A buddy of mine, Jim, and I have been talking about fishing the upper section of a particular headwater steam in search of brookies for a long time. He gets up there once or twice a year or so but I had never fished it. Well all the planets finally aligned (along with our schedules) and he and I finally got to go up there, along with another buddy of mine, Woody. It's a section of stream that takes about a 2 mile hike in, all down hill. Which of course means all up hill coming out. Never the less, its not really a bad hike at all.
The three of us packed a lunch, our wading boots, and filter bottles and dropped in from the top. I was wondering what kind of fishing we'd find with last years drought. I'd seen a difference in the lower sections of the streams in this particular watershed; lesser numbers and smaller trout. So if we'd be able to catch a few and they looked healthy then I'd be happy.
On the way down the logging trail to the stream the mountain laurel and flame azalea were in full bloom. And the woods were full of them both. That alone was almost worth the hike in.
After negotiating our way down the steep hill side into the stream (sometimes on our butts), we found decent water level. Maybe still a little lower than "average" but certainly not like last summer. The real test was when we put a fly on the water. And the first fish was a small rainbow - WHAT! We're supposed to be in brookie water!
Jim said, "Oh, we may have gone a little too far down stream. I didn't remember it being that hard to get down in here." We climbed the water fall in front of us and started fishing again, hoping that that was the barrier that kept the rainbows from coming up any further. And it was. The rest of the day we caught nothing but brookies. All on dry flies of course. And as brookies go, they weren't too picky about what fed them, just that you didn't spook them first. We used EHC, stimulators, parachute adams, sulfurs; you name it we through it at them and they hit. I love brookies!
We fished to the point we started running out of water and where the trail from the top met the stream; so we figured that was a good place to get out. Besides we were tired. It's not the fishing that tires you out but the trail hiking, hill sliding, boulder climbing, and rock hopping that will do that to you.
On the way out, hiking back up the mountain side to the truck we saw a momma bear with two cubs. OK, now THAT was worth the hike in even without the fishing. You don't get to see bears often, even though they are around and there are plenty of them, they are just that secretive, at least outside the GSMNP.
We caught a decent number of fish that day and a few nice size one's too, you know in the 7-8 inch range. Nothing really big but it was better than I expected given the historic drought we had last year. I'd like to give this stream a couple of summers of good rain fall and see how we do then; and you can bet I will... as long as mother nature ever gives us some water back.
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