Nat Greene Flyfishers    August 2008

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North Carolina Dancing Trout

The weekend of July 25 was a relief for two reasons. My wife Molly received a clean bill of health from her cardiologist and to celebrate she suggested we take up a friend’s offer to spend the weekend at Beech Mountain. We are fortunate to have several friends with second homes in the mountains and any invitation to join them is gratefully accepted. So we hit the road on Friday afternoon to arrive in time for cocktails. We had good conversation followed by a wonderful meal on the deck. This particular house is on the side west of the mountain and due to the hillside’s pitch, it felt as if we were dining in a tree house. Birds and squirrels went about their business only feet away. Between their chatter and a nearby plunging mountain creek, I could feel my tension melting away. I’m sure the merlot had nothing to do with it.

I awoke Saturday morning to the sound of raindrops. That was OK with me because trout love a gray sky and a low pressure front. After breakfast I headed down the mountain on that precipitous goat trail they call a road. My tires squealed around several hairpin turns and I wasn’t even exceeding the speed limit. By the time I reached the bottom my brakes reeked of burning pads and I made a mental note to check them in the near future.

The metropolis of Banner Elk is dominated by Lees McRae College. Several buildings front the main street but what lies to its rear held my interest. Elk Creek spills out of a popular duck pond through a rocky gorge producing some wonderful plunge pools. The water that fills the pond comes from two sources, one of which is fed by limestone springs, making the creek one of a handful of limestone streams open to public trout fishing in the state. Water coursing through soft limestone dissolves the rock yielding high concentrations of carbonate ion. This salt raises the alkalinity of the water and eventually results in a prolific food chain in the stream. Elk Creek is the only stream I have found in North Carolina that has a full complement of mayflies hatching throughout the spring and summer. So the possibility of matching the hatch is always there.

I parked by the waterfall and hiked ten minutes before entering the creek. I always take a few minutes to soak my leader and pick out a fly to start with. This time Nature was easy on me because freshly cast nymphal skins lay on a rock at my feet. Their previous owners came from the family Siphlonuridae, which most fishermen identify as the genus Isonychia. As a trained entomologist I won’t identify anything without a microscope and reference text but as a fisherman I knew instantly what fly to use. These insects produce a large gray-bodied mayfly sometimes called a Gray Drake, in size 12 to 10. To me, this meant tie on a #12 Adams.

In several years of fishing this stream I have typically done “OK,” hooking a few here and there. Today was different. I soon learned the fish were looking up and slashed at the Adams with vigor. It was hard to see the fish in the murky water. Generally I only glimpsed them at the last second as a black streak against a tannin-stained background as they zoomed toward the surface to intercept the fly. I cast with very little line out of the rod tip and was occupied directing the fly into a specific drift or lie. The fish could be found most anywhere so covering the water while staying out of sight was the method of choice. Unfortunately, I forgot my knee pads and my knees knew it. I tried to select the most comfortable spots to set down but it was a lost cause. After two hours my knees became a clock ticking down to lunch time and a much needed break.

I was about to quit but decided to try one more pool. The entire near bank was shaded by several massive hemlocks. A small waterfall spilled into the pool that ran alongside a large, rectangular flat rock. I dropped the Adams into that current. Before I could react, a small brown took the fly and kept on coming. He leapt about a foot and a half and somehow managed to come down smack in the center of that rock. He landed belly down, looked around and jumped again, throwing the barbless hook. He did not improve his situation though, and landed in the same spot, still high and dry. It was as if he was dancing to some strange aquatic beat, without water. He seemed to ask ‘just where did the water go?’ and leapt yet again. This time he landed closer to the edge and wriggled the rest of the way, slipping headfirst into the creek. I laughed aloud thinking nothing was going to top those antics and broke for lunch.

Lunch was a much needed break and accompanied by the roar of the waterfall where the duck pond plunges to the original river bed. I took some time to examine my tackle and declared my sole #12 Adams at the point of collapse. I tried to fluff up the hackle but managed to strip off some of the body instead. It pained me but I stuffed everything into the car and headed for the nearest fly shop, the Foscoe Fishing Company in Foscoe, a blip on Rt. 105 between Tynecastle and Boone. I stumbled across multiple fishing seminars in the parking lot, including one guy straightening bamboo culms under a shelter in the pouring rain. I grabbed three parachute Adams and fled.

I re-visited a spot on the upper Watauga a literal stone’s throw from the fly shop. The spot used to demarcate stocked from wild trout water but a new sign indicated the entire area was no longer hatchery supported. The water, in fact, was low and uninviting but that hadn’t stopped me before. I started out on a down note putting my injured Adams into a sycamore that wouldn’t give it back. Now I had to fish with a fly I didn’t tie. I mumbled a few untoward things about whoever put the thing together and cast it anyway. A fish immediately ate it. Small rainbows and browns, not more than five or six inches went out of their way to impale themselves on it. I approached the first real pool crouching along the right bank, gradually covering the water as I went. No response. I finally threw the fly into a white water chute dumping into the head of the pool. The fly floated briefly before a fish larger than anything I had seen all day rolled on the fly. I struck back and we both missed. It had to be a brown by the burnished gold gleam flashed as it turned. Like most wild browns, it did not rise again. I marked the spot for future reference and considered my alternatives. The rain I ran through in the fly shop lot intensified and I figured it was time to call it a day. My hip boots leaked, my pants and feet were soaked, and rain began to drip down my back. I had enough fun for one day.

Sunday morning arrived with a blue sky and blueberry pancakes. We parted ways with our guests and headed to another friend’s home near Boone. Molly would visit, I would fish. The stream is called Rocky Creek and is private water. That doesn’t mean it’s stocked, it just means the public isn’t invited. Truth be told, the fish are small but the beauty of the place makes up for it. I get to fish it once or twice a year so having the water basically to myself is a treat. I don’t generally like private water because it conjures up thoughts of public water fenced off for a privileged few. But Rocky Creek is usually not more than three feet across and has only native trout; it couldn’t stand more than a few fishermen a year anyway, less if an angler kept his fish.

I started with the same Adams dry and never looked back. The creek was loaded with fish although most were smaller than the seven inch limit. I could see many as they took the fly. There was a lot of crawling under laurel and deadfall as well as climbing wet, moss-covered rocks, which is an excellent way to break a bone if you’re not careful. One pool combined both obstacles. I was carefully making my way along a narrow pool on a series of rocks gouged from eons of stones tumbling down the creek in high water. All of the ridges left behind were slick with moss. Halfway up the pool, I ran into a beech tree that had recently fallen across the stream at right angles. I peered through the limbs to view some promising water with a small, foaming chute at its head. I couldn’t make a roll cast because of the tree and side casts were out. The only thing left was a normal high back cast followed by dropping the fly into the narrow run. The first cast was met with a massive swirl, way out of character for the two foot wide run. I struck back to air. Out of disgust I picked the fly off the water and threw it back in there. Suddenly I was connected to a veritable monster, with deep pink bands along its sides. I passed the rod hand over hand through the branches and eventually landed the fish. It was an absolutely gorgeous rainbow, about twelve inches long with a dark green back to complement the pick sides. The darn commercial fly wasn’t barbless and I had to fashion a disgorger from a twig to unhook the fish. It panted in the shallows before drifting downstream to deeper water.

My final noteworthy fish was a nice brown, about eleven inches. I could see it finning in a small run downstream of two rocks that funneled the current and its food to the fish. This sort of situation makes my nervous because I can see everything. It also means I usually make some stupid mistake and spook the fish. I was on my knees, downstream and to the right of the fish. I stripped off a few feet of line and made a tentative roll cast, which was too short. The fish must have felt the fly land because it instinctively turned around and grabbed the fly. I soon held the black-spotted beauty in my hand and slipped him back into the creek. He flexed his gill plates for a moment and slid into the shade unseen.

This weekend re-affirmed the beauty of simple gifts. Molly’s heart was fine and she was good “for another hundred thousand miles.” We enjoyed the company of friends amid the sounds of birds and a rushing creek. And I got down to basics on small streams. Short casts, a standard dry fly and staying low, out of sight did the trick. I don’t do much mountain trout fishing but the surprises I found this weekend might change that. Getting re-introduced to Elk Creek was a plus. Those wild mountain trout were gorgeous. But enjoying all of this in the depths of July was a shocker. The gray skies and light rains brought the fish out to feed. I still shake my head when I think of all those people standing in the fly shop parking lot, in the rain, watching someone tie flies when the fish were hitting a few feet away. I guess everyone has their priorities. Next time one of mine will be to remember my knee pads.

Jim Brady

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