Spring Break Extravaganze 2008 Part II: wherein our hero catches many fat trouts
The Davidson River begins as rainfall running off parkway asphalt at 6000'. It percolates through Pisgah's Spruce-Fir forest and falls off the flanks of Cold Mountain. It runs through a fish hatchery then winds through four wild catch and release fly fishing only miles until running out flat and slow into Brevard.
The fish run large. They see a lot of fisherman so you can walk right on top of them. But they also see a lot of flies so they're rather difficult to catch. Midges are their standard fare and small, sparsely dressed is the only way to catch them most of the time (though large mayflies were hatching, blue quills?, but they weren't feeding on them at all). I didn't use anything smaller than #22. I caught most of the fish below on #26 parachute, thread body midges. I love casting tiny flies on 7x tippet to large sipping fishes. Lot like tailwater fishing.
I caught a lot of fish. Which was nice after getting skunked in the park. I caught a lot of average size, 12" rainbows and browns but also a fair number of larger, fatter brown trout. I hooked up with some very large fish, 20"+, but broke them off. I also caught the same brook trout twice. Probably an escapee from the hatchery.
Click none to enlarge.
Stay tuned for part III wherein our hero digs ditches in Cullowhee to prepare for the arrival of the Atlantean tornadoes.
4 comments:
The part in your post about tornadoes and digging ditches kind of freaks me out. I had a dream about this a few days ago, except I was the one digging ditches. But, you were somewhere in the out of doors with a friend, and I couldn't find you. (Remember, I told you about it?) I didn't think anything of it at the time -- other than the fact that the dream was a twist on the usual (reoccurring) tornado dream I have when I have too much stuff to do and not enough time to do it.
Looks like you're getting better at tying flies. The one you have perched up on your finger is especially convincing. I nearly lunged at my computer screen when I saw it.
Amy: the tornadoes never came through here. A lot of rain, but no tornadoes. And I didn't even connect it with your dream. We were just out cleaning Sean's drainage culvert because it had become clogged up in the last few weeks and his neighbor came out in camouflage pants and told us about the tornadoes in Atlanta and that we had to get inside cause they were a comin' this here way!
Brian: thank you.
Dude! Nice self portraits. Damnit that I wasn't there to do some portraiture photographing!!! Friday turned out to be pretty nice here (guess we could have squeezed in one night) but Saturday was pretty scary in these parts and I think we wouldn't have been happy in the woods in a downpour with freaky lightening and winds. But I'm freakin' green with envy of your adventures of backpackin', fishin', campin, photographin', etc.
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