Rhodo hell-or is it? Social distancing at its finest

[hcrum87hc]

So, as those of you that have read my past TRs know, I mostly fish in WNC, but I've gotten it in my head that I need to start exploring my home waters a bit better.  I made it a goal of mine a while back to research, explore, and find some water in my state, and specifically my county, that would hold some native brookies.  Of course, then I had to catch said brookies.  I can officially say, goal met!

I've been wanting to hit the upper end of this stream for a while, but couldn't figure out how to access it outside of a fairly long hike.  I've heard rumors that it's upper end held brookies, so I had to check it out.  After diving deeper into my research, I discovered an old logging/forest service road that would get me within about 1.5 miles from my target.  I had planned to hit another stream in a neighboring county this day, but made a change of plans upon this discovery.

After rigging up and hitting the trail, I realized the walk in was actually not going to be too bad at all.


It felt like these were on every other tree on both sides of the trail.


The second half of the trail in parallels a feeder creek of my target, so I figured I'd hit it in a spot that was easily accessible.  There was one small hole that I tried.  On my first cast, I saw a pune come out and swipe at my dry.  On the second cast, this guy decided to give it a go.  I was dying to see what it was.  Once I got it close enough, I realized my goal had been met.  This little guy was the culmination of a lot of mental, and a little bit of physical, leg work.


After a bit more walking, I reached my targeted water.  The feeder creek I mentioned above came in to the right of this trail crossing, just downstream.


Which way did I want to go?  I typically fish upstream, but I knew the water downstrem would be bigger thanks to the feeder creek.  Let's look downstream:


Nope, don't want to deal with that.  Let's look upstream:


Not much better, but at least it's passable.  I made my way upstream for a few holes, but the rhodo was so tight, I couldn't maneuver myself or my fly in the ways I needed to.  Let's go downstream.

I checked my map I had found online and saw that the trail would parallel the stream for a ways before leaving it and then rejoining at a waterfall.  I followed the trail for a ways, and when it started to leave the stream, I decided to bushwhack down to it and check out what I'd have to work with.  Much better!




Rest in piece(s)


I continued to make my way upstream without any luck.  Eventually the gradient started to increase a bit, which meant more plunge pools, but it also meant more rhodo.


There were so many great looking holes that I couldn't hit due to overhanging branches or fallen trees.  Luckily, I was able to bow and arrow under this limb, which netted me this pretty specimen.




I continued making my way upstream, hitting a few good looking holes without any luck. I was just happy to have met my goal and explore some new water.




I eventually got back to where I had first hit the stream and walked out.  I still had a couple hours to kill, so I made the hour long drive to the stream I was originally going to target.  I was only able to spend about 30 minutes there.  Thankfully the walk down wasn't long, but the stream didn't look terribly impressive.  It was relatively flat and narrow without much of a flow.  I knew this stream had been rehabbed for brookies, so I gave it a shot anyways. I'm glad I did:


Through all of my time researching these two streams, I came across about a dozen more locally that are supposed to hold natives.  I know where I'll be going on my next social distancing outing.
   

[Woolly Bugger]

Brovo, brovo,   

Looks like your research and efforts paid off!

[greg]

Looks like I need to research a little more myself. I'm in spartanburg and rarely fish my state. Glad you found them and your work paid off. Well done.

[rbphoto]

SWEET!

Glad to see you got out and found those elusive SC fish.

Raymond

[Phil]

VERY nice! Yessiree, rhodos will make ya work for them brookies, but that's where they usually are. Nice dark colored brookies there! Good work, sir. 

[Big J]

The mythical SC brook trout.  Nice work. 

[Dougfish]

Nice efforting, sir. 
I only tried three new streams this winter. I suk.

[Yallerhammer]

Yes, sir, that'll work for sure! 

[hcrum87hc]

Thanks fellas.  It was definitely very rewarding.  I'll be going out again Saturday, as I had to cancel an out of town trip, so my parents were already planning on keeping the kids, giving me a free day.

[Phil]

"I'll be going out again Saturday"

Addictive little dink bastids, ain't they?