The Real Fall Fishing trip

I don't mind solitude.

I used to crave it and seek it out far too often.

These days, I find it where I least expect it and least enjoy it.

At least, most days.

My fall fishing weekend is not normally a time reserved for solitude.  Instead, it's reserved for enjoyment with at least another fishing buddy, if not a couple of guys.

This year, however, three of them bailed on me.

Which was fine since this was the year I planned to go back to the stream where it all began for me.

Fly fishing is not how I was brought up.  Trout fishing wasn't even on my radar until late high school.

But once I discovered this little valley where little more than a century ago Carolina parakeets were still present, things changed dramatically.

There are pools up there big enough to hide a truck in.  And where there are pools that big, there are fish.

Lots of them and some big enough to warrant the arduous hike in.

I packed my gear for the trip, realizing it was later in the year than I'd ever been up there, which meant shelter, waders, wading boots, uggghhh!  55lbs is just too much for a weekend trip!

But the sky was beautiful, the colors were gorgeous, and I wasn't going to be slowed down by decrepit old knees that threatened to buckle under the extra strain.

Late in October is the perfect time for me to getaway.  It's the 1st part of the 4th quarter at the office, which means the industry in which I'm employed is overwhelmed with work.  All the more reason to get out and down the road as often as possible.  I knew I was going to have a rough day come Monday, but some things are worth it.

So, down the road I went:

Now, this place is not exactly along the beaten path.  I mean, there is a path to it (which is more than I can say about a lot of the places I've fished!), but you have to go through a lot to get there.

including past some places you would just about swear were in the hills of West Virginia . . .

However, there are more than a few really cool parts to being this far away . . .

Proof that I could not be reached!!!!!!!!!!!!


With scenery like this, who wants to be found anyways!

And so off I went into the great outdoors, where halfway down the trail to my campsite I realized that the compact, waterproof camera I brought along to document the hiking, camping, fishing part needed to capture the view along the trail.

There was just one problem . . . the battery was sitting in the charger at the house.


So, no fishin' pics

And no serene, remote valley pics.

And no big pool or big fish pics (there were big fish, btw).

But I will go back in the Spring in search of some wildflowers and exotic plant life.

Here are a few from exploring later in the weekend . . .

I did make one more stop "on the way home" at another section of the same creek, and this time, I at least took a few minutes for some non-fishing pictures.

Beauty of an afternoon

The best public trophy trout water in Western North Carolina is not a secret location, by any means.  That is evidenced by the two fishermen below my Ohioan brother-in-law, above (and sebenty-gabillion upstream of us that I didn't have the heart to photograph - HEY!  I broke one of my chief rules by taking my camera gear on the river in the first place!).  He, the Ohioan, is spoiled by the wide open, steelhead-filled tributaries of Lake Erie and has never experienced Southern trout fishing like he did yesterday.

In the pic above, he's hooked into his first fish of the day.  That fish turned him on to Southern flyfishing once and for all.  Here's a couple more shots of him fighting that fish:

Above he's thinking, "This isn't so hard."

Below, his story is changing somewhat. The look on his face was somethin' akin to disbelief mixed with total exhilaration with a wee bit of "I think I just lost bladder control" thrown in for effect.

 And in this one, it's all over but the cryin'

 That would be right after the dreaded "bink!" sound and only a few seconds after the fisherman downstream exclaimed "He's HUGE!!!" as the fish rocketed past his legs (evidenced by the now-slack line trailing off in the distance).

In the pic below, it's an hour or so later and he's hooked into a 14-16" rainbow and he is less-than-overwhelmed as you can tell by his body language.

And here he's chasing after the siblings/cousins/parents of the brown I couldn't keep off the bottom of the river fifteen minutes earlier (there's about a dozen fish piled up under that ledge sipping emerging midges at their whimsical leisure):

So now he's spoiled after chasing wild brookies and various survivors of the poachers catch-and-take guys in some of the smaller waters over the last few years and insists that I never take him trout fishing anywhere else ever again.

Fine by me.

Just don't count on pictures every time.