Pretentious Snobby Bastard Fly Fishing!

https://youtu.be/cIWzz6wcNug

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Oh, where to go, and what to do on a Monday with no meaningful professional duties. Rain was likely to roll in shortly after lunch at around the Blue Ridge.  I went to the park briefly yesterday to check the flows, and the small east slopers are quite low. Weather has been volatile on the SE side of the ridge as well in recent days. I settled for a half day jaunt on a local.  Drainage size for this stream is 7-9 square miles and is at 2550'.

Left the house shortly after 6 AM and the temp was 70, 67 at the fishing area.  Yesterday was stormy, and I was expecting water temps to be cool, and they were surprisingly so. Temps on this stream bottom out around 9:30 AM.  This place got hammered yesterday.  Scours everywhere, and they were fresh.

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The water was cool, slightly elevated, and dingy. Fishing started off slow.  I'm starting the thing the lower mile of this beat is seeing fish getting creeled.  They just aren't there like they used to be.  Caught several punes, fishing was slow, and I was starting to question my choice, then I caught this one.  It jumped three feet, but did not throw.

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This is where.

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Sat down to change out the rig.  A deer was munching, and did not see me when I sat.  It took about 5 minutes for it to pick up my scent.

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After passing the the mini gorge, the stream widened and was punctuated by some decent pools.  One of which had a deep crevice.  I was dredging for bigguns.  Punes were looking up, but I was not in the pune business. I had a solid hookup in aforementioned crevice.  The fish did not want to come out. After a spell of thrashing in the crevice, it finally came out...holy crap. It tore up to the head of the pool and I tried to scoop it up from the rear as it tried to make its way up the ledge.  Nope, it hauled ass down the pool, down the next pool, and the next pool. There no beaches, just wood.  It then went back up to where we started and managed to land it.  This thing was hooked half way through the lip, and the hook was lodged perfectly.
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Not long after landing this fish, I had the misfortune of snagging the bottom in a really sweet spot. As I worked my way to the snag, I took a seat on an undercut rock readying to work the rig loose without disturbing the water.  As my legs slid down the edge of the rock, a brown about 24 inch bolted out from under the rock. This thing was a wide as my calves :o

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Packed it in at noon.  Found a curious spindly chestnut on side of the road.  American or Chinese?

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Left not feeling satisfied, oh well.

Went back to this stream hoping for another fine day of catching.  I had actually planned on bass fishing today in the Triad area, but I was running out of time due to running errands, getting the van serviced. and ended up heading to the hills.  Boots hit the water at 11:30, and the fishing seemed to be good.  Things are generally slow near the roadside access, but improve a bit upstream.  Being the trees and scrub were lacking foliage, I chose to run a nymph under the rubberleg.  The browns were not munching on the rubberleg, but singled out the hare's ear. No black PT love either. Lost several, caught several, stung a goodern within the first hour.  Things went to hell after it started to rain.  The bite stopped until the sun popped out around 2pm. As I approached the area were I saw the 25 incher last year, my rig became tangled and mangled, my hands were near numb.  I managed to re rig, and promptly fell after slipping...took a pretty big hit. Reel is bent, rod broke. 

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I should've went bass fishing.  Getting too damn old for this crap.

I was very pleased with the fish that were engaged early on.  All different age groups.  This stream is still doing very well, although I fear this Summer is will be exceptionally brutal.