, so i spent the next half hour taking pictures. My border collie, feeling left out, went hunting across the street and brought home a rainbow trout, dead of course, and looked at me like he was expecting some sort of reward. Since I read that raw fish is bad for a dog's liver, I picked up the slippery corpse and gave it a proper burial at sea, sort of. I tossed it into the river.
I did not take any photos of the dead fish. It was not a wild fish, just something that escaped from the hatchery nearby, so I did not feel too much remorse. I place a higher value on wild trout than with the farm fish.

the funky trout

Here's a photo of a little weird looking trout I caught a couple of weeks ago near our cabin in Transyvania County. Interesting markings???