Good Day in the Smokies

Started by Yallerhammer, June 02, 2020, 17:39:46 PM

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Yallerhammer



Got out for a few hours yesterday. The goal was a creek that I haven't fished in probably 15 years or more. I headed out about daylight, stopping along the way for a couple sausage biscuits at a little gas station/deli in east TN. The country I was headed into drained off the slopes of one of the highest mountains in the eastern US. The creek I was going to drains one of the wrinkles on the mountain at the right:

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Turkeys everywhere along the road:

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Stopped along the way at a little creek I've never fished. At 50*, the first step into the water was a bit brisk.

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This creek was full of small yellow-hued rainbows, which readily attacked a dry fly.

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Mock orange, a fairly rare native flowering shrub, was blooming in profusion along the creekbanks.

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Going up the creek, I found this tucked under a rhododendron bush. I really have no idea:

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I fished up about a quarter-mile, catching bows from almost every hole, when suddenly, the fish stopped hitting. I noticed wet spots on the rocks by the creek. I'd been high-holed. I bushwhacked out to the trail. Along the way back, I crossed this little branch:

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I stopped and flipped a dry fly into that little hole under the log, and came out with a 9" rainbow. Pretty surprising for a little step-across creek.

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I headed back to the truck, and on to my target stream.
Women want me, doughbellies fear me. - Little Debbie Prostaff

Yallerhammer

#1
Several miles later along a narrow, twisty road, I arrived at the creek I came to fish.

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The Cherokee believed that mountain streams were the pathways to the spirit world, and the mountain springs were the doors. On this creek, I could agree. Fishing this creek is like mile after mile of climbing a giant, never-ending staircase. It has one of the steepest gradients of any sizeable watershed in the eastern US. The whole stream is a series of waterfalls and plunge pools; the water that gathers from the clouds and mists on the mountaintops draining and trickling down to gather and cascade endlessly over moss-covered giant boulders. The narrow gorge of the creek sounds like constant thunder. It is physically exhausting to climb endlessly over the drops and falls, but the beauty of the place is unmatched. On the lower end of this stream after it levels out and flows closer to civilization, countless tourists wade in the riffles and screaming kids skip rocks across the pools. But up here on the headwaters, it's easy to imagine that you are the only person who has been here since the days that the Cherokee followed the streams up into the realm of the Nunnehi. It's just you, the pervasive green of chlorophyll seemingly dripping from the trees, moss, ferns, and shrubs -and above all, the thunderous roar of falling water.

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Women want me, doughbellies fear me. - Little Debbie Prostaff

Yallerhammer

#2
Oh, and the trout. This creek is full of them. Fat, dark, colorful rainbows that average in the 7"-9" range. They attacked dry flies eagerly, and nymphs too. Every good hole yielded several fish if I did my part right, fishing from the tail to the head and quickly snaking the fish downstream before they could bore into the center of the pool and spook the others waiting there. They struck savagely, and fought like little demons.

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In this hole, I hung into a 14"-15" rainbow, with a crimson stripe that looked an inch wide, and blood red gill covers. Chained lightning. It bored to the bottom, then launched out of the water like a missile and left me standing there with my fly hung in a tree limb fifteen feet overhead.

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I fished upstream until the shadows started to lengthen, and my legs were starting to betray me from the constant climbing. In addition to the constant series of falls, the creek was also buried in spots under washed-up piles of storm-thrown trees that were physically taxing to crawl through and over:

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Eventually, I had caught trout until I had long since lost count. I was satiated with fishing, and my half-century-old legs were protesting. I had been keeping a fish here and there that were hooked deeply, and so I fished one more pool and killed another fish to fill out my limit. I cleaned them in the icy running water flowing from the spirit world, and graded back around the mountainside toward my truck, breaking through waist-high thickets of doghobble and slithering through the rhododendrons.

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It was a good day. I found things I sought, and left with more than I came with.

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Fin.​
Women want me, doughbellies fear me. - Little Debbie Prostaff

greg


Phil

Most Excellent, Yaller.  :cheers  Damn, I miss fishing the SMNP area -- gotta get back down there. Your legs got you up in there and back, my man, so you "done good." Fine work and report!  :bow

Big J

 V:;  and I really need to keep more wild rainbows.  Especially on brookie streams. 

Woolly Bugger

well played for sure... grand day... thanks for the ride!
ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

Dougfish

Very well played. Chunky fish. Eat mo rainbows!  :Dance
"Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don't you dig how beautiful it is out here?
 Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change? "
Kelly's Heroes,1970

"I don't wanna go to hell,
But if I do,
It'll be 'cause of you..."
Strange Desire, The Black Keys, 2006

Yallerhammer

Quote from: Big J on June 03, 2020, 07:47:45 AMV:;  and I really need to keep more wild rainbows.  Especially on brookie streams. 
The few specks left in this creek are way up in the headwaters. I can imagine the size of specks that would be in there if the rainbows didn't control the good part. A lot of Smokies streams are swarming with 6" rainbows like a farm pond packed with stunted bluegill or crappie. Almost nobody keeps fish any more.
Women want me, doughbellies fear me. - Little Debbie Prostaff

Stone-Man

Good report,Hammer----- 'c;  Damn pretty fish and scenery
thanks for taking me there

  JT

Sedition and Pockets

I don't really love the Park.  All that shitty granite bedrock makes for a lot of pune factories.  But damn, when the cricks are good, they're fucking bangers.

Yallerhammer

Except for now and then when you hit the right creek at the right time, and then you suddenly realize that it isn't actually a pune factory-you just usually suck at fishing.  :laugh:
Women want me, doughbellies fear me. - Little Debbie Prostaff

Big J

What did you ever do with the gun you found up in the Rhodo?  Is that a Walther?

Yallerhammer

Quote from: Big J on June 10, 2020, 08:07:27 AMWhat did you ever do with the gun you found up in the Rhodo?  Is that a Walther?
That's what I thought at first, but on closer inspection, it was a very realistic airgun. I just left it there. I already had a real one on me.  :laugh: 
Women want me, doughbellies fear me. - Little Debbie Prostaff