Unlimited Fly Fishing News and Articles...

[Woolly Bugger]

Picturing the past: fly fishing in Transylvania County






Fly fishing has been an angling technique for hundreds of years. Like many activities with this lengthy of a history, time has refined and perfected the techniques into a nuanced recreational sport. Fishing was originally a favorite leisure activity of the wealthy and elite and became widely popularized in the mid-to-late 19th century with the rise of affordable transportation that could ferry weekend fishing enthusiasts to locations conducive to fishing, unlike where they lived. Prior to that time, lack of access to private land and rivers was part of the barrier for the less wealthy.

The hobby exploded in popularity at this time, as evidenced by the numerous books on fly fishing that were published. The novice could now learn the principles of fly fishing on their own, instead of relying on knowing an expert and having knowledge passed on to them. The sport became even more widely accessible, dovetailing with the rise of outdoor recreation and tourism as new, best locales for catching fish could be sought out by the adventurous based on the published documentation of others.

https://www.transylvaniatimes.com/lifestyles/picturing-the-past-fly-fishing-in-transylvania-county/article_8669ad3e-b90d-11ed-a818-039918ec4143.html

[Trout Maharishi]

Picturing the past: fly fishing in Transylvania County





Cool, the Davidson has a long history of fishing and tourism. Where the Davidson runs into the French Broad was a stage coach stop for people traveling from Asheville to the upstate SC. The Davidson is named for a pair of revolutionary war heroes that brought the land in the 1790's.


Fly fishing has been an angling technique for hundreds of years. Like many activities with this lengthy of a history, time has refined and perfected the techniques into a nuanced recreational sport. Fishing was originally a favorite leisure activity of the wealthy and elite and became widely popularized in the mid-to-late 19th century with the rise of affordable transportation that could ferry weekend fishing enthusiasts to locations conducive to fishing, unlike where they lived. Prior to that time, lack of access to private land and rivers was part of the barrier for the less wealthy.

The hobby exploded in popularity at this time, as evidenced by the numerous books on fly fishing that were published. The novice could now learn the principles of fly fishing on their own, instead of relying on knowing an expert and having knowledge passed on to them. The sport became even more widely accessible, dovetailing with the rise of outdoor recreation and tourism as new, best locales for catching fish could be sought out by the adventurous based on the published documentation of others.

https://www.transylvaniatimes.com/lifestyles/picturing-the-past-fly-fishing-in-transylvania-county/article_8669ad3e-b90d-11ed-a818-039918ec4143.html

In 1793, brothers and revolutionary and war heroes(many of their brothers and cousins fought at King's Mt)  Benjamin and James Davidson applied to purchase land from the State of North Carolina. The land along the French Broad River was finally sold to them in 1790, making the Davidsons some of the earliest settlers in Transylvania County. Benjamin built his home beside a river that flowed into the French Broad; that river came to be known as Benjamin Davidson's Creek, and then finally Davidson River. The Davidson has a long history of fishing and tourism. Where the Davidson runs into the French Broad was a overnight stage coach stop for people traveling from Asheville to the upstate of SC.  Years later, as the area became more developed and more people settled down there, Benjamin donated land for a meeting-house that served as a church and a schoolhouse. Other locals created business, turning the region into a successful commercial center. Pisgah Forest has exploded in the last 30 years, it use to be a 2 lane single flashing light at 276/64 with a convince store, ice cream shop and a fish house next door.

[greg]

I cut my fly fishing teeth on the Davidson. Hardly ever fish it anymore. Too crowed and it's fishing is a little too technical for me now.

[Trout Maharishi]

I cut my fly fishing teeth on the Davidson. Hardly ever fish it anymore. Too crowed and it's fishing is a little too technical for me now.

I grew up fishing the GSMNP park but when my friends and I got our drivers licenses we started hitting the whole Pisgah ledge hard. Shining Rock and Middle Prong watersheds for camping trips and the Davidson and it's tributaries for day trips. That would have been about the mid 60's or so. Sure wish I could still get around like that instead of the stove up old man I've become Yea it gets crazy crowded on the weekends in several places, but there are still a few spots where you can get away from the road and people and have a little water to yourself during the week (don't tell TBII though, he can't keep a secret).  It's funny how some time the fishing can be so easy and other times you have to dig a little deeper into your bag of tricks.

[Woolly Bugger]

The McCloud River redband trout, or O. mykiss calisulat, is newly identified as its own distinct subspecies of rainbow trout in a study from the University of California, Davis. It is the first newly identified subspecies of Pacific trout since 2008 and the youngest rainbow trout subspecies by more than 100 years.

https://phys.org/news/2023-03-rainbow-trout-subspecies-newly.html

[Woolly Bugger]

Appalachian trout in trouble as temps rise, storms rage

The mountains of the Southern Appalachians were scraped clean a century ago as the canopy of trees that protected the streams from the noonday sun disappeared. Rainstorms pushed dirt and rocks into the water muddying the feeding and breeding grounds of fish, amphibians, and insects.

Lower down the mountain, newly cut pastures edged right up to the creeks while cows mucked up the once-pristine waters. Invasive bugs killed hemlocks, ash, and other shade-giving trees. Pipes, culverts, and dams blockaded streams and kept animals from cooler water.
The trout never had a chance.

And now they face an even more insidious foe – climate change.

Higher temperatures, killer droughts, biblical rainstorms, and other climatic events pose an existential danger to the rainbow, brown, and brook trout that once filled the mountain streams of the Carolinas, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, and Alabama. Trout start blinking out once water temperatures rise above 70 degrees. The more conservative climate change scenarios predict a two- or three-degree average increase in Fahrenheit by 2100. Water temperatures, naturally, will rise too.
"We've had floods, and then droughts," said Doug Reed, the supervisor the last 23 years at the trout hatchery run by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI). "We used to have good, healthier rivers just 10, 15 years ago. Now the rivers are a lot smaller. You can go upriver and see hundreds of tributaries that have dried up. We're susceptible to whatever Mother Nature throws at us."

https://theonefeather.com/2023/07/06/appalachian-trout-in-trouble-as-temps-rise-storms-rage/

[Mudwall Gatewood 3.0]

Appalachian trout in trouble as temps rise, storms rage

The mountains of the Southern Appalachians were scraped clean a century ago as the canopy of trees that protected the streams from the noonday sun disappeared. Rainstorms pushed dirt and rocks into the water muddying the feeding and breeding grounds of fish, amphibians, and insects.

Lower down the mountain, newly cut pastures edged right up to the creeks while cows mucked up the once-pristine waters. Invasive bugs killed hemlocks, ash, and other shade-giving trees. Pipes, culverts, and dams blockaded streams and kept animals from cooler water.
The trout never had a chance.

And now they face an even more insidious foe – climate change.

Higher temperatures, killer droughts, biblical rainstorms, and other climatic events pose an existential danger to the rainbow, brown, and brook trout that once filled the mountain streams of the Carolinas, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, and Alabama. Trout start blinking out once water temperatures rise above 70 degrees. The more conservative climate change scenarios predict a two- or three-degree average increase in Fahrenheit by 2100. Water temperatures, naturally, will rise too.
"We've had floods, and then droughts," said Doug Reed, the supervisor the last 23 years at the trout hatchery run by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI). "We used to have good, healthier rivers just 10, 15 years ago. Now the rivers are a lot smaller. You can go upriver and see hundreds of tributaries that have dried up. We're susceptible to whatever Mother Nature throws at us."

https://theonefeather.com/2023/07/06/appalachian-trout-in-trouble-as-temps-rise-storms-rage/

Canaries in the coal mines?

And we're anxious over WOKE (whatever the fuck that is!), library books, LGBT, abortion, immigration, drag shows, guns, etc.  So many pimples on our asses, some bigger and more painful than others, some requiring a lance, some meriting our concern, BUT none more significant than the health of the imperfect oblate spheroid we live on.  IMO 

[Woolly Bugger]

Mudslides Decimate Cheesman Canyon, One of Colorado's Most Beloved Fly-Fishing Spots
The storms on Monday, July 31, created massive mudslides that destroyed an access trail and turned the South Platte River into chocolate milk-colored sludge.

On July 31, Scott Tampa, the president of the Cutthroat Chapter of Trout Unlimited, which serves the south Denver metro area for the national conservation nonprofit, was fishing the South Platte River in Cheesman Canyon. Also casting that day: his wife, Meg Renton, and Pat Dorsey, co-owner of the Blue Quill Angler and local legend in the fly-fishing guide community. The trio hit the water around eight in the morning, and by the afternoon, they noticed the western sky darken. They decided to make their way back to the Gill Trail, a five-mile out-and-back managed by the Pike-San Isabel National Forest and Denver Water that provides access to the canyon—one of the most productive and beloved stretches of trout-fishing water in the country.

"We thought it was a typical Colorado storm that would blow right through," Tampa says. Instead, the deluge lasted around an hour and dropped an astonishing 2.5 inches of rain into the canyon and Denver Water's Cheesman Reservoir upstream, according to a Denver Water spokesperson.


https://www.5280.com/mudslide-wrecks-cheesman-canyon/

[Woolly Bugger]

Dr. Kyle Flynn is a Montana-born hydrologist and engineer who will conduct an independent investigation into declining trout numbers in the Jefferson Basin.

[Woolly Bugger]

Invasive brook trout return to Soda Butte Creek
The National Park Service will once again apply piscicide to kill all fish in the creek in another effort to rid Soda Butte of nonnative species


One step forward, two steps back. In what has to be a disappointing development for fisheries managers in Yellowstone National Park, non-native brook trout are once again swimming the waters of Soda Butte Creek.

The National Park Service declared the stream, a tributary of the Lamar River, free of the invasive char in 2016, after years of exhaustive removal efforts. Brook trout pose a competitive threat to native Yellowstone cutthroat trout, and their presence in Soda Butte Creek is particularly alarming because of the stream's immediate connection to the Lamar River, which is home to one of the last intact big-water populations of native cutthroats.

Brookies are common in the West, but they are native to Appalachia and eastern Canada. All over the Rockies, brook trout have displaced native cutthroat trout, and they are proving to be stubborn invaders that are difficult to eradicate.

https://www.hatchmag.com/articles/invasive-brook-trout-return-soda-butte-creek/7715760

[trout-r-us]

Invasive brook trout return to Soda Butte Creek
The National Park Service will once again apply piscicide to kill all fish in the creek in another effort to rid Soda Butte of nonnative species


One step forward, two steps back. In what has to be a disappointing development for fisheries managers in Yellowstone National Park, non-native brook trout are once again swimming the waters of Soda Butte Creek.

The National Park Service declared the stream, a tributary of the Lamar River, free of the invasive char in 2016, after years of exhaustive removal efforts. Brook trout pose a competitive threat to native Yellowstone cutthroat trout, and their presence in Soda Butte Creek is particularly alarming because of the stream's immediate connection to the Lamar River, which is home to one of the last intact big-water populations of native cutthroats.

Brookies are common in the West, but they are native to Appalachia and eastern Canada. All over the Rockies, brook trout have displaced native cutthroat trout, and they are proving to be stubborn invaders that are difficult to eradicate.

https://www.hatchmag.com/articles/invasive-brook-trout-return-soda-butte-creek/7715760

I loves that Lamar River Valley. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

[Woolly Bugger]

Device submerged in Montana rivers to study trout decline

Kyle Flynn has submerged eight monitors at points along the Big Hole, Jefferson, Ruby, and Beaverhead rivers to collect data throughout this year and next year.

[Woolly Bugger]

Wild trout portion of Shasta County's Hat Creek set aside for further protection

More than 1,700 acres along Hat Creek, including a stretch of prized trout stream, have been set aside for preservation in eastern Shasta County.

The recent addition of 1,750 acres of land around Hat Creek adjoins property already held in a conservation easement in the area of Baum Lake and Crystal Lake, according to the Shasta Land Trust.

The most recent addition brings total acreage under conservation easement to 4,267 acres, the land trust said. The conservation easements prevent development on land held in trust. Much of the property in the area will continue to be privately owned but accessible to the public.

The area of Hat Creek preserved under a land trust has been extensively restored over the past decade as a "Wild Trout Water," as designated by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.



https://www.redding.com/story/news/local/2023/08/18/wild-trout-portion-of-hat-creek-set-aside-for-further-protection/70622726007/

[Woolly Bugger]

Chemical treatment to be deployed against invasive fish in Colorado River

The National Park Service will renew efforts to rid an area of the Colorado River in northern Arizona of invasive fish by killing them with a chemical treatment, the agency said Friday.

A substance lethal to fish but approved by federal environmental regulators called rotenone will be disseminated starting Aug. 26. It's the latest tactic in an ongoing struggle to keep non-native smallmouth bass and green sunfish at bay below the Glen Canyon Dam and to protect a threatened native fish, the humpback chub.

The treatment will require a weekend closure of the Colorado River slough, a cobble bar area surrounding the backwater where the smallmouth bass were found and a short stretch up and downstream. Chemical substances were also utilized last year.

https://apnews.com/article/humpback-chub-smallmouth-bass-colorado-river-1f1162bc38980fc6bcf5bdc9168ea1bd

[Woolly Bugger]

Sunday Morning -- Hellbenders