More wild feshin'

Following the most excellent fishing trip with my son on Saturday my fellow fishing partner and I hit some wild water after Sunday morning church. The weather was just perfect and so was the water. We took out right after service and took my old yota' while I continued to push it's limits on a dirt road for many miles into some local wilderness. I just can't name the stream as I feel it's a smack in the face as it's whereabouts are already nowhere near a secret. Its steep trail to the stream does continue to keep a great deal of folks at bay, which is a great thing. I'd put up a gate if the NCWRC would let me!

After hitting the trail and eating a pack lunch on the hike in we finally geared up and began casting at around 12ish. No hatches were coming off which was a big surprise given the temps but we quickly started catching fish. I landed quite a few wild bows in the 6-8 inch range on a prince nymph in about a #18 or so. I don't tie flies so knowing exactly what size the hook is when I open the box is near impossible for me and sometimes seems downright pointless. So, at this point I don't really care. But I do recognize enough to know I drug it behind a #12 march brown parachute with about 12"-14" inches of tippet. This combo proved to by my only flies for the day, there was no need to switch because I hit it right on the money for once and luckily didn't have to fumble around diggin through my box all afternoon.

The first bow didn't hang around long enough for a pic but took the prince in a quick run feeding a large pool. After a couple hours I began missing and getting more and more strikes on the march brown and the tippet became frayed, so I clipped off the prince and went DRY solo. It turned out to be the ticket from about 2-4pm. This stream has plenty of fish in it but on this clear water day they proved to be the wiser. My big clumsy rear gets a little anxious at times so I scared a few into a coma I think. All of the fish landed and seen this day were bows with one beautiful brown who took the dry. To my dismay the pic turned out a little fuzzy (seen above).

In the end I probably landed 5 or so and missed twice and many and embarrsingly spooked too many to name. This stream was running near perfect levels and will remain on my top 5 list. And props to my fishin partner in crime...that joker can cast a stinkin' 80 foot roll cast I think. Maybe he'll lend me those skills one day...