Provo River Return

Provo River brown trout

In my most recent post, I looked back on a cross-country fishing/blogging trek I did with one of my boys 11 years ago. That post reminded me of one of our favorite stops — the Provo River in Utah — and of a brief return to the Provo with my daughter Autumn a couple of years ago.

Autumn and I also made it all the way to the Pacific Coast by car, but our trip was mostly vacation, and the primary objective was to see the world’s largest trees (sequoias), tallest trees (redwoods) and oldest trees (bristlecone pines). We had time for a couple of fishing stops, and the Provo was close enough to a possible route home that I couldn’t resist a return visit.

Good that we stopped. The river was substantially more crowded than it had been nine years earlier, and we struggled a little initially to find decent looking spots where we weren’t stepping in too close to where someone else was fishing. We ended up finding a nice section down a trail, though, and thick-bodied brown trout were plentiful and willing to play I didn’t count, but we caught a lot of trout, and most were good ones!

Trout in the Provo mostly see flies, and our Rebel Tracdown Minnows and Crawfish prompted a lot of action from feeding brown trout.

My experience with Asher on the Trout Trek had been similar. I’m pretty sure we caught more fish and better fish from the Provo than anywhere else on the trip — and in both cases, most fish were brown trout. We also caught most of our trout on Tracdown Minnows. The biggest difference was that he and I had far less competition from other anglers.

I’d first learned about the Provo River from a friend who had gone to school at Brigham Young, which is located in Provo, Utah. The best waters were only a half hour from campus (and some areas even closer), so it was an easy escape for him. At the time, the Provo’s trout-filled waters were largely undiscovered, and the few other anglers who used the he river mostly fly-fished. Like what Asher, Autumn and I found (except to an even greater extent, I’d guess) the trout would readily attack his lures.

The Provo is no longer a hidden gem, but it remains a gem. I’d head that way tomorrow if it wasn’t 1,896 miles from my house!

Utah's Provo River

 

 

Autumn Farewell

My phone tells me it's 21 degrees outside my house, and yesterday's rain knocked off many of our late-clinging leaves. Seemingly, autumn has fled North Georgia, and days that have that wonderful autumn-like feel and appearance won't return for another 11 months or so. 

I'm glad to say that on Monday (the day before the rain arrived) it fit well with work needs for me to slip out to one of my favorite Georgia streams to do a bit of fishing and lure photography. I didn't venture far from the care or hit the fishing super hard. Various lure pics were my main priority. Even so, the trout were cooperative enough that I was able to catch and release several pretty little brown trout. Rebel Teeny Wee-Craws and Tracdown Ghost Minnows earned all the day's catch credits.

The stream was low and clear, and the steep slopes that bound it sported the rusty colors that define late autumn. Making a good thing even better, I had the stream to myself, despite fishing very close to an easy access point.

Time to start thinking about winter fishing!

Northern Nevada Discovery

Blogger note: I wrote this in a plane on the way home from Nevada in June, and connection problems kept it from posting. Then I got distracted from my blog and never got around to trying again. So instead of reworking something, I'm posting what I meant to put up more than four months ago, with an intent of making the next post much sooner!

My most recent post expressed confidence that by week’s end I would add Nevada to the list of states where I’ve caught at least one fish. Make that more than 100 fish, most of which were big cutthroat or rainbow trout.

Before this week I had never fished in Nevada and really hadn’t heard much about its trout fisheries. Having spent time on three lakes and having learned about several other rivers and lakes, I’m convinced Nevada has some of the most overlooked trout fishing in the nation. The trophy cutthroat fishery at Pyramid Lake is truly world-class, and both other lakes we fished produced steady action from fat rainbows.

Along with yielding fabulous fishing, all three lakes offered stunning scenery, with surprisingly few other anglers around us.

I fished all week with Denis Isbister, host of Wild Fish, Wild Places, and we caught most of our fish on Tasmanian Devil Lures. Denis has fished these waters all his life, and enjoys opportunities to share favorite places. I’m thrilled that I got to be the recipient of that sharing this week!

Blog Renewal

Fresh content on Jeff Samsel Fishing is farther past due than it has been in this history of this blog. I won't make any bold proclamations, but the plan is to get back to posting regularly, with a high priority being to wrap up my 10 Favorite Fishing Destinations list. I left that hanging with only a few to go.

To get something going, though, I'll just mention my most recent fishing trip, which was a little more than a week ago (too long, I know).  I spent a recent morning fishing one of our local delayed harvest streams and caught and released quite a few rainbows and browns. DH waters in Georgia and the Carolinas provide some fun and easy trout opportunities through the cool months and are always great for photo work for my job.

I also made a lakeside stop the same day and made a few hopeful casts. I didn't have high expectations, though, and that part of the day was more for the sake of getting some lure shots I needed. 

I'm not sure what's next on the agenda, fishing-wise, but I'll probably visit a few other recent outings as I seek to get back into a blogging groove.

Surprise Snow

Snowy bank of Big Wilson Creek in Western North Carolina. Photo by Tim Mead

I guess I can't say the snow was a total surprise. The forecast I'd looked at had said there was a 40 percent chance of light snow Tuesday during the overnight hours, with a possible accumulation of an inch. However, when I peeked out he hotel window on Wednesday morning, there was already much more than an inch on the ground, and the snow was still falling steadily.

I didn't mind. Not at all, actually. Tim Mead and I had already enjoyed one sunny day of fishing the Delayed Harvest section of Big Wilson Creek in Western North Carolina, and the snow would provide opportunities for a completely different set of photos from the same section of stream.

Travel was super slow on the snow-covered winding roads, the fish bit better on the sunny day, and we cut our fishing time fairly short for a couple of snow- and cold-related reasons (including a clumsy slip on my part that left me with soaked gloves and one sleeve wet to the elbow in 28-degree air). Nevertheless, I got to spend an absolutely delightful day with a very good friend exploring a stream that looked very different than Southern Appalachian streams normally look.

The careful drive to the river on the snowy highways and slow travel through Wilson Creek Gorge, which is downstream of where we fished, only added to the adventure. We stopped several times in the gorge to take photos of the river as it crashed between snow-covered boulders and poured over icy waterfalls. Even the walk to the river carried an added sense of an adventure because of the snow.

We actually only landed one trout (a nice rainbow) on the snowy day, but fish alone don't make or break fishing days. Work-wise, the day was a great success because of the unique snowy photos I was able to get. Personally, it was simply fun.

The Ice Edge Pattern

Given yesterday's low of 9, a current temperature of 18 and more of the same forecast for the rest of this week, I can't help thinking back on a crazy cold day of fishing in the South Carolina Upcountry and wondering if the "ice edge" pattern has developed on any local streams.

It was a little less than the three years ago on the same morning that the Bassmaster Classic launch was delayed on Lake Hartwell because boats were frozen to trailers, and I was fishing the delayed harvest section of Chauga River with Bruce Stanton, who was visiting from Arkansas for some Classic-related business.

We both saw more ice than we'd ever before seen on a trout stream in the Deep South on that day, and that ice actually turned out to be the key to the day's pattern. Over time, Bruce and I figured out that the trout were sitting under the edge of the ice, right on the bottom, and feeding in the adjacent current. Once we solved the pattern, we did surprisingly well that day by casting Watsit Grubs and Fuzz-E Grubs upstream and close to the ice and drifting or hopping them along the bottom, parallel to the edge of the ice. The water was clear enough that we saw several trout come out from under the ice to grab out lures.

One added challenge that day was keeping ice off our lures. I've often dealt with ice in rod eyes and even on reels, but the air was cold enough that lures were icing up between casts, especially if we moved a bit between casts. The ice hampered the appearance and action of our lures, but even more importantly, it sometimes covered hooking points! I'm almost certain that both of us missed a couple of fish that day because of iced over hooking points.

I am admittedly curious what kinds of ice lines have formed on local streams this week and whether fish are using them, but I might not be quite curious enough to go find out first hand. Next week I supposed to be warmer!

White River Return

First of the week, I'm loading up the fishing car and pointing it toward the Ozarks for a few days of chasing trout in the White River region. It's a bit of a haul -- 11 or 12 hours -- but a very familiar route. There's no practical flying option to the region, so I almost always drive, and I'm sure I've driven there at least 20 times. Predictably good fishing and very good services for anglers make this area a chosen destination for many media events, and it's somewhere I gladly drive to on my own because the fishing is outstanding and simply because I like the rivers, the people and the culture.

I fished the White last year around this time with a team of guides headed up by Donald Cranor, who I'm fishing with next week, but conditions were radically different. Last year's weather was classic January. Next week, highs are forecast to be in the mid-60s. We also had flood conditions last year, with eight spill gates at Bull Shoals Dam running around the clock, forcing some innovative drifting tactics. This year it's more likely to be unusually low for the season, based on what they have been doing with the water and on the mild forecast, so I'm guessing we might be casting Rebel Tracdown Minnows.

I don't actually know whether we'll fish the White, the Norfork or both from the boat, but I'm certain Donald will pick the best section for conditions. I'm also to plan a little fishing on my own the day I get to town and the morning before I start toward home, so I'd be surprised if I don't spend a little time on both rivers (plus maybe the Spring River, along the way).

What I do know is that I'm look forward to getting back to the White River area and catching some trout! I don't leave for a couple of days, but my gear is already gathered and ready to toss in the car.

Nantahala Play Day

It had been far too long since Nathanial, Asher and I had spent a full day together trout fishing, so our recent day of work and play on North Carolina's Nantahala River was extra fun. We left home dark and early, got to the river just about the time daylight was finding the gorge, and spent the day hopping from spot to spot to catch fish and take photos. Photos were the work objective, so we each kept a camera handy all the time.

We caught a bunch, and all three of us got a slam of rainbows, browns and brook trout during the day. Beyond the catching, it was just a fun day spent together by the river.

The catch-and-release season on North Carolina's delayed-harvest streams just opened a couple of weeks ago. What that means is that these stream sections are well stocked and the trout haven't gotten too educated. Fooling fish isn't an amazing accomplishment, but it's a barrel of fun. We like the Nantahala a lot because it's a beautiful stretch of river with a lot of variety in types of water, and it's just big enough that at any given pull-off, it is practical for two or three people to spread out a bit or even to fish side-by-side. It's also nice because a road parallels the river, so you can fish an area for a while and then move to another pull-off.

We're far from alone in liking the Nantahala, and it can get kind of crowded. However, the many pull-offs and the configuration of the river make it pretty easy to find a spot where you aren't fishing in a crowd. Arriving early also helps. We had the river to ourselves when we arrived, and we got to hit a few spots first. Fishing on a weekday helps a little. Maybe the best thing that can happen for the sake of less company is to have horrible weather (not the case last week), and in truth, wet, nasty days sometimes offer the best fishing action.

Whole Lot of Packing Going On

Asher and I are in full packing mode because tomorrow we leave on this summer's biggest adventure. We're pointing the car north this year, instead of west, and headed for New England. I suppose the primary targets would have to be the beautiful brook trout that live in the ponds of northern New England, but we'll be hitting a variety of waters in New York, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine for brook, rainbow and brown trout, along with smallmouth bass, pike and whatever else wants to cooperate, and we'll even spend a day or two saltwater fishing on the Connecticut coast. If you followed last year's Rebel Trout Trek, this one won't be quite that grand. We were gone nearly a month and traveled all the way to Olympic National Park just outside of Seattle on that trip. I think we'll end up being on the road a little less than two weeks on this summer's trip.

At one point I thought we'd fly and get a rental car, but the more I thought about all the junk I wanted to tote and the scheduling freedom that comes with driving, the more I became convinced that the hours behind the wheel would be well invested. Now I just have to decide which wheel. My Ford Fiesta has been a mighty fine "trout car" and handled last year's cross-country trek, and it is the most likely choice. I need to check logging road conditions in one area of Maine, though, to make sure ground clearance won't present a problem. If that's too iffy we'll spread out more in the Expedition, and I'll just have to spend a little more time squeezing gas pump triggers.

I'll be sharing stories and photos from the trip on the Rebel Lures website and Facebook page beginning Aug. 1, which is around the time we'll likely be returning home. In the meantime, I'm sure I'll post a few travel updates here, on my Facebook fishing page and on Instagram and Twitter (@jeffsamsel on either).

Minimalist Trout Slam

You could say that Asher and I were very efficient yesterday. We managed a "slam" of the trout species that are normally found in Southern Appalachian waters (brook, brown, rainbow) with our first three fish of the day. Unfortunately, my snake-like rainbow trout that completed the slam was also our final fish of the day. Yep. Three fish total. One brown trout. One brook trout. One rainbow trout.

My favorite of yesterday's catches was the first fish of the day, because with it, Asher continued an interesting streak. He and I have fished the lower national park portion of Deep Creek yesterday for the third time. Each time, we've taken the short spur trail to Indian Creek Falls, and each time Asher has caught a fish from the big pool at the base of the waterfall. The first time it was a beautifully marked rainbow. The most other times (yesterday and last week), he caught a nicely marked brown trout. All the fish in that area are wild.

Less Traveled Waters

I admit that I tend to gravitate toward delayed harvest trout waters this time of year. Because of heavy stockings and the catch-and-release requirement, the fish are normally there, and sections of several rivers are sufficiently familiar that it's easy to set a plan. I'm far from alone in that, though, and those same waters get a lot of attention.

Yesterday Asher and decided to fish well upstream of the delayed harvest section of the Chattooga River, mostly because the river was still quite high from this winter's rains, and I felt like the character of the upstream section was better suited for wading along the edges. It's also a section that holds a lot of brown trout that are typically tough to catch, and I thought that high flows on a dark January day might make the browns a little feistier than normal.

Both things turned out to be true, which of course is a good thing, but an added benefit was that we never saw anyone else in the river. Once pair of backpacking anglers were unloading their car when we were, and we saw their campsite and passed them on the trail once. We also greeted one solo angler who was gearing up as we walked from the car to the river. No one in the river, though, and we worked about a mile upstream and fished for probably six hours.

I guess I can't say this for certain because I wasn't there, but I'll bet it wasn't that way in the DH section, even with the high flows. I wasn't really thinking about getting away from crowds when I picked our spots, but I have to say that it was refreshing, and I'm going to be more intentional about thinking about some of those "other waters" for future cool-season outings.

Trout Gear Loaded

Rain scheduled to come in tomorrow night suggests that tomorrow day will offer the closest thing we'll have to settled trout streams for several more days. The forecast also calls for warmer temperatures than we've had for a few days and plenty of cloud cover. All those conditions suggest tomorrow as a good day to chase trout, so that's what Asher and I intend to do.

Whether we'll catch 'em,.. well, we'll see. We're going to try,though. In fact the rods, reels, waders and tackle boxes are already in the car and the warm clothes are piled up on a table.

Local rivers are still fairly feisty from all of winter's rain, so our plan is to begin in a stretch of river where brown trout sometimes grow shoulders and too see if they are in ambush mode, given the high-water conditions.

If the river is too high for Asher and me to wade comfortably or if the trout don't cooperate, we might try a smaller stream or even a small lake. That's getting ahead of things, though. The hope is that Plan A work well and there's no need for a Plan B!

Flooded Rivers

The USGS stream gauge date map shows black and blue dots all over Southern Appalachia (and across much of the South, East Coast and Upper Midwest, for that matter). The dots mark locations of stream gauges. Blue suggests very high flows. Black is even higher.

The rain of late has been crazy. It has actually been seriously rainy around here since mid-fall, so our streams were already running at high levels. For the past couple of weeks, though, the clouds have turned it up a notch, and it has been coming down, coming down, and coming down some more. Yesterday, I spent a couple of hours with a shop vacuum sucking water from the basement area where I keep all my fishing junk, and it looks like I might be doing the same thing again in a few days.

I actually like rainy days, and I really like trout fishing with dark skies and high flows. Brown trout feed best when the skies are extra dark, and most trout position themselves more predictably and become a bit less skittish when flows are high and the water gets a little off colored. The same conditions also tend to lessen crowds, which certainly suits me.

High water has useful limits for fishing, though, and most of are streams are well past those. They are running so hard that most fish are hiding behind rocks on the bottom and are essentially in hang-on-for-life mode. Most streams will have to settle at least a bit before fishing is likely to be good. When that happens, though, it should be really good, with better than normal big-fish potential.

For today, I think my best bet is to do a bit more drying and some sorting in my basement. Getting stuff in better order will let me get on the water faster on those days that will be coming up soon when river conditions are more conducive to good fishing.

The Hold 'Em Hole

Asher and I had caught a half a dozen or so trout in a half hour or so and had missed several others, so action had been decent. The hole he is fishing in the picture above made the afternoon, though.

We'd make a couple of downstream casts and had worked our baits back through the current without bites when I cast my Road Runner Marabou downstream and across the current, let the lure sink in the eddy until it caught the current, and then held it still while it swang out into the current. I was holding the rod tip motionless when a fish smashed my lure. I battled what I thought to be a really big fish initially because of the current and landed a solid rainbow.

After releasing that fish, I told Asher that I hadn't been working my lure when that fish hit and then repeated the cast to demonstrate. Just like it was scripted, as I told him I was "just letting it swing out into the current like this" another trout slammed my bait in the same place.

As you might guess, I hadn't even landed my fish yet when Asher mimicked the cast with a Lindy Watsit Grub, and before long he was fighting a trout of his own. And so it went. I think we ended up catching releasing nine from that run before they finally quite biting.

We fished a bit farther downstream and had a couple of other strikes, but the afternoon was fading so we soon had to call it an afternoon and begin walking toward the car. I'm curious now whether the fish were just ridiculously wadded up in that one hole or whether we simply didn't discover the right "non-presentation" until we got to that particular hole. I guess we'll never know!

Fish Stories

With most folks gone from offices and the other end of emails, and no pressing deadlines of my own, I got a little restless at the keyboard yesterday. Plus, it was dark outside, and I felt like the trout would bite. It didn't take too much pondering of such things before I decided to grab Asher, gather a bit of junk and head for a creek.

The trout indeed cooperated and we caught them pretty well for a fairly short afternoon outing, but that might be a different blog.

What strikes me on this Thanksgiving morning is how grateful I am that I can turn off the computer and head for the creek in the middle of the day and legitimately still be doing my job. We got photos and content that I will use in stories.

I was probably Asher's age or a bit younger when started thinking about the fact that someone had to write those articles in the fishing magazines and decided I wanted to do that when I grew up. The idea that God allows me to earn a living by "writing fish stories" astounds me and makes me very thankful.

It's not just about fishing either -- although I certainly am thankful to get to fish in so many places and call it work. I'm also thankful to be able to work from home with flexible hours, to share my work and at times my travel with my family and to be creative in my work through writing and photography.

My work is ever changing, and over the past couple of decades my major workload has shifted from the magazine features I originally envisioned, to shorter magazine work, to internet stories, to social media post and other content projects. It's still writing fish stories, though, and for that I give thanks this morning.

Spring River Success

Day one of our autumn Ozarks adventure is in the books, and we four worn out dudes. In fact, I think two of four are gone. We drove all night and hit the ground running at daylight to fish Spring River. We fished the spring all day and had a big time doing so. The bite was good, as it always seems to be at the Spring, and we caught a lot of fish.

Tomorrow we head for Dry Run Creek, where only Asher may fish, and we might make it to the Norfork tailwater, where we can all fish tomorrow. Now it's time to sleep, though!

Firing Up Autumn Fishing

I haven't fished an enormous amount over the past few weeks, but that's about to change in a large way. Plans for the next month or so include quite a bit of time on the water in various places and fishing for a nice mix of species. The leaves are also changing, and that change usually correlates with cooler temperatures and hotter fishing action.

First in line is the Tennessee River, where I'll spend a couple of days at Lake Guntersville and a few at Pickwick. Autumn is when the grass mats typically come alive and the best frog bite of the year often develops, so I'm hopeful for some explosive fun. Stop one may actually involve more interviewing, filming and photographing than fishing because TH-Marine has a great group of pros assembled, and it will be a fabulous time to learn and gather videos and story material. Pickwick will likely involve a lot more fishing.

Soon after the Tennessee River run, I'll be going back in the same direction, but farther, on an Ozarks adventure with two of my boys and another friend. We'll focus on rivers and target smallmouth bass and trout, including big tailwater brown trout. Other autumn plans include visits to Oklahoma's Fort Gibson and Tenkiller lakes for bass, crappie and white bass and South Carolina's Santee Cooper lakes for big cats, crappie and more. Much to look forward to, for sure!

My hope is that I'll post regular reports, tips and product information from the travels ahead. I won't promise, though, because I've learned too many times how days can disappear and how a lack of wifi or decent phone service can make such things nearly impossible. I'll only say that I'll try and that I'll try and that I hope you'll check in to see how the fall fishing is going!

Welcome Delay

I'm no more fond of delays than the next guy, but when you're talking about delaying the harvest of trout for half a year, I'm all in favor. The catch-and-release season on North Carolina's 30-plus delayed harvest trout streams opens this morning. In Georgia and South Carolina, the delayed-harvest opportunity begins next month. These waters, which are ever expanding in number, provide an outstanding cool-season opportunity for anglers who don't mind releasing their fish and fishing only single-hook artificial lures.

I'm a big fan of the delayed harvest concept because it makes great use of resources. Most waters that are managed this way offer outstanding cool-season trout habitat, but conditions deteriorate dramatically when the whether warms during the summer. Most cannot hold high densities of trout through the warm months, so it is only because of the harvest season that fisheries crews can stock these waters so heavily for the catch-and-release season. Two distinctive user groups of trout fishermen are very well served on waters that mostly received only early-season stockings or very light summer stockings prior to the development of this program.

Before you hop in the in the car too quickly, do check the stocking schedule, which is posted on the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission's website. Initial stockings are staggered over the first week of October, and it would be sort of sad to visit a delayed harvest stream for the first time any given year, with naturally high expectations, the day before they stock the fish!

I haven't made any specific plans yet, but you can trust that I'll have the car pointed toward North Carolina soon!

Gift From Kenneth the Dog

Kenneth must have been listening at least one of those times when I told him how well his fur works for tying fish-catching jigs. When I returned from travels, I found this beautiful pile of Kenneth fur in my office. He's a humble little dude, though. When I thanked him for the tying material, he looked at me like he didn't know what I was talking about.

I mostly tie 1/32- and 1/64-ounce jigs, along with a few flies, from his fur, so that pile will last a very long time, and he looked just as fluffy as ever, so I'm pretty sure I can find more when I need it. In case you wonder about the color difference, by the way, he really does look a lot blacker than his fur does off of him. The picture shows the fur lighter than it really is and with a little different tone, but the hair itself is kind of a dark grey, while he looks black. Of course, the jigs look pretty black when they are wet. The fur also looks and feels straight on Kenneth, but it has a bit of kink to it and flairs out on jigs. That characteristic, along with its buoyancy, are keys to its effectiveness, in my opinion.

I just know that Kenneth Bugs catch fish, so I appreciate for the nice little gift he left for me.

Thank You for Following

Well, Asher and returned to a wonderful welcome at home last night, having logged 8,008 miles,  fished in nine states and traveled hrough 22. Quite the adventure.

I'm very thankful for all who followed, commented and encouraged us along the way. I admittedly had a tough time keeping reports as fresh as I would have preferred on this page, but I do hope you found my daily blog on the Rebel Lures Journal page and Asher's blog, which included photos and his descriptions from every day of the trip. If not. maybe you'd like to peek back! Several also followed and responded to posts on my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and Asher and I very much appreciate every comment and "like."

I still have photos and stories to share, so I'll likely have several more posts about #RebelTroutTrek discoveries and lessons on this page.