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 North Carolina Trout: It's Hunting Season, I'm Going Trout Fishing!
Posted by matt1515 on December 10, 2007
This time of year is great. Starting with the first day of deer season here in North Carolina, I rush to the river eager to see wide open stretches of water without another fisherman in site. Like most places in the country, North Carolina is a hard place to fly fish during the summer. Even if you know some out of the way creek or some uncharted water, at some point you have a crowd to fight. Whether it is fighting traffic, tubers, swimmers, or other fishermen, there is some element involving people that is against you. After that first frost, it is a different story. The crowds are not quite as bad (albeit the leaf lookers) for it is now deer hunting season. This is my trigger to head up to the mountains again. It means the dregs of summer are over and I may have an easy trip to and on the water. This is not to say water conditions are good, temps are easy to be in, or the fish are biting, but I know the travel will be chill and there won't be many people in the river. Many people have
asked me if I hunt and I simply tell them "you mean during fishing season? No." A couple of weeks ago, my wife arranged a "girls" trip and was going to take the kids off for a weekend. She asked if I wanted to come and fish during the day and hang out with her and her friends at night. No. The fishing around where she was going to be is incredible but I knew if I went, I would be on some sort of time table and after a long day have "responsibilities" that I wouldn't have wanted. Now, I'm not the self centered type, I just saw a rare opportunity to fish for three days without commitments except to the fish. I made a couple of calls and before too long, I had the weekend set up. I was going to one stream on Friday with a buddy from Raleigh and on Saturday, I was
going to another stream with president of our local TU group. On Friday, I hopped in the car and off we went. The day was beautiful, there wasn't another fisherman on the water, and there were plenty of
fish to catch. The one thing was that the water was low and clear. NC has been in a major drought for the last four or five months. We had to be "on our game" for the entire day. One wrong move and the fish were gone. I only ended up with a few small browns and brookies by the end of the day. It didn't matter because I knew where I was going the next day. What I didn't count on was the card game that started when I returned home. At 2 am and after few too many beers I went to sleep. Guess who woke up to the sound of a door bell? I threw on some clothes shoveled my still wet gear into Jack's car and we split headache and all. When we arrived to the river, same story as the day before. Low and clear. I didn't expect anything different, maybe just hoping. Second cast of the day brings in a 20" rainbow. After a couple more fish, Jack and I set the game plan of the day. Fish the shady, fast holes for a few minutes and get to the next. With the conditions like they
were, we knew we would only get a limited number of tries at fish we spotted. We fished fast but delicately, moving from hole to hole. The nice thing is that we consistently caught fish all day. Sometimes it may have been an egg, or midge, or a streamer, or a nymph but once we figured out the fly, we caught them. It was great. Not once did I have to walk around another fisherman. We heard plenty of rifle shots but nothing too close. It warmed up to 50 degrees by the middle of the day and winds were about 5mph. In my eyes, a perfect day for fishing.
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Re: North Carolina Trout: It's Hunting Season, I'm Going Trout Fishing!
by jeremy on December 10, 2007 http://www.ineedasimplesolution.com | | ya man .. i can totally relate to your point about the wife's suggestion about a weekend of meeting up after fishing ... i have tried that .. and the only thing that ever happens, is i find myself at some sort of place i don't want to be with a bunch of people i don't want to be with (ballet, fancy dinner, someones birthday party, someones engagement party, someones bonvoyage party, someones graduation from something, someones speach about this or that ...) whatever ... i'd rather not go fly fishing at all for the day ... if i have some sort of commitment or place to be at any point during that day, evening or night ... just ruins it for me ... "let's go fishin' for an hour" .. no thanks .. its all day, till dark or a later .. or nothin' at all for me .. i'm just gettin' warmed up after 5 hours ... great fish tale ... cya. |
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Re: North Carolina Trout: It's Hunting Season, I'm Going Trout Fishing!
by joey on December 11, 2007 http://www.fliesandfinseast.com | | Nice fish Matt..Iam with you about the timetable thing. I hate being rushed when I am doing something I enjoy. No clocks or watches is how I roll when I am on the river. I am done when I feel like it. Having someone over your shoulder "saying its time to go" takes all the fun out of everything.....unless its leaving a shopping mall. Good post. |
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Re: North Carolina Trout: It's Hunting Season, I'm Going Trout Fishing!
by Matt1515 on December 11, 2007 | | It turned out that I would've ended up sitting around a house with 5 women and 6 kids. The perverbial red flag was that I KNOW I would have ended up with a request to come back to the house and be babysitter while girls sit around and talk. I wasn't about to drive 4 hours to do this. Instead, I was on a stream from sun up to sun down for several days with nothing to think about except how to get my rod bent (no pun, please). |
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Re: North Carolina Trout: It's Hunting Season, I'm Going Trout Fishing!
by Shaq on December 11, 2007 http://www.theanglersnet.com | | way to change it up! sounds like success to me! |
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Re: North Carolina Trout: It's Hunting Season, I'm Going Trout Fishing!
by waterwhippa on December 11, 2007 http://salmonriverspecialists.com | | Sounds like a good time to me....much better than the alternative. I would love to bomb around on a trout stream in decent weather right now What pattern did the brookie take? |
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Re: North Carolina Trout: It's Hunting Season, I'm Going Trout Fishing!
by Matt1515 on December 12, 2007 | | I was able to use an assortment of flies all day. I believe the one in the picture took a fluffy McCheese colored egg. That McFly foam is good stuff. It's usually my go to fly if nothing else will work. I caught most of the fish that day on small buzzer type midge pupa and black buggers. I get a little slack from my buddies for dead drifting eggs a lot but it catches fish. |
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