I won't claim that Nathaniel and I mastered the fish at the Nantahala yesterday. We only landed three trout. However, I lost two others almost at the rod tip, had a few trout hooked briefly and had a handful of other hits. Given the long icicles hanging from the bluffs, the rocking river and the relatively low number of trout we saw in a few "indicator" pools that provide a decent gauge of what remains from fall stockings, I feel like that was decent success. The key to drawing strikes, I think, was taking advantage of the conditions we were served.
Very high water puts a lot of fish in survival mode, and it makes much of the river inaccessible. However, it also positions fish in certain protected areas and puts those fish in ambush mode. Virtually all our fish came from moderately small protected eddies behind boulders and in broader areas of moderated flow and most hit on the first or second cast to a given area.
Cold water was the other major controlling factor. Although the day wasn't too bitter, starting in the high 20s and rising into the low 40s, we're in the latter half of January now, and the last several days' lows have been very low in the North Carolina mountains. Stream-side rocks and rapids were ice coated and icicles dangled from the bluffs. When the water gets as cold as it will be all winter, slow and low presentations become critical. I caught one fish on a Rebel Tracdown minnow, which I was swimming slowly and steadily in an eddy behind a big rock. Most other hits were on a Road Runner Pro Marabou or a Lindy Fuzz-E Grub being dead drifted or twitched very slowly.
Any time you get extreme conditions, whether in the form or flood waters, ridiculously low flows, heavy stain, extreme hot or cold or whatever else, consider the limitations the conditions create for the fish and then use that understanding to your advantage. You'll catch more fish.
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