A lot of fishing... and an eight pounder?
Two Saturdays ago the Coosa Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited had their annual Veterans and Ladies Fly Fishing Day at Rolater Park in Cave Spring. There was a pretty good turnout, with about two dozen vets and ladies participating.
The fish were eager to bite almost anything that landed in the water. I don’t think anyone who held a rod that day went without catching several fish. A few that were skilled caught 20 or more trout and several anglers took some trout home for dinner. I think everyone had a good time.
When using the light weight rods supplied by the chapter, mostly 3-weight and 5-weight, the small flies and light lines require delicate arm movement when casting. The lighter lines also take more time to straighten on the back cast and if the line does not straighten, the forward cast usually suffers and has issues such as the line not falling straight. Timing is very important.
The vets and the ladies seemed to learn the process of casting fairly quickly. Something I have noticed ever since I taught my x-wife how to fly fish is that women learn quicker than men. Women do not try to overpower their cast and most of them have a more delicate technique. Fishing for trout in most small streams requires delicate casts.
BROOK TROUT EXCURSION
Last Friday Steve Kemp and I decided to take fly rods and catch the only true native trout in Georgia, the brook trout. We crossed over the Tennessee divide and drove to the Noontootla Creek watershed to fish one of Noontootlas’ many tributaries that are home to the “Brookies.” Prior to Friday, Steve had asked about how deep we might be wading and my answer was, “we will have to look real hard to find water over knee deep.”
Most wild brook trout streams in the south are small to very small and in the upper elevations. A wild Brookie that is 10 inches in length is considered very large in Georgia, whereas in the northern states and Canada it is not unusual to catch a brook trout that is two pounds or more.
The creek we chose to fish is absolutely a small stream, with few places where the water is knee deep. Steve asked about what fly to use and my answer was, “big, gaudy and easy to see.” The trout in these small streams are opportunistic feeders and matching the hatch is not nearly as important as putting something in the water that will get the fishes’ attention.
A large, colorful and easy to see fly is not only good for the fish but for the fisherman as well. Most brook trout streams in Georgia are so heavily shaded with laurels and rhododendron that fishing at midday is almost like fishing at dusk on larger creeks. Having a fly that the angler can see is very important.
Steve and I both started out with dry flies with bright white wings. Mine was a Royal Wolfe and Steve’s was something similar, but both of ours were the largest flies of that type we had. I headed downstream and Steve went upstream.
After a while my dry fly was becoming more of a wet fly. In the dappled sunlight it often disappeared and I missed a fish or two. I tried a large bodied black fly with a red tail but it seemed to disappear also. A couple of missed fish later I went to an old standby. This fly floats extremely high, is easy to see and has produced many fish for me. It was a tiny bream popper and I caught two Brookies on it.
Steve and I returned to the car at about the same time and he said he had also caught two Brookies. Steve saw my bream popper and said he wished he had changed to one.
It began to rain and we were worn out from the several hours of stooping, kneeling and crawling through the dense growth around the stream, so we headed back toward Ellijay. On the way back we stopped at a tributary of the Cartecay River. This tributary has been good to me in the past. Many years ago I caught 24-inch brook trout that I know was a hatchery raised brood stock.
We stopped at the very hole where I caught a huge rainbow some years back. We cast Mepps spinners into the big pool and, on my fourth cast, I hooked into something big — and it didn’t feel like a trout.
The water was dingy from the rain and I could not tell what it was. The big boy fought strangely, but steadily. I finally worked it to the surface and found that I had hooked an eight pound snapping turtle in the front claw. I imagine he was after the spinner and his foot got in the way.
If I may paraphrase Forest Gump: You never know what you will catch but this was still something to brag about.