Christmas (lights-out) Trout

Here is a tale of two trout trips. They take place on the same stream about a week apart, but are as dissimilar as Waffle House and a Japanese express food joint.  Ok, maybe thats a bad simile. Japanese Express and Waffle house food may be eerily alike.

It's the most wonderful time of the year… Christmas rain, Christmas lights, Christmas trout, and the reminder that Christ offered up an opportunity for all mankind to avoid eternal damnation. It's a stellar combo, the latter of which may bear slightly more importance.  This is the time of year that my schedule allows me more chances to get on the water, and it's also the time of year the Carolina skies tend to render copious doses of winter rain.  To boot, December temperatures in the Old North State can be down right bi-polar (not the North Pole-South Pole kinda of bi-polar, cause that would be just plum cold. The up-and-down-inconsistant-current-Tarheel-Basketball kind of bi-polar. Glad I could clear that up for you). Regardless of the the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde highs in the 70's and lows in the teens during the same week, I fish when my schedule allows, not when conditions are perfect. 

Matt navigating the gorge

Tuesday December 17 was partly cloudy, highs near 60, and the area streams had plenty of water after the previous week's rains. I chose to fish a new-to-me gorge section of a local stream. Best fishing decision in a while, because the fishing was lights out! I landed about 20 fish in 4 hours and I only fished hard the first 2 hours. Each good looking piece of water coughed up pre-spawn pink finned rainbows, some of which were well above average for WNC wild trout standards.  I had never fished this stretch of water before, and was stoked to find it only 45 minutes from home. I even hooked what was a 14-16 inch wild trout that spit the hook before I could get him to the net.  The black girdle bug and superman prince never needed to be changed from my line, and my thing-a-ma-bobber bounced frequently in the 47 degree water.

Pink pre-spawn fins on a wild rainbow

A week later on Christmas Day, I fished the section of gorge just below my previous trip, and it was a very different day.  The water was a bit higher and still falling after the recent rains.  The previous two nights had seen lows in the teens, and the Christmas Day high was a balmy 37.  Dreams of Tiny Tim offering "a Christmas trout... for EVERYONE" danced in my head on the way there, but I ended up with mostly coal in my creel on the crisp Christmas wade. 

I knew there were fish in the stream.  That was confirmed 8 days early. And after plying the depths of every run and pool, including the most productive hole from the previous week with nary a bite, I got the first strike of the day an hour and a half into the outing while swinging my girdle bug in to tie on a streamer.  It only reaffirmed my notion to swing a streamer in search of the fatty I had hooked and week early.  I tied on a Christmas Tree.  I really don't know what the fly is called, but it's just gold and copper flashabou with lead eyes.  It looks like tinsel, and it was Christmas day for crying out loud. It screamed out to me like Princess Leia desperately calling out to Obi Wan as "My only hope!" Three minutes later I was holding a ten inch, pale brown Christmas trout that would only have served as a snack for the optimistic tiny little Tim.

My Christmas Tree streamer

However, the fish that removeth the skunk need not be a behemoth to make the lander of said minnow an elated angler (wikipedia FACT).  It was the first brown I had ever caught from this stream, and the only fish of the day.  

The tale of two days on the stream helped remind me that you can't judge a stream by one trip.  The weather was different on the two days I was there, but it couldn't have impacted the water temps that drastically.  There are days when the bite is good, and you know why.  There are days when the bite is off for obviously reasons. But then there are all the rest of the days.  The majority of the days. Where the bite may be mediocre, stone cold, of red hot, and we may never truly know why. We can speculate and leave pleased with one Christmas trout, or leave floating on 20 pink wild rainbows.

The Christmas trout knocks the skunk off.  Merry Christmas to me!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Bows and Browns to you!

Fall Freeze Out

Whats cooler than cool? Ice cold.

It's been a pretty cold November here in North Carolina.  This morning when I stepped in the river around 8:30, it was 22 balmy degrees of guide icing cold. It helped concoct what would be a perplexing morning for me. I hoped the chill would keep the throngs off the Dirty D, but the wader clad army was full tilt on this Thanksgiving weekend.  I bypassed the crowds of the usual honey holes upstream of the bridge and near the parking lot, and walked a bit down stream to one of my favorite, and typically less visited, runs.

The water was flowing just over 100 cfs and had been as high as 1000 cfs a few days before after the rain and snow.  The "log hole" i was headed for needs at least 100 cfs to fish well, and seems to be getting shallower over the years as more water gets diverted to the other channel of the river. Upon arrival, I was pleased to see fish actively moving about and even rising regularly to sipp midges. I fished a three fly rig with a stone fly as my lead fly, then an egg, then a midge larvae.  I cycled through the normal midges, and changed eggs once.  I managed to get only one strike from a naive dink in two hours of persistent nymphing. I could smell a skunk. I hadn't been skunked trout fishing in … I can't remember the last time I was skunked.  At least 9 years. Hashtag humble.

I decided to move back to the crowded section near the parking lot and see what was crackin.  I had about on hour left to fish before I had to lay down my trout wrangling (or lack there of) for toddler wrangling. I slipped into to a familiar run, a piece of transition water at the head of a long slick.  The fish were visible, and not as seemingly active as the fish I had left. I still had my version of a Morris Stone as my lead fly, a carolina egg, and the trusty red midge on my 6x SA flouro tippet (buy one get one free at Davidson River Outfitters right now). In less than five minutes, I was into my first fish of the day. Red midge. Soon after I had my biggest fish of the day, a football of a rainbow that ate the stone fly.

A couple near me seemed excited, disappointed, and perplexed after I landed two fish rather quickly, so I struck up a nice conversation with the lady about the finicky Davidson River and my fly choices and tactics. I walked over to her,  showed her my flies, gave her my productive pieces of water, then proceeding to quickly pull 4 fish out of the piece of water she had been previously fishing with no success. I'd been lieing if I told you I didn't enjoy hearing her shout out "He caught another one!" a few times in a fashion uncouth of proper fly fishers. My ego is grateful for her uncouthness.

The 45 minutes of fishing near the couple from Atlanta/my-biggest-fishing-fan, was fantastic. Just before leaving I had that inner dialogue and self-pact that anglers often construct in their minds; "I'll leave as soon as I catch one more."  After I caught the next fish, I deemed him to small to count, so I caught another in about four cast, and then climbed the bank of rhododendron with a goofy smirk on my face. I felt like Babe Ruth calling his shot, except my accomplishment was way lamer and not as significant, and nothing at all like Babe calling his shot. Nonetheless, I left the river feeling like the Great Bambino, having called my own shot.  Thank you Asian Atlanta lady for adding to my delusions of grandeur.  If only I could leave the river like that every time.

As the kidz say on twitter, I left the river smh (shaking my head). Though grateful for the stellar 45 minutes of fishing bliss, why couldn't I get those fish in the log hole to play ball with me? The fish who did impale themselves on my hooks took the Morris Stone and red midge at almost an equal rate.  I stuck one on the carolina egg.  The fish in the first hole snubbed the myriad of my offerings. There were hardly any risers in the section I caught fish in, and plenty of rises in the stretch that kicked my glutes.  I suppose the risers down stream that heartlessly shunned me were dialed in on some emerging midge. The stone fly I was using as a lead fly must have been getting my midge trailer lower than the film trapped midges the fish must have been keying on. STILL… you think in my buffet offering of midge larvae, a few troots would have eaten my midge even if it was lower in the water column. The water was pretty shallow, so it wasn't as if my flies were floating under the fish. A buddy suggested a greased leader, size 26 fly, and hook sets on any visible rise near the area I suspected my fly to be in could have cracked the case of selective sippers.  I'm not sure I'm compelled to fish in that technical of manner yet. I'll just move and find some more willing fishes to fall prey to my current arsenal of tactics… and an excitably city lady with more fly savvy than her hubz to cheer me on.  Until then, see y'all in the funny pages.