Real Web Research

Having noticed that I'd let a broad-shouldered trout get the best of me and break off my dropper fly, Chetola Lodge guide Dustin Coffey started walking downstream to where he had me positioned in the stream. Halfway to me he stopped and knelt for a couple of minutes, peering through brush along the steep creek bank as if he'd dropped something.

He smiled when he stood back up, sporting the look of a man who had found what he'd been looking for, but I hadn't seen him grab anything. Able to read the question on my face, he answered without me having to ask. "Spider web. I was looking to see what's on today's menu." 

When Coffey pulled out his fly box, he didn't do that typical pondering gaze across his flies. He was after something specific, based on what he'd seen in the spider web, and he found it quickly. I won't tell you what fly he grabbed. (He said it was a secret!) And in truth, what fly he tied on my dropper that day isn't nearly as important as the fly best matches the bugs you find in any webs beside a stream you are fishing.

I can tell you the fly he grabbed with such confidence worked really well!

-More about fishing in the North Carolina High Country

Golden Opportunity

Despite MANY big trout in the Boone Fork run where I enjoyed the opportunity to fish yesterday, including a few browns and rainbows that I'm sure were more then 30 inches long and with double-digit weights, the golden trout grabbed my focus. Not that the other trout weren't intriguing or seriously fun to catch. They were. I'd just never caught a golden trout before, and with those golden backs, they stood out in the runs and made it painfully obvious that I was drifting flies over or through several of them. I'd also heard that they were the toughest customers of the four trout species that swim in the Refuge, and that only fueled my desire to catch one.

Don't get me wrong. If no golden trout had cooperated, I'd have still had a blast catching big trout on a fly rod, especially considering the fact that quite a few fish blasted 'hoppers or beetles on the surface. Still, they are so visible that every time one charged a fly and did not commit, that built the desire to catch one even more. I also had a few that actually hit and that I failed to hook.

When I finally set the hook and saw a big mustard colored flash beneath the surface I was delighted and hopeful to successfully land the fish, and when Chetola Resort guide Dustin Coffey slid the net under my first golden trout I was delighted. That first of two golden trout I ended up catching was far from my biggest fish that day. In fact, a rainbow I caught a little later was the biggest stream trout of any kind that I've ever caught.

Still, the golden was my favorite, and I'm thankful for the opportunity to catch couple of them and to add No. 21 to this year's fish species list.

Plans on the Fly

Today's High Country fishing plan had been to float the South Fork of the New River and flyfish for smallmouth bass. Then came the rain. Yesterday afternoon's rain showers turned into thunderstorms that kept regenerating and continued into the morning, and the normally clear South Fork turned into chocolate milk. Obviously that the river less pretty for floating. More importantly to our plans, it tends to put the fish in shutdown mode until the water begins clearing at least a little bit.

The plan was for us to go to the RiverGirl Fishing Co. outpost in Todd, North Carolina, which is right on the South Fork. Instead Kelly McCoy, RiverGirl founder and namesake, came to our group, and took us trout fishing farther up in the New River watershed. Even well upstream, the water was higher and more stained than what McCoy had hoped to find. That meant different flies and a bit of added challenge in wading conditions.

She also hadn't planned to try to guide three people on a single smallish stream. She adapted exceptionally well, though, taking everything as it came, and taking time with each of us to make sure we were doing all that was within her control to catch some fish.

I caught a few fish, a brown and a couple of rainbows and brown, and one of the rainbows definitely was a wild fish. (That one flopped out of my hand before I could get a photo, of course.) As important as catching fish, I learned a lot that I can apply for future stories, and I really appreciate McCoy adapting to accommodate us.

First Fly Trout

Asher got his first taste of flyfishing today and definitely liked the taste. He and I took a half-day instructional trip on the Nacoochee Bend section of the Chattahoochee River, learning from Jake Darling, assistant manager of Unicoi Outfitters and a Unicoi guide.

Jake began with some one-on-one instruction with Asher, showing him the casting and line-management techniques he would need for the way we would be fishing, teaching him how to hook and fight a fish, and then walking him through rigging with a strike indicator, two flies and a couple of split shot. I listened quietly in the shadows, mostly hiding behind my camera, and learned at least as much as Asher.

Basics covered, Jake set me up beside a feeding trough and moved upstream with Asher, where he coached him through casts, mends and hooksets.


Asher and I each gave Jake plenty of work untangling knots or retying rigs that weren't worth trying to untangle, and we both got out-muscled or outsmarted (or both) by a big trout. That said, we also both managed to land a handful of Chattahoochee River rainbows and had a big time doing so. More importantly, I learned stuff that I incorporate into writing and got lots of photos, and Asher and I both learned plenty that we can apply during future trout outings.