The Nantahala, the Tuckaseegee, the French Broad, the Davidson or the Chattooga, all have one thing in common: leviathan lairs. In these haunts lie big trout, pre-historically big trout, of iridescent color and beauty; the fish of my nightmares.

It’s the 4-5 lb Falstaffian brown trout, that lives at the bottom of a pool on the East Fork of the French Broad, beneath a submerged ledge, feeding on crawfish and two-inch stoneflies, rising only for mice at dark;

It’s the 2-3 lb rainbow that feeds on late-evening spinners in the scum line of a backwater eddy in the Davidson river;

It’s the 12” brook trout, in the Tuckasegee headwaters deep in the bowels of Panthertown Valley, three miles away from the nearest parking lot, which maybe, just maybe, will take your Adams, if you don’t first get bit by a timber rattler.

These fish are near-impossible to catch with a fly. They live in difficult-to-reach places because, there, they have leverage on the angler.  The water is either too deep or too shallow, too fast or too slow, too clear or too murky, or too damn hard to hike to.    That is why you rarely see anyone, other than guides, in these places.  Sometimes you drive four hours, to fish for an hour at dusk, and put down the entire pool with one bad cast.  

There is a stretch of the West Fork of the Chattooga River that is 100 feet long, 20 feet wide, 12-15 feet deep.  After driving 40 minutes on dirt roads that have been rutted out by the torrential rains of Smoky Mountain temperate rainforests, it takes a 3.5 mile hike, 3.25 miles of which is upriver, to reach the run. 

While it’s true these old trout best us more times than not, they are still trout and you can win, but you’ve got to want them if you’re going to catch them.  If you are going to play (again, there’s no shame in not) then bring your A game.  

But if you’re in, bring your will, skill and a backpack full of 6x-8x tippet with size 18-22 dries; your Czech-nymph leaders with size 12 tungsten, bead-head Prince nymphs; split shot; two rods and reels (just in case you break one); snake-bite and first-aid kits; SPF 70 sunblock; rain gear, a granola bar or two, water and bear spray. 

The post A Bout with Trout appeared first on Laurel Magazine.

The fishing around here is mostly nymph fishing, which I’ve really learned to enjoy, especially using a Euro-Nymph set-up (the locals call it “tight lining,” if you utter the words “Euro Nymph” to a local, they’ll shoot you a funny look, then dismissively laugh while shaking their heads with pity).  

But there is some dry fly fishing in the months of May and June and given the dearth of opportunities to fish an Adams, it’s an experience to treasure.

My local fly shop is called Brookings, where I have happily spent too much money in the last 12-18 months.  Recently, while “provisioning” in the shop, the owner pulled me aside and rhetorically whispered “Want to know a place to go for rising fish at dusk?”  

After giving him a “Do Black Bears Live in the Woods?! Look,” he proceeded to tell me about a few pools in the Pisgah National Forest, near Brevard, that are as calm as glass, right up until about 8:00 P.M., the point at which the Fishing Gods ring the dinner bell and these pools start to boil.  Fish start working everywhere, mostly chasing emergers, but there are some sippers, too.  Yellow Sallies, Sulphur and Caddis Hatches turn on and it’s pandemonium until dark (about 9:15 P.M.).  They’re all wild trout, mostly 10”-12”, but there are some 18”-20” chunkers lurking in their depths.

Like a moth to light, I had to try it.  It takes 1.5 hours to drive to these pools, working out to be three hours of driving for 75 minutes of fishing.  There is a local joint called the Riverside Bar, owned by a British couple of Indian descent, within 10 minutes of these pools.  It’s the Western North Carolina mountains equivalent of the Grizzly Bar and Grill (a Montana haunt, located near the banks of the Madison River in Cameron, Montana), except you stop for beer and dinner before you go fishing.  Mom’s lamb curry is to die for and the local IPAs from Ashville are great, so I make an evening out of it.  I’ve fished these pools a lot this summer.  I have only seen one other angler at this time of the day.  There is a resident muskrat that comes that keeps me company, but other than that, I’ve had the spots to myself.

The challenge of these pools is they get the stuffing banged out of them during the day (they are 100 feet from the road), so the fish are super spooky and leader-shy. 

In my first four trips to the pools, these fish so thoroughly whipped my butt, you could hear them laugh at each cast.   

Determined to solve the mystery, I visited a local fly shop in Brevard to see if they had any recommendations.  I pulled into the parking lot about noon, right as the half-day trips were ending.  As I got out of the car, a Grizzly Adams of a guy came up to me and said: “I love your bumper sticker.”  He was pointing at my Steal Your Face decal; another Dead-head, fly fisherman, just what the world needs.  We instantly bonded.

As you’ve probably guessed, this guy turned out to be a local guide.  I told him my dilemma, namely, I was getting skunked by some wily wild trout.  Like any good guide, he first asked a few questions and immediately diagnosed the problem: I’d been fishing size 16 dries on 6x monofilament, when I needed to fish dries no bigger than 18, with droppers no bigger than 20-22 on 7x-8x fluorocarbon.  

Uggghhh.  

At 60, my eyes don’t work as well as they used to, so the prospect of tying size 22 midges at 8:45 p.m. seemed aspirational, but I’m nothing if not determined, so I loaded up on the recommended accoutrements and headed back for additional punishment (queue Mark Lester’s iconic line in Oliver). 

How’d I do?  I’m now 0-5.  One fish rose to a dry; one fish hit my nymph.  

I whiffed on both, of course.  

At this point, even the muskrat was laughing.  

There was one consolation, however, that right-sized my assessment of the evening’s shutout. As I was reeling in the remnants of my last failed cast, the lightning bugs put on a show. Hundreds of yellow fluorescent tails, blinking in unison, lit up the riverbanks; tree frogs scored and provided the musical accompaniment.

I sat, watched and listened until well after dark, leaving just before I succumbed to a riverside catnap.  As I walked to my car, I swore I saw Robin “Puck” Goodfellow fly away in disgust.  The opportunity to sprinkle his “love-in-idleness” tincture (leaving me to explain to my wife of 35 years why I was leaving her for the muskrat) foiled.

 It was one of those truly magical fly-fishing moments that reminded me that catching fish, as I’ve realized after 40 years of counting fish, is just the cherry on the sundae.

The post Lightning Bugs at Dusk appeared first on Laurel Magazine.

About 10:00 a.m. New Year’s Eve the sun came out at the house, and being on vacation, I decided to call an audible and go fish the East Fork of the French Broad river near Rosman, NC.  I fiddle-fussed around getting out the door, bought a few flies at my local fly shop and finally pulled up to a mostly empty East Fork at 1:00.

As I arrived, there was a young, 20-something fishing with a strike indicator in the right hole, wrong spot.  I smugly thought to myself “I’ll hit that hole later after he flails around for a while”. Starting one’s day with smug arrogance, even if only in thought, is never good.  The fishing gods hear everything.

I took my rod to another spot in the river, and after my first cast, tangled my flies so bad I had to cut them off and re-rig in the river. No worries, I thought.  It’s a beautiful day, I’m in no hurry.  It’s all good.

Armed with fresh flies, I reposition myself, make a few casts, and miss two fish.  Still all good, I think.  At least I know the flies work. I take another step, to reposition myself again, a rock shifts underneath and I’m down in an instant. I’m talking submerged, head-to-toe soaking, Baptist river baptism, so-much-water-in-my-waders-that-my-red-eye-was-soaking-wet, wet.

Meanwhile, Minuit, my cobalt-black, English cocker spaniel, is sitting on the riverbank with a “What the heck are you doing?!” look on her face.

After flailing and gurgling about for a few seconds, I pop back up and my immediate thought is “The fishing gods are trying to tell me something, maybe today was just not meant to be” and slosh my way back to the car. When we get back, I gather my wits, notice that it’s only 1:45, so screw it, it’s 65°F and other than a wounded ego, I’m not cold, so I tell Minuit “Let’s keep fishing!”

I fish for another hour, miss 2-3 more fish and start thinking that the fishing gods aren’t subtle today.  But I’m nothing if not stubborn, so I move up-river. At approximately 2:30, I hook the largest trout of my life on a pattern called “trout crack”.  It’s basically an egg pattern. This 27″-29″ leviathan was deep in a hole, and once hooked, came up just long enough to let me get a good look at the fish I would never net. With one shake of her head, she spit the fly and slowly retreated back to the depths of the pool, a hallowed haunt that will populate my nightmares for years to come. In the deafening silence that follows losing a once-in-a-life-time fish, the fishing gods were roaring with laughter.

After wiping away my tears, I asked Minuit, “Should I quit?  No one would blame me.  I’ve more than given it a valiant effort.”  It was starting to get a little chilly, I was still completely soaked, no shame if I packed it in . . . I kept fishing.

And was rewarded 20 minutes later with this 16″, fluorescent-red rainbow that was the fishing gods’ comprise, the perfect consolation for a persistent day on the East Fork.

The post Fishing The East Fork: A New Year’s Eve Fishing Story appeared first on Laurel Magazine.