Brush with the Law, ID.

will post photos and entry later..

Farewell and Adieu to ye fair Spanish Ladies

... farewell and adieu to ye ladies of Spain. Special bonus points if you can name the movie that tune hales from - here's a hint, there is a fish involved.... That was our theme song as I took Morgan and Christian to hit the J Fork for the last time until October. We hacked our way into the gorge section. My plan was to get them to the big pool where they could "indian fish" for trout with out wading and moving around. I was very concerned as the water we passed was desolate of life and on the final bushwhacking descent to the pool, I cam across a fresh and empty worm carton, could that be a sign? Had the pillaging already begun.

Fortunately the big pool was stacked full and as the girls finally learned how to spot fish in the water, they became excited. The videos pretty much tell the story.




Only final caveat I'd add is that I caught 7 on small dry's, mostly at the head of the pool and struck up a conversation with friendly and forthcoming piscator who shared with me two lovely spots he'd fished but blast my poor short term memory, no matter how many times I repeated the locations over and over in my mind, by the time we hit the trail out, they were no where to be found! As Pablo counseled after the fact, I should've turned the video camera on him and got the directions fully archived for future pilfering. Oh well, one more shangrela to pour over maps in search of....

Cherokee People...

Cherokee tribe....So, my buddies here in the ward had grown tired of my weekly fishing reports in priesthood, so they decided to call me on it! Frank took the bull by the horns and got us camp site at the Cherokee reservation, we loaded up his pop up camper and headed out on Thursday morning, after a meeting I had. It was raining and miserable that afternoon and none of us faired well. But an eerie thing happened the next morning... After we survived a night of steady down pour and I dominated the Hearts game (I only cheated on one hand, late in the game when everyone was tired, I sat on the queen as all the spaids were played out and threw her on an unsespecting hand a few rounds later...). Anyway, as we milled around the next morning, assessing the "sitcheeashun" up drives a big tanker truck and out jump two guys who scoop out a big net of fish and chuck them in the run right behind our camp site... "You aint in wild water any more dorothy".

Well, that's about the story. We hit some othe spots without a lot of luck, it was shoulder to shoulder, you'd be working a stretch of water and a truck would pull up and two dudes would jump out and come down next to you and start throwing away! We spent most the day in the camp taking turns pulling them out of our spot. Someone got some pictures of the cooler full- but I didn't. We had a great time! My buddy Bill, pictured above, had a great experience matching the hatch and catching some hold over or wild fish late Thursday evening. That may have been his first time seeing them come up and take a dry fly, he was ecstatic.

J Fork- More of the same only better

Just as planned, I got to the water right at 1. Couldn't resist my old gorge section, so started right off at the Rangers house. Immediately into trout. It was a beautiful day, no other sign of life (non aquatic that is) and plenty of trout in every run. I think this guy here was the first one, hence the picture, if not, he was about the average size of the fish, which I did measure this time with my little tape thing, and they were mostly about 13", some a little larger, some smaller.

Hey Pablo, don't you wish you had this nice water to prospect! No pocket water here, long deep runs and big pools- which have their own challenges, but when they are on, there isn't anything better.. I was also surprised how much difference two weeks had made in the foliage. Everything was green and it gave the stream a whole different feel.

At the big pool, I caught several nice fish, one of which broke off my poorly tied tippet and had this huge salmon fly hanging out of it's mouth- it was funny, you could spot him anywhere in the pool. I was heck bent on getting that fly back, so I tied on another big fly and drifted into the pool, several fish struck at it and I lost track of what was happening, but I had hooked a fish so I started to land it and as it came in, I saw the first fly hanging out of his mouth- HE HAD TAKEN THE SECOND FLY WHILE THE FIRST FLY HUNG FROM HIS JAW! I was cracking up and elated that I was getting my fly back... this had to be documented, so as the trout settled down, I set my rod down and got the camera in place, as I went back to retrieve the trout- he was gone, he'd gotten off! I just died laughing, no one would believe this tale, but I swear it is true, and I never did get that fly back, in fact I didn't see that fish again, or maybe he rubbed the first fly out and I couldn't distinguish him any more.

Any way, there was a monster brookie in the pool and I spent too long getting into position to cast to him and finally, after multiple casts and patiently waiting for him to come back from his runs to the head of the pool, he took my big salmon fly and ran me up to the top of the pool, chasing him through a bog of leaves on the edge of the pool and then back to the middle of the pool and then under a rock which somehow I navigated around until I finally brought him into submission at the tail of the pool by some grass. Big, big trout!

After landing the monster it was closing in on 4pm so I went back to the pool where I had caught a number of brookies on top (see the upper video) and I tied on a little red humpy and took two more from that pool and decided it was enough for another great spring day! I hadn't covered hardly any water and I wished I could go back to the dry fly water I had visited two week ago, but I'd promised my wife I'd be home in time for dinner so I bushwhacked out of the gorge and up to the road, possibly wallering through some poison oak (heaven help me if I did).

That I'd better add this pic just so you could get a really good look at how nice this trout is!

Delayed harvest on the south fork on a weekday is the place to be in May. It'll all end in a few weeks and I'll try my luck back on the wild waters, but for now, I'm feeling like a champion piscator on this beautiful little creek.

Hard Days Day

This video about sums up my day. Headed up LHF around noon, 55 deg. Gate still locked, water a bit high and off color. A few cars parked at the gate, I hiked in about a half hour or so, was hoping to get above anyone else fishing.... should've keep walking.
I tried all sorts of flies.. you name it. No hatches..no rises. I manged to land a couple small fish.. missed a few strikes while I was using a big Woolly Bugger. It seemed like it was just going to be one of those days that you wish to soon forget, one that makes the good days all the more sweet.

I fished for quite some time, covered a lot of water. I am getting a bit "tired" of fishing rough pocket water.. makes for hard casting and tough conditions, especially when the water is high, and the fish are not looking up. I long for something along the lines of "Hog Creek" were the water S curves through the sage, and deep runs are a plenty, and so are the big Cutts.. I know, I should be content with the muddy little stretch of ditch water that I angle. I feel I am probably done fishing until June, run-off is going to be a bear.. unless... I find some nice tail water... yes... perhaps...

Back to Reality!-2

Good to see I'm not the only one suffering from the whims of the fish gods. I ventured forth on Monday, seeing how it was finally warm outside. I thought I'd just "check" the water clarity. I had to take a trailer, not my dog, but son. Even at 5, his fishing patience is lacking. If you can't hear the audio, he says, "I want to go home, I'm tired of fishing."
The gate was locked, so I jumped right in and started flinging away. I didn't even see any fish, strange that. Thought maybe I was fishing behind some chump, but I could see upstream quite a ways, and no one in sight. Alas, I finally found a couple trout rising to a caddis hatch.. I stung one, and that was it. I actually had to put on a dropper, of all things.. I quickly hooked two decent sized ones, but that was it for the day.
Where I quit, there was a huge tree that has recently fallen, creating a very deep pool. So I took a photo, I know, boring. As Dixon and I were walking back to the car, someone came strolling up from behind us, yes, an angler. Explained a lot. He said he had fished from the gate way on up. His rod was strung with the "N-word", explains why he only caught 4 he said. Ah well, end of story. No more kids next time, for sure, bout as bad as dogs.

Back to Reality!

No joke, I was so excited to hit lost cove Saturday that I tossed and turned most the night, dreaming of wild browns and rainbows. Because of the sleepless night I didn't hit the road to after 9am. By 11 I was on FR 424 (having followed my impeccable directions from 3 years ago). A persual of my fish notebook revealed entries from 10 years ago itemizing nice wild fish caught there, averaging about 4 per hour, a great catch rate for the skittish wild trout of western Carolina. The most recent entry was 3 years ago and it wasn't too good, but it was from February, so I assumed I'd have much better luck with a late April outing.

It's a long curvey road route up 181 and then the switchbacks of the forest road. I had the dunstan, Lil Ann in the backseat and I was driving Christian's car so I wouldn't trash my own. I have even pulled a blanket across the backseat so Lil Ann wouldn't perminanty foul her car. I looked back at one pittiful looking dog as we made our way down the FR. She had syliva running out of her mouth like a rabid coon and bowed her head a couple of times to wretch out the empty contents of her stomach (I had learned from a previous outing that dog food and car rides don't mix). I kept telling her to laydown and put her head down, but she just couldn't resist the intoxicating whire of trees outside her window- no matter how nausious it made her.

I was still debating wether I should hit the upper or lower section when I came to the trail head of the upper section and to my absolute shock and horror, the gate was open and FR 424a, wound it's way3-4 miles down to the stream. I imagined a slew of rusty old trucks and beer cans awaiting me at the end of the road. I have never seen that gate open and I always surmized tha the 52 minute walk to the stream always kept the upper section a little more pure, so much for any barrier to entry. So I opted to try the lower section. At the parking area were three vehicles. I dutiful perusal of the backseats didn't reveal any rod cases so I hoped against hope that they were just backpackers.

I should have taken it as an omen when no sooner could I hear the guggle of the stream than I hear people, and dogs, and people. It was like grand central station down there. Backpackers and neardowells stumbling over themselves. Man I hate fishing on Saturdays.

I strung up and walked a ways out of the traffic jam and hit a little section of shallow runs and on the second cast struck a 7" rainbo.... maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. Besides I had my 90 new flys and fly boxes I had just bought so, just rummaging through those was fun. Check out that fly above, it's a high res elk hair caddis. It's got some orange stuff tied into the elk hair on top so you can see it really well, even really small ones like size 20- pretty cool.

One bright spot... we knew the dunstan could point a trout, but I also learned she can retrieve one, and what a soft mouth she has.

So we headed back out shortly after the she fetched the mini brown, and although the weather had been excellent all day long, the pending thunderstorms found us so we enjoyed a nice wet ride home... till next time.