Bonus Backcountry Bartrams Bass

Chattooga River Bartram's bass

Rainbow and brown trout were the target species during a recent wade-fishing trip, and we caught plenty of them. Bartrams bass were a bonus — an excellent bonus from my standpoint.

I wasn’t shocked to catch Bartrams bass. I’d caught them from the same section of the Chattooga River before — while fishing with the same friend, in fact. And I’ve caught many Bartrams farther downstream on the same river. I did not expect to catch enough bass to lose count, but that’s exactly what happened.

Interestingly, I think I could have caught far more. The Bartrams mostly came late in the day. We were fishing through a section of remote river and needed to keep moving to ever get to where we could reasonably get out and connect with a trail. I was casting while walking and in places getting at least one hit on almost every cast.

I’m a huge fan of Bartrams bass. While they don’t grow very large, they are feisty and fun to catch and ways have fabulous markings.

Bartrams bass, by the way, are upland black bass — one of the redeye species — and they are only found in the upper Savannah River watershed. Hybridization with non-native Alabama bass and spotted bass has substantially reduced their range over the years. Select water still have strong populations, though.

The trout also served up big fun, but that’s another story! To see the river and catches of trout and bass, check out “Brown Trout, Rainbows & Bartrams Bass — Walk-in Fishing Adventure” on Fishing on Foot YouTube.

A Little Trout Flair

Painting a pair of coasters was part of an evening event my wife and I recently attended. When I pick up a paintbrush, markers or other art supplies, a fish — or at least something fish related — usually forms.

In this case it was a square of the side of a brown trout. Mostly anyway. I went a little off script with some of the spot coloration. I was mostly content with the result and ready to try something else. 

My wife suggested another kind of trout, and that would have been best. Instead I went for a what was supposed to be a Bob Rossish “happy little scene” with mountains, a little stream and some flowers. Not too far into it I knew it would be dreadfully lame and that I’d paint over it at home. That became the rainbow.

We ended up with a couple of extras, so I decided to add a brook trout to the set. I’ll probably stop there, but it’s not impossible that a cutthroat will eventually join the set.

The coasters are now part of my little basement studio area. I can’t say it makes perfect sense to have only one chair and three coasters on a chest that serves as an end table. However, I like having a few of my own fishy scruples as part of my video set.

First Fish of 2026

 

Something just doesn’t seem right when we get well into January and I realize that I have not yet caught a fish in the new year. Not wanting to risk that and having no other plans on New Year’s morning, I decided to make a river run.

Temps were in the 20s, and the river was extremely low and clear — not ideal catching conditions — but it’s a heavily stocked section with a catch and release requirement this time of year, so I knew there would be plenty of fish available.

Interestingly, despite ice forming on my line guides every few casts, I found a few fish rising on something too small to see in one of the first pools I fished. Trout were swiping at my lures but wouldn’t quite commit, despite me changing my offering a couple of times. 

I decided to move along to see what else I could find. A couple hours later, having found nothing else, I began wondering if I’d moved from that spot too quickly. And with more anglers arriving, I was even questioning whether I would end up getting my first fish of the year.

Thankfully, my concerns were overplayed. I eventually found the right cast and presentation and caught a couple of brown trout with essentially the same cast. Landing - Lindy Quiver Spoon in a current line across the river, letting tumble in the current, and the snapping it upward, near the bottom was the ticket.

A little farther upstream, I found a rainbow that took a Bobby Garland Mayfly. Then, on the way out, I stopped back by the pool where I saw morning activity and was able to coax one of those fish — a pretty rainbow— into grabbing my Mayfly. 

I only fished the morning, and can’t claim I just tore ‘em up. However, it was a fun New Year’s morning, and I was happy to tally my first two species of 2025: brown trout and rainbow trout.

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!

Favorite Fishing Destinations Countdown: No. 7 - Lake Jocassee, South Carolina

I'll just warn you up front that if someone who has visited Lake Jocassee tries to tell you about the lake, it's going to sound like hyperbole. You'll surely hear a few terms like "gem" or "crown jewel," and adjectives will likely include "beautiful" and "spectacular." It's tough to not sound trite with words that often get tossed around so freely, but in Jocassee's case, they all fit, and in all honesty, no words do the scenery justice.

Straddling the Blue Ridge Escarpment and fed by mountain rivers, 7,500-acre Lake Jocassee is steep sided and crazily clear. Maximum depth is 350 feet, and it's nothing on this lake to be within easy casting distance for the bank and sitting over triple-digit depths. Jocassee's rocky shores are mostly forested, with minimal development, and virtually all major tributaries enter the lake over waterfalls or big, crashing rapids.

Lake Jocassee isn't just a pretty face, though. Despite its relatively small size, this lake holds claim to more state record fish than any other South Carolina waterway. South Carolina's state record smallmouth bass, spotted bass, redeye bass, brown trout and rainbow trout all came from Lake Jocassee. Beyond the cool-water species it's most famous for, Jocassee holds a small number of big
largemouths.

I won't claim Lake Jocassee is easy. Because of its extreme depth and clarity, it can be a tough nut to crack, and some of the best fishing calls for specialized approaches like deep-water trolling and night-fishing. I've been fortunate to have gotten to spend time on this lake with some very good anglers, and I'd definitely suggest hiring a guide if you're able to do so.

That said, Lake Jocassee is one of those places that warrants a visit whether or not you can get the fish to cooperate. Of course, once you've seen it for yourself, you'll be stuck with the dilemma of trying to describe Lake Jocassee to friends without sounding cliché, and my guess is that you wont' find words to it justice!

Devil's Fork State Park offers good boating and shoreline access, lodging, camping and supplies. For guided fishing, check out Jocassee Charters. For area information, visit Upcountry South Carolina.

Little Red Trout Stop

Remnants from overnight rains and an approaching bigger system caused me to question my idea of a travel detour to the Little Red River on the way home from Fort Smith last week. However, a window of only sprinkles appeared that it would last through the morning, and the swing wasn't that far off my travel path.

Upon arriving, I found completely low water. That makes for easy wading it but can make the fishing tougher, especially with artificial lures. A bit more flow definitely makes tailwater trout more aggressive and causes them to hold in predictable positions. The low flows eliminated ideas I'd had about throwing large minnow bait for the Little Red's famous big browns, but I remained hopeful that stocker rainbows (and maybe a brown or two) would show interest in smaller hard-bait offerings.

Story shortened, they did. It took a bit of looking to find the best spot, and I experimented a bit with lures and colors before finding what they wanted most on that morning, but once I figured it out, the action was good. I lost count, but I'd guess I ended up catching between 15 and 20 trout in a few hours before beginning my travel toward home. All except one were rainbows. Most were fresh stocker size. A few were a bit longer and stouter and looked like they'd been in the river longer. I also caught one brown trout and had one slightly bigger brown (maybe 16 inches) roll on top and throw the hook.

My best lure, by far, was a Rebel TD47 Tracdown Ghost Minnow in a Brown Trout color pattern, worked steadily with just an occasional twitch to trigger strikes. That's not surprising. The Ghost Minnow has a slender profile creates a subtlety that's good for fussy fish and it can be swam close to the bottom. The Brown Trout color and tends to produce well on dark days.

It was a fun few hours in the stream, and the 2018 fish list is officially underway, with rainbow trout and brown trout being the first two listings. I'd actually done a bit fishing in bass waters the day before I visited the Little Red, but I didn't catch anything that day. My next stop is also to a trout stream, so maybe I can add brook trout!

'Gill Needed

Two species on the catch list two days from the end of January is just plain pitiful and means that I haven't been fishing nearly enough. I enjoyed great trout fishing at the White River a couple of weeks back and caught a bunch of rainbows and browns, and I'm thank for that trip. That's it, though. No ice adventures or trips to the coast, both of which are types of outings that commonly get the fishing year off to a quick start.

Beyond the bigger trips, though, I haven't even done any afternoon pond fishing this month and therefore don't even have a largemouth bass or a bluegill on my list. That's the part that must be fixed soon. I need to grab one or more of the little people who live in this house and head for a local pond so we can at least catch a few bluegills.

Texas Calling

Today's a packing day for Nathaniel and me because tomorrow, right after Asher's Little League tryouts, we point the Expedition toward Texas and begin the long drive. We'll spend a week or so in the Lone Star State, fishing for everything from speckled trout to rainbow trout. (Yep. They have those in Texas.) Rough path is slated, but we'll fill in most details as we go.

I've enjoyed some really good fishing in Texas, including time on acclaimed lakes like Falcon, Amistad and Fork and wading out of Port Mansfield. It's been a few years since I've been there, though, and next week plans don't include any places I've fished before, so I'm really looking forward to getting back down there and to discovering new stuff.

Better get to packing, I suppose!

#CatchFishAnywhere

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!

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!

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.

Exploring New Water

Yesterday's biggest trout, a pretty Wilson Creek rainbow. Photo by Asher Samsel

Exploration often involves more than wading up a new creek. It typically begins with web research and a big of map study and often involves things like making wrong turns and learning that a road that looks like the rest of the roads on the map turns to dirt, climbs a pretty substantial mountain and gets scarily soft and slick for Ford Fiesta travel after a morning rain. It also involves discovering spots where a road beside a river truly provides access and where the road is actually 50 feet above the stream, the banks are wooded and the river is deep enough float your hat from bank to bank.

Asher and I did a little of all that yesterday as we explored the delayed harvest section of Wilson Creek in Western North Carolina. We also learned more about the river's character and how it varies through that stretch, where it can be accessed and how the fish use the river (or at least how they used it given yesterday's conditions). I learned a lot that will aid my approach next time And there definitely will be a next time. While the river is a pretty good trek from here for a day trip (nearly four hours, each way), I was sufficiently impressed with what I saw that I'll definitely return.

While learning and discovering, we also managed to catch some brook trout and rainbows, including one dandy rainbow that nabbed a Rebel Tracdown Ghost Minnow at the head of a long run. I had 2-pound-test, and the net was in the car, well up a steep bank, so landing the fish was almost as intense as navigating the slippery parts of the road.

As anticipated, it definitely was good practice for Asher and me for this summer's Rebel Trout Trek. Asher kept a camera with him and did a good job with it, and he stayed enthusiastic all day, despite the long drive at each end. I'm looking forward to discovering all sorts of things together this summer, and understand that some of those discoveries will begin with wrong turns.

#RebelTroutTrek

Chattooga Trout Slam

My first trout outing of the new year yielded my first trout slam of the year, with one or more brook, brown and rainbow trout all having cooperated. All came on a Kenneth Bug, which is what I call any hair jig tied primarily with fur from our dog Kenneth.

Nathaniel, Brian Latimer and I fished the Chattooga River, which forms the border between Georgia and South Carolina. The rainbow and brook trout were Georgia fish, which means that the first four fish added this year's species list (bluegill, largemouth bass, rainbow trout, brook trout) all came from Georgia. I have the brown trout listed as South Carolina, as of now, but the jury remains out about how it should be counted. I was standing in South Carolina, close to the bank, but I cast across the river into Georgia and the fish hit right away.

It was a fun and productive outing, and I'm glad we were able to slip out. Next fishing for me will be next week on the ice in Pennsylvania. I drive north on Monday and expect to be on the ice first thing Tuesday morning. Seems likely that my species list will grow a bit more next week.

Pleasant Change of Plans

The plan this morning was to fish a section of delayed harvest trout waters on Big Snowbird Creek that I'd never before seen. I knew trout would be very well stocked this early in the release-only season, and I'd heard a paralleling gravel road provided plenty of places to get in and out of the creek.

A rainy morning I assumed would be a good thing because it would lessen crowds in waters I expected to be very popular on a Saturday. As it turned out the rain made mush out of a freshly graded road that was actually dirt, not gravel, and with my gocart (Ford Fiesta) I dared not try to make it to the delayed harvest section.

We were to the stream, though, and wanted to fish, so I pulled over when I could and we stepped into hatchery supported waters that probably hadn't been stocked for more than a month.

It started slow, and we wondered at first if we were among fish at all, and when Nathaniel caught a brook trout after 15 or 20 minutes we felt like we'd found success. When he caught another on the next cast, hope grew that we'd find more.

As it turned out we caught quite a few more. By our best tally we caught 19 trout, including two really nice rainbows that Nathaniel caught. Maybe the best part, though, was that the many trucks that came up the dirt road all went right past us to the delayed harvest section, so we fished through about 3/4 mile of stream and never crossed paths with another angler.

I don't know what we would have caught had we gotten to where I'd meant to, but I can't imagine it would have been a better day.

One & Done Rainbow

First trout of the morning, a rainbow, came on the morning's fourth cast, and I got two more hits from the same pool -- an overfished, featureless hole that normally doesn't produce much. Good prospects for the day's action, one would think.

One would think.

At day's end, we visited the same pool one final time, and had high hopes that I could catch one more and double my day's catch. Didn't happen. I did have plenty of other opportunities with fish that hit, and the friend I fished with caught a handful of fish through the day. For some reason, I just couldn't quite connect. The fish were there and hitting my lures. I just couldn't catch 'em.

That's OK. I had a great time sharing a beautiful mountain stream with a friend and doing my best to outwit a fish. If plans remain unchanged, I'll get another chance on another stream on Friday.

Tying Bug Bitten

I knew the tying bug had bitten me, but I'm not sure I knew how bad the bite was. Beyond the draw of the vice at home, the attraction of fur, feathers and glitzy stuff in any setting and the pattern ideas that bounce around in my head, the tying bug bite has really translated to the water. If I'm fishing, and there's any possible Ugly Bug application, that's the box I'm reaching for, and it's a huge added thrill any time I can catch my fish on jigs I've tied.

Fortunately, the fish seem pretty willing to eat my bugs. In fact, in some recent situations I've felt like they were the best thing going.

Ugly Bugs have been good to me in Deadwood. So far, I've used one of my own creations to catch brown and rainbow trout, crappie, bluegills, rock bass, northern pike, largemouths, smallmouths and walleyes. The one I picked out for lakers didn't do the job, but every other time I've tied on an Ugly Bug in three days of fishing, I've caught fish.

Of course, I've also fed more than a few bugs to rocks or trees. I guess I'll have to spend some more time tying when I get home! But first one more day of fishing.

Major Pactola Slam

Tyler French had told me on the drive to Lake Pactola that we could do a lot of different things, and I'd say he backed that on the water. By day's end we'd landed nine different kind of fish, including everything from lake trout to bluegills. We also caught fish a host of ways, vertical jigging for the lakers (and one brown), casting ultralights and fly gear for panfish in the backs of cover and working banks with bigger casting gear for northern pike.

The rainbow pictured above was actually our toughest customer. Rainbows abound in Pactola and are normally a sure thing if you have any interest in catching them. Some sort of tiny bugs were hatching yesterday, though, and the 'bows were locked onto them. We spent an hour after lunch casting everything in our boxes in a cove by the dam where rainbows were rising all around us before I finally managed to catch one. We had just enough follows to keep us after them, but they were very difficult.

Pactola, which is a beautiful lake in the Black Hills, just south of Deadwood, is great for the multi-species approach because it holds such a variety and it is small enough that you can easily hop from one spot to another to catch different fish.

Of the portion I landed, one species, a northern pike, was new to my 2014 list.

The actual list form yesterday, in rough order of when we got them, was: lake trout, brown trout, bluegill, crappie, northern pike, rock bass, yellow perch, rainbow trout, largemouth bass. As for the total number of fish caught, I have no idea. The 'gills, rock bass and crappie were pretty stupidly easy in a few places so they would have kicked the count mighty high.

I'm glad I got to spend the day in Tyler's boat. Big, big fun.

Rainbow & Falling Waters

We'd mostly stopped at the pull-off to get a better view of Cullasaja Falls, which crashes dramatically just to the side of U.S. Highway 64 in western North Carolina but well down in a gorge.  Then we noticed the path that obviously led to the base of the falls. It wasn't truly a trail, and parts looked more like drops than slopes. Still, we were curious what it looked like at the base of the falls and whether any trout lived down there and we were ready for some exploration.

Turned out the vantage from the bottom more than justified the steep hike in and even the climb out and that at least one trout does indeed live in one of the first deep runs below the waterfall. Based on its small size and brilliant markings, I'm fairly certain the fish I caught was a wild rainbow. We were fishing in Hatchery Supported waters, but many of North Carolina's stocked streams also support some wild fish, and the mot likely places to catch them are well away from where hatchery trucks can venture.

After exploring the base of the falls a while and climbing back out of the hole, we started up the gorge, by truck, pulled into pretty much any vacant pullout and looked to see if the river looked worth visiting at that point Usually it did. A couple of times we parked nearly at river level beside a flat section of the Cullasaja. More often, we were well above the river and had to descend a steep pig path. We only caught a handful of trout (all rainbows), but exploring the Cullasaja would have been big fun even without a fishing rod.

We capped the day of fishing with a couple of short waterfall hikes. One was to Dry Falls, also on the Cullasaja, which pours over a big overhang that a trail cuts beneath. Seeing a waterfall from the inside is pretty cool. The other was to Glen Falls, a tall series of falls on a small stream in the upper watershed of the West Fork of the Chattooga River. That creek contains native brook trout, from my understanding, but you couldn't have fished in the section we saw. Inches of water racing over steep
granite.

Drop-In Trout

As Nathaniel walked along a  rock wall beside a big plunge pool, he looked down into the swirling eddy on the edge of the pool. He immediately saw trout holding beneath all the floating debris, and the more he peered into  the hole, the more trout he saw. Never one to walk past a waiting fish, Nathaniel slipped a Watsit Grub into a gap in the debris, dropped it almost to the bottom and began jiggling it lightly. Immediately one of the trout attacked, and he set the hook and pulled up the fish.

"That was fun!" he said about the visual game, and then he dropped his grub back down. It wasn't long before he pulled out another trout and his friends came to join him on the wall. I'm not sure how many fish they ended up catching from straight below before the trout got wise, but I know it quite a few and that all three boys had a big time. The biggest challenge was getting the grub between the floating bark and branches and keeping it close to the bottom without the debris catching the line and pulling it back up. If they could work a lure among the trout, the fish would bite, and it was obvious when to set the hook because everything happened in clear sight.

The boys were fishing in a youth-only stream, where I wasn't allowed to fish, so I didn't get to try the game, but the drop-in trout fishing sure was fun to watch.

Tough to Quit

Jeff Sundin was right. It's far better to have to quit fishing when you really don't want to than to endure the end of a day when you are eager to be done. Still, pulling big 'gills from little holes in the ice is just so fun that I had a hard time resolving to reel my jig up once and for all. The sun was sinking, though, and the day's work was done, so I bid the ice, the crappie and the bluegills farewell.

We actually spent the first half of today on a little trout lake. The trout were fairly evasive, but it was
a fun morning outing on a beautiful walk-in lake, and Jon Thelen did manage one really pretty rainbow, which attacked a Lindy Slick Jig/Watsit Grub combination. From Jon's report, it fought like a very angry fish and felt like it was even bigger than it was. I hope to give Minnesota trout lakes another try some time.

Homeward bound tomorrow. Word has it we got a lot of snow at home (Georgia), so I'm hopeful my flight is on time and that the roads from the airport all the way to my house, 90 miles to the north, are cleared by the time I'm ready to get on them.

I look forward to my next ice adventure, whenever that turns out to be. More likely than not, it'll be next season. You never know, though!