April Showers & March Browns

With air temperatures consistently in the 70s and water temps in the high 50s, spring has officially arrived in the mountains here in the Brevard area. Sorry it's been awhile since I've posted, but we've been slammed with both fly fishing and canoeing clients and the shop has been bustling. The few days off I managed to carve out were too beautiful to sit behind a computer, that's for sure! My best day of personal fishing recently was on the Davidson, where a buddy and I stumbled upon a cinnamon caddis hatch of mythical proportions. There were large trout flashing, splashing and leaping everywhere. After netting a half-dozen fish up to 15 inches, I finally managed to get a bruiser brown over 20 inches to eat a dry fly, and my buddy got the whole thing on video. He broke off at the end, but the surface take and subsequent acrobatics are very cool to watch and re-watch (don't let anyone tell you that browns don't jump.) I'll try to post it soon, if I can figure out how to upload video files.

Meanwhile, we've had a couple of good weeks of fishing, despite dropping water levels. On the 18th, I took Ashton S. and his son-in-law up to the North Fork for their inaugural visit (we've fished the East Fork before), and they had a blast -- except for late in the day when someone who shall go unnamed took a plunge and immersed his camera in the drink!It was in the middle of a chaotic fight with a giant rainbow, who we haven't hooked in quite some time because he usually sits in some very frothy, fast current. On this day, Ashton managed to hook him and he jetted off down a sluice and into the pool below him. I scrambled downstream and we eventually tired him out enough to net him. He was 22 inches long and very brightly colored along his flanks, with bold leopard spots and white-tipped fins. The digital camera was inoperable at this point, but none of us will forget the image of that fish. Fortunately, both boys landed some nice fish earlier that made it onto the photo card before it got dunked, and nobody got hurt, thankfully.

On the 19th, Jimmy G. returned to fish the North Fork along with his fishing buddy, Butch. The forecast was less than desirable, with a cold front bringing in rain and a 60% chance of thunderstorms. But they toughed it out and, as is often the case, the extreme weather stalled long enough for us to fish in relative comfort (just a drizzle) for the entire day. Jimmy landed a bunch of "fat ol' silver bellies," as he dubs them, as well as the biggest hornyhead I've ever seen! Butch caught a few bigger fish, as well, with lots of wild fish thrown in the mix. The action wasn't as fast-paced as the last time we fished, probably because of the cold front, but it was still an enjoyable day of fine conversation, good humour and beautiful surroundings. We saw a bunch of birds that day, including a young Cooper's hawk teaching her young how to hunt. She flew over us and lighted in a dead tree, where she dropped a dead squirrel in a crook, presumably for the young to pick up. Bluebirds were in the apple blossoms, thrashers were scratching in the laurel and phoebes perched on roof of the old cabin. A few swallows dipped down over the water to grab the few March Browns that came off in the afternoon, but they were too scant to really turn the fish on much.

On the 20th, we were pleased to host Larry S. and his two grown sons, Jeff and Brad, on their annual father-and-son fishing trip. Guide Mac Marett and I switched off with Jeff and Brad, so they could each spend time fishing with their dad. Jeff and Mac landed a brace of wild trout in the a.m. and capped off the morning by landed a beast of a rainbow in a deep pool below some rhododendron. Meanwhile, Larry and Brad got into a nice caddis hatch on the upper stretch, each landing a handful of trout, including a couple of bigger rainbows, on Morrish's Hotwire Caddis Pupas and DSPs. After a nice deli sandwich lunch, Jeff and Larry followed me upstream, where Dad latched onto a huge rainbow and an equally huge brown that went boring downstream and pulled out. Undeterred, Larry climbed into some slippery pocket water and proceeded to land three nice rainbows -- boom, boom, boom. I almost killed myself wading out below him to net them! Jeff got a large fish to slash at his streamer, but it missed, then he landed four nice rainbows in the afternoon and a wild brown to boot. Meanwhile, Mac got Brad into a giant rainbow that ate his fly as it swung up on the end of his drift. They landed it on 6X! It was a great way to end the day.

The next day, April 21, I took Mike D. from Florida up to the North Fork for his first trip on the private waters. After fishing over them for three days, I wondered whether the trout would have lockjaw, but a fantastic March Brown hatch and lots of blue-winged olives kept the trout happy and active. Mike said it was the best day of trout fishing he'd ever had, and he has fished for big browns in Michigan, salmon in the Pacific Northwest and is a regular visitor to the Tennessee tailwaters. It helped that Mike is a good mender who sets the hook quickly, but not too hard, and he knows how to play big fish on light tippet. It was a memorable day, topped off by a big 19-inch rainbow at the end of the afternoon. I can't wait to fish with Mike again.

On the 24th, Mac, guide Sam Aiken and I got to host another annual fishing excursion, this one hosted by Watt G. and his wife Nancy, from Little Rock, Arkansas. Watt and Nancy and two other couples were staying in Black Mountain, so we met them on Hwy. 280 and headed over to fish the North Mills River. We started in the campground section, which was crowded for a Thursday and didn't fish well at all. We hooked into a few, but they weren't big. So after a tasty lunch and some red wine (for the clients, not us guides), all nine of us hiked in from the Trace Ridge Trailhead and began fishing three separate sections of the upper river. The upper river fished better than the campground, but wasn't exactly on fire. The water was low and the fish were spooky, even in the broken water. Everybody landed some fish, however, and there was no lack of visual stimulation: star chickweed, trillium, bloodroot, hooded warblers and a baby northern water snake that Nancy was brave enough to fish near! The hike out was arduous, but this was a tough group that has fished in Alaska, Montana and all over. Watt even smoked a cigar on the way out -- how cool is that?