Made it out Saturday with the wife and kid to fish Ashe County's DH at Helton Creek. My wife actually really enjoys to fish and she is very good...I've taught her well. She only spin fishes and has no desire to try the fly rod and I can't blame her a bit. It does seem difficult at first and she's very happy landing fish after fish on the spin rod.
The day was to be an annual outing of about 6 of us family, but due to some sickness just us 3 hit the road. The skies had threatened some rain all day but we only got a very short sprinkle around 1pm. The fishing was pretty good, she landed about 8 or so in less than probably 3 hours of fishing.
Helton, in it's infancy of a DH stream, was awesome. Not to say it still isn't an excellent stocker stream but the line of folks fishing seems endless. The road follows the stream the entire stretch and it's tough to find a good hole or stretch of more than 50 yards to fish to yourself. The first time I fished it I was almost new to trout fishing and new to living in Boone. I went often and learned a ton and caught a ton of fish. Now it seems everyone, along with their brother, knows it exists. I don't really mind at all but it makes it tough to fish when so many folks could care less about giving another man a little room. To lots of people around here that is all they know, stocked streams. The NC Wildlife commission does an excellent job with providing numerous streams to just catch some fish. I commend their efforts.
On the first stop she landed a very nice rainbow on the first cast of the day. I was very thrilled to see this as I figured every trout in the stream had a sore lip by the time we got there, which was about noon. The biggest of the day was about a 14 incher of a very good looking speckled rainbow. And one thing for sure, they sure can grow some big brookies in those tanks.
My son, who is two and a true gift, had a blast just getting completely dirty and tossing rocks, sticks, and whatever else he could pick up into the water. He also loved helping "release" the fish back into the water. A more proper word for him would be "throw" the fish back into the water. We were very careful each one was unharmed. The fly rod got a rest as my hands were full keeping my son from jumping in and taking the fish on my wife's hook. I also was too tied up to take many good pics but I got a few. Each trout was caught on the old faithful "coachdog" rooster tail patter in a 1/8th ounce.
This weekend should find me on a secret wild brookie stream. I hope my SAGE didn't get his feelings hurt too bad just hiding in the back of the truck on this trip...I'll make it up to him with the agressive brookies.
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