Red Trout Streams

Today's trout outing with Asher began well, with a cool sidetrip to Upper Whitewater Falls and a few hours of catching trout and exploring the East Fork of the French Broad River. We knew we might be battling weather, though, and on the way from the East Fork to the North Mills River, we hit a massive thunderstorm, complete with heavy hail, and even had to pull over at one point because the rain was blinding.

Not long after arriving at the North Mills, we ran into seriously muddy water, and the bite disappeared complexly when the muddy water come. We still hit several spots along the creek, both for the sake of learning more about it and with hope of finding better-colored water. I think it would have settled out fairly quickly, and maybe we should have hung around, but it seemed like we needed to move on while we had the time, so we drove more than an hour to the delayed harvest section of the Tuckasegee River, only to find even muddier water and no one else even trying to catch trout.

Knowing Great Smoky Mountains National Park streams wouldn't be muddy and figuring that Deep Creek's brown trout might be a little more aggressive with the higher flows and very dark skies, we decided to fish the final few hours of daylight at Deep Creek. When we arrived, the stream indeed looked good; however, another big thunderstorm arrived with us. We tried to wait it out, but the sky kept flashing and rumbling as the evening progressed, so we decided to call it quits for today.

We'll begin again tomorrow and see what we find!