Wild Stream

[troutphisher]

I fished a wild stream in the mountains of western NC.
This is a free stone stream at 3100ft elevation. The water was crystal clear and the temp was right at 38 deg.

The air temp was 28 when I started at 10:30am this morning. The sky was overcast fore the most part, but did get some sun on and off.

I started the day fishing the pockets with a soft hackle PTN size 16.
I didn't use any weight to get the fly, because of the overcast skies.

I picked my spots around some boulders, and managed some small bows. They were in the 6"-8" range, but fought hard, and were fun to catch.

Around 3:00 a good BWO hatch was on, they were size 16 and really poping off. I could see fish rise for them in the pools. I watched for while instead of fishing. I wanted to see how far the fish would move to get the fly. I was suprized to see a brown move almost 3 ft left, from behind a boulder to get a fly, then move right back, behind the boulder. While I was watching the fish, I noticed a tree that a beaver had begun to harvest. It was interesting to see the teeth marks, and it's handy work. The tree was almost to the point of falling, except there was a fork of another tree about 30ft up holding this tree in place. I wondered how the beaver was going to fall the tree?

I moved down stream about a quater mile and fished another section with a slow pool, it was a perfect place to dry fish, the current was perfect.

I tied on a size 16 BWO and had fun catching some browns that were eager to rise and take the fly. There were lots of fish in the pool, I could see them rising near the banks and in the center of the pool all the way to the tail out.

Around 4:30 it started to snow heavy, and the fish were still rising, as the hatch was still on. It was fun to fish while it snowed and have dry fly action during the snow fall.

I finally called it quits around 6:15pm. I watched several more fish rise and some naturals float by before heading to the car.

I was a good day to get out on the water.

Here are a few pics of the stream and fish.

[moodytrout]

Great report and pics - thanks for sharring 0--0

[Gofisher]

Thanks for the report! It's enjoyable reading your fishing reports. God bless,  Gordie

[kylemc]

Great report TM. Love the BWO shot.