28 June 2015 A Day Like No Other
The time is a bit after 1:00 pm and figure it is time to head to the Watauga River. My most recent honey hole lies in wait so I grab the waders and off I go. I walk down to the spot and notice that I will not have to fight the jungle and fall in the holes as there is another person up near my spot fishing, time to find a new spot.
I walk out down river about 50 yards further down than I have been and begin to cast. The GoPro is messing up and the fish begin to bite. I am getting a bite about every 3-4 cast and I am having a ball. I catch about 15 and have had to remove the battery twice from the camera and it finally gets on track. During all this at least 15 fish were caught, 8-10″ for the most part.
As the bites are coming so often and the fish are all about the same size, I figure to head on downstream. I’ve been using a red squirmy wormy and a pheasant tail. They were both catching fish, but the wormy was landing them at a rate of at least 3:1.
Down stream there is a bit of moving water and a nice run, let’s give it a go. Now I left a place catching fish in numbers that are only seen by me when bluegill fishing. First cast, another little feller had taken hold of my line. For a while, bites are happening every cast and I used up all my squirmy wormies. It was time to try a zebra midge behind the pheasant tail.
This day was unbelievable as I lost count of the number of fish I had caught. The video had about 39 caught on camera and that is after I had finally fixed the camera. All in all this day probably landed over 50 trout. I am not sure if I just happened to hit the trout stocking just right or what, but this day shall go down as the best day of fly fishing to date. I did not have any large fish, but if I combined the weight of all the ones landed, well, it was awesome. Hope you have a great week, God bless.
13 June 2015
Man It’s Hot
I hope my title is not too confusing, I am talking about the weather. I get off early on Fridays and had a couple of hours open for fishing. It was about 1:00pm and hot, I probably won’t be going to the lake. My son said he’d like to go fly fishing, so off we went, I had found a new honey hole. Honey hole defined is simply; any place I have actually been able to catch a fish.
We drive toward Watauga River and park, then we begin the walk. He had tried coming here previously, however, he didn’t quite get to the good spot. So we walk what feels like a long way, then take a left. This is almost machete required, but thankfully a few deer have cleared out a workable path. Now the only other time I was here, I fell twice, once stepping in a hole and the other on the rocks. I had made it a goal to not fall this time. I did not achieve my goal, at least two and I am thinking three times I bit the dust.
Oh well, we head up to the moving water. He stops at the first spot which yielded me a few small ones last trip, but I convinced him to go forward, I’d come back and fish here. So we walk up to the “honey hole” and I tell him what I did to catch a few. He begins to cast the pheasant tail and before I can get 40 yards away, he lands one. I take a pic, sorry if it’s not posted yet, coming soon, and begin to move down out of the way.
As I begin to fish, I get 3-4 cast in before the rain begins to pound us. I figure it to be a short shower and I was right, it was just enough to get me soaked. After the 5 minute shower stopped, I got in a few more cast and then looked down stream. I could see the rain coming up the river like a boat steadily coming at me.
I look up and my son is heading my way, he isn’t real interested in fishing in the rain. He said he had caught two and he was good. So I asked him to wait just a minute so I could check out further upstream. Now my intentions were to see if there was easier access, then I got side tracked fishing. I caught a nice rainbow, decided he was right with the wetness and headed back. All in all we fished about as long as we walked, but landed three nice trout. My son was happy and we had a great day, these memories sure do make fishing fun.
14 Sept 2014
It has been a while since I have posted anything in the journal. I’ve gone fishing a time or two, but nothing good back or indifferent happened on the trips. However last weekend I did get soaking wet and could not find bait, I thought that write up may sound a bit like I was complaining, so I left it out.
I finally took an opportunity to go to the Watauga River to see if the trout were interested. Armed with no fresh flies but with a whole lot of hope, I headed to the Watauga. I drive to my honey hole to find that it was also someone else’s honey hole. No problem, I have been wanting to try out a new spot. I drive to my undisclosed location and begin the walk, not sure how far it is, but I am walking. When I finally get to the river I find that a lot of still water is present. Now when I say still, I don’t mean pond like still, I mean slow moving and on this day, the water chopping against the flow due to the wind. I don’t give up however as a few sulfur were coming off. I get one small one in this spot, but I can’t stay too long, a bit impatient.
I want to head upstream to some faster moving water, so I head over to the bank. Wishing I had brought my machete, I begin the trek upstream. This is thick and a pain to walk, literally, the briars like to wore me out in some spots. I finally get to where I can pop out of the jungle and begin fishing. I had caught a couple on the sulfur, but since only a few fish were rising, I switched to a nymph. Throwing my (I think it’s called a split case or something like that) pheasant tail with yellow, the fishing began to get good.
I caught enough with that one to where the fly was destroyed and I had to make a switch. The bead head pheasant tail was now being used and the fish were hungry. As you can see in the pics above, I caught quite a few, at least for me it was a lot of fish. This was one of the best days on the river I have had in a long time. The sun was out but the shade and water was cool. In all I caught 10-15, I didn’t even try to take pics of all of them, just a few.
On a lighter note, I only fell in the river one time getting my shirt sleeve wet. I did manage to step in a hole while walking the jungle route, nothing sprained or broke. The felt bottom of my wading shoe stayed completely on for at least 20 minutes, then the front came loose again. All and all and outstanding day on the water. My shirt is dry, boots are glued, and ready for another trip. Have a great week and God bless.
