the spotted tail

The I Sock at Trout Fishing Fishing Report and Photo Essay

Thanks for reading the I sock at trout fishing fishing report. The fish in North Carolina are all still there after four days of my mostly unsuccessful attempts to catch them. This blog will be fairly long- you might want to save it for the office!

This is what we fantasized about…

Note to subscribers– some of you have been emailing, telling me the photos are not going through. They appear in your email back to me! At the bottom of the blog email you get are links to my websites and the blog, www.spottedtail.com/blog. Hit the link, see the original blog.

Back to business…

Left Friday morning on my way to Flat Rock. Stayed off the interstate. Hated driving near Jacksonville, hope to go home a different way. Went through Folkston, stopped at Okefenokee NWR headquarters for a lunch stop and a bit of walking (and dragonfly photography).

I believe this is an eastern pondhawk, a female.

Looks like the raccoons got into the turtle eggs again!

Continued to Ohoopee River Campground. Spent the night. OK place, a little trashy. Sixteen cigarette butts at my campsite- I don’t like cigarette litter at all. The river was small, looked pretty nice though. They have kayak rentals there, and bass, and redbellies.

Saturday

morning I finished the trek to Flat Rock (home of the Flat Rock), to the Tedesco’s house, still avoiding the interstate, and met Jim and Kathy there. Jim and I planned our food and tackle needs and packed up his Honda for the trip to Bryson City.

Sunday

In the morning we headed out for the two-hour trip. Check-in at Nantahala Cabins wasn’t until 1500, so we went to Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest and took the two-mile hike through these never-logged woods. AMAZING trees. I am so glad someone left us a few!

We checked in, met up with Tammy, ate a couple vittles, and went fishing in the Nantahala River. I raised a fish to a #16 caddis dry on my first cast- missed it. Raised another. Missed it. It must have been softball- two strikes and I was out. Jim caught three troutlets, the largest of which was eight inches. Like me, Tammy got blanked. Tammy’s sock and my sock react synergistically to give us way more sock than the sum of our individual socks.

Monday

We went to the Tuckaseegee. The gauge was at 3.3, running at about 2000 cfs. I looked at the water flow and depth and said, I’m not wading in that, I’ll get swept away. We ended up on the “Trophy” section of the Oconaluftee River. My trophy brown, caught on a nymph, was perhaps six inches long, and still had parr marks. I made an attempt to photograph it but it squirted out of my hand while I fumbled for the camera.

Although we could have had multiple hookups on tubers, the season on them was closed. Tammy got a junior league “trophy”, too, but we were not near each other, so no photo.

After dinner Jim and I again tried the Nantahala. Not a bite did we get.

Tuesday

Casting in the rain.

We went to a different section of the Oconaluftee. In the rain. I elected to bring a camera instead of a fly rod. Jim raised and missed one fish, but I did get some photos of them fishing.

More casting in the rain.

Yes, it’s still raining.

We did catch some elm, though.

Tuesday evening we again went to the Nantahala. The water was higher and dirtier than the previous two evenings. Again, I took photos. Even Jim’s attempt to fish was half-hearted.

On the Nantahala River.

More Nantahala.

Yes, still more!

Wednesday

The forecast was for an inch of rain. You just can’t trust weather forecasts. The rain did spatter a bit but there was no inch of rain. We hardly fished, choosing instead to look for elk and other critters in Cataloochee Valley. There was a creek there and in a deeper spot I saw a fish rise. I got my rod, cast the caddis out there, raised a fish and missed it, raised another one and missed it, too. Then no more rises. Jim tried, too. All he attracted was an audience.

Jim raised an audience.

A Cataloochee Valley butterfly.

We did see a cow elk, and some wild turkeys, and various bees and butterflies and flowers. The Cataloochee Valley is lovely. It was a good way to spend the day.

Mountain laurel was blooming.

We did not try the Nantahala Wednesday night, even knowing that to catch a fish, one must venture his bait. Sometimes it’s better to admit you’re licked…

Thursday

morning Jim and I visited the Nantahala yet again, just at one of the pullouts along the section that the rafters use. There were two men spin fishing there. I chatted with one of them, who admitted to using sophisticated bait- doughballs. He caught a trout while I watched, and added it to the six already in his creel. I thought, wow, I really do sock.

We got our rods. I cut off the fly and tied on a gummy worm. Of course it worked, although the rainbow trout it fooled was only about seven inches long. Still, it was a trout after several days of catching nothing.

Not exactly like the fish in my fantasy!

After lunch we went and got Tammy, then headed to Cades Cove for some wildlife viewing. So did 250,000 other car owners. It was stupid traffic.

That having been said, we saw several black bears (they caused most of the traffic problems), several deer, some lovely, big draft horses, and various other plants and animals. Then we went to see the fireflies.

Bears with ear tags- what is the world coming to??

I figured fireflies would be hard to photograph, and they were, but I’ve never seen as many anywhere. Tammy’s friends Mike and Jeanette told us that we missed the peak firefly nights, which are completely unpredictable. I would like to see that, but am certainly glad we witnessed what we did! Pretty danged amazing it was!

Fireflies are hard to photograph.

Shut your car off when you’re in a parking lot!

Friday

was checkout day. We took our ball and went to the Davidson River. I had my first fish in five minutes, a small rainbow trout.

Not exactly my fantasy fish!

and my second a few minutes later, a brook trout that was almost a foot long. WOW! A small beadhead nymph did the trick.

The best fish of the trip.

A while later I got another small rainbow trout, then missed a strike. No brown trout, no slam. We wrapped it up and returned to Flat Rock.

Saturday

morning I’m starting the trek back to Chuluota, hope to be there by noon on Sunday.

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That’s the I sock at trout fishing Fishing report. Thanks for reading!

Every day is a blessing. Don’t waste it- Go fishing! Go paddling! Ride a bike! Stay active!

John Kumiski
www.johnkumiski.com
www.spottedtail.com
www.spottedtail.com/blog

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