Nantahala Report - Find The Sun!

by Landon Williams

Against my better judgment, I decided to take the trek over the mountain yesterday and headed up toward the "Land of the Noonday Sun."  I think the Cherokee were on to something, so I decided to play the "Old Man" fishing game by sleeping in and not having waders on until 11:00.  Even then the water/air temperature did not make conditions favorable as it barely hit 40 all day and there was still a light dusting of snow on the ground in heavily shaded areas.  I didn't measure the water temperature but it for sure felt below 40 by a good bit. 

Fishing started out slow for the first hour and a half I was there and I really think it was due to being in the shadows and staying cold. Once I hit a heavily sunlit stretch at about 12:30 or so, it was game on!  The same flies I had been throwing earlier suddenly found their way into the mouths of many hungry and aggressive stocked and wild rainbows.  I fished with a "deep" dry-dropper rig consisting of a big Klinkhammer as a strike indicator, with a leech or squirmy worm tied on jig hooks catching most of the stocked fish.  I had a #18 natural pheasant tail dropped below that, which caught most of the wild fish.  In the couple of stretches where I fished in full sunlight, #20-22 Blue-Winged Olive mayflies and small black stoneflies were hatching and a few fish were splashing after them.  I caught several on a tiny BWO parachute, which was a nice change of pace from dredging! 

Once the sun started dropping below the ridge line, the fishing in the DH tapered off significantly and by 3:45 I felt like it was over.  I decided to head down the road and try the lower river, the rafting section.  The water temperature was considerably warmer down there and was certainly above 40 degrees with maybe a couple numbers to spare.  Duke Power was running water but it was not nearly the flow that it is during the recreational releases of the summer. The best part, there were no rafters.  The fishing was fantastic too!  I caught just about as many down there in the last hour and a half of daylight as I did in the whole afternoon up on the DH.  I was doing my same dry dropper rig, but only rigged about 2ft deep down to my leech.  The wild fish in the lower section were absolutely tearing it up. 

Hope you have time to get on the river over the holidays.  Remember, "find the sun"!

Landon

52 Shades of Gray

by Landon Williams

Fresh from the Nantahala in North Carolina, here’s a trip report to whet one’s appetite for Spring’s arrival.

Today, Sunday, March 2nd, I decided to drive north for a change of pace and fish the Nantahala DH. The temperature never got close to 70 in the “Land of the Noonday Sun," but it was very pleasant up in the Gorge and I even unzipped my jacket during the hottest part of the afternoon! I didn’t arrive until about 11:30 and moseyed around before finally hitting the water a little after 12 PM.

On stepping into the stream there was one thing I noticed all around me, GRAY. Usually gray is a color that we associate with tiredness and lifelessness. In some sense that was true. The huge rock walls around me and the hibernating limbs of the trees gave a fairly lifeless appearance beside the sounds of the water roaring through the gorge. But on closer inspection of the streambed, lifeless would not be a word that I would use.  All around, the “groceries,” were starting to hatch and buzz around. First to come into sight were all of the caddis flies. I counted at least three different types, including a small size 18 black caddis, a size 16 dark charcoal gray caddis, and a bigger size 14 lighter gray colored caddis. There were also a few of the larger mayflies, Quill Gordons and smaller Blue Quills but they were few and far between. 

That’s all fine and good but you are probably asking yourself, “How were the fish biting on them?” Well even though the smaller caddis were the most numerous, the fish did not seem to want to touch them and preferred the larger 14 grey caddis instead, even though they were very sparse.

However, due to the fact that I still had a little bit of winter cretin still left in me, I decided a dropper nymph below the dry would be a smart move. I stuck on a size 16 grey caddis pupa with a black nickel tungsten bead about 4 feet below my Caddis dry fly. The fishing was nothing short of phenomenal to say the least. I landed over 60 fish in the course of the afternoon with the caddis pupa only slightly edging out its floating cousin but only by a narrow margin! Later in the afternoon, between 4:00 and 5:00, I found a couple of stretches where the bigger mayflies were hatching fairly well and I caught several on a parachute Quill Gordon dry fly. The key to getting bit with the dries was to keep them perfectly drag free as any sort of movement of the fly was usually met with a refusal.  I pulled more fish out of the deeper boulder fields than anywhere else as I think the gradient slackens just enough for the fish to pile up in the deeper troughs and current seams so they can hunt for food.  Fish count wise it was split between rainbows and browns, including many wild fish of both species. Unfortunately a brook trout never found its way onto the end of my line to complete the hat trick, which is fairly unusual for the Nantahala.

 Hopefully some of this information will help or encourage someone to get on some dry fly action here soon. It was gorgeous out today and if you didn’t wet a line, I feel for you!

-The Owner of a Rough Life.

Landon on the Nantahala

I fished the upper Nantahala (DH section) Saturday afternoon. Fishing was pretty good as they had stocked fish in the river for the holiday weekend but also caught plenty of holdovers and small wild rainbows and browns.  I fished the DH section on my Greys 11 ft. 3 wt. rod and boy was it fun!  Little fish bend that rod really well so long as they have a little room to run from the initial hookset.  It really made high-sticking the boulder fields just that much easier and more fun.  I fished a size 14 Hares ear soft hackle tied on a jig hook and a 16 "Frenchie" nymph with an orange hotspot.  The water came up, even on the DH section, as they were apparently releasing for a whitewater canoe championship down by the Nantahala Outdoor Center (NOC).  

Sunday morning we fished the lower Nantahala down by the NOC and, man, was I surprised by the number and the size of the fish down there.  There were pods of fish everywhere that you could see and they are spooky as heck.  Those who do well with sight fishing would love this area.  It was a hands and knees or hiding behind the boulder affair for much of the time.  I could usually get 1-2 fish out of a pod before they shut down, excluding some of the deeper pockets.  I caught a handful of chunky 12-14- inch long rainbows as well as quite a few smaller wild fish.  Once the water comes up from the recreation release, you get out!  You can keep fishing but often it's from the bank or just a few steps to fish the many pockets near the bank that fish will hold in.  Also the side channels of the islands are very likely places to find fish.  

The same flies were working for me from the day before.  However, fish on the lower Nantahala act completely different than one would expect. When the flow increases from the recreation release, the majority of the fish suspend in the water column and are looking for food.  Dredging in the traditional sense is not nearly as effective as high-sticking with a fairly short leader with a light 6x tippet.  Many times it seems you almost have to drag the flies slightly faster than the current to keep them in the right zone and not under the holding depth of the trout.  Hits are usually very noticeable but also very quick.  Even with a quick reaction time, it still seems like you miss quite a few. It's a fun place to fish, except for a raft going by you every 2 minutes with some flatlander saying something along the lines of, "Catching anything?"

Your flatlander who wants to be a hillbilly

Landon