Go Early & Then Go Home

Memorial Day weekend, Saturday, final few days of the Delayed Harvest release season and beautiful weather all suggested that the Nantahala River was going be a popular destination. With that in mind we left the house dark and early and arrived at the river just a little after first light.

Good thing.

Only a couple of pull-ins had cars in them when we arrived, but each time we moved to a new spot we passed a few more parked cars and fishermen nearby in the river. The plan was to start with the obvious spots and then spend some time in a gorge section, which is more work to fish through and gets far less fishing pressure than most spots. Seemingly others had the same idea, though, because we had a pair of anglers trailing us through the gorge and we came to another pair ahead of us. At that point we climbed out of the gorge and went looking for other available pull-outs down river.

We did find space in a few other places, and we caught a few more trout. The bite slowed as the morning progressed, though, and I think the main reason for that was that wherever we stopped to fish someone else had just left. By 1:00 enough folks were dotting the river that we decided it was time to put on dry shoes and head back over the mountain.

I'm glad we went, but I'm even more glad that we went early!