I picked up a college buddy of mine in Columbia last weekend and we headed to the western NC mountains for some trout fishing. Got there about 3:30 sat after noon, quickly set up camp, hiked to the river, and fishing by 5. Found some fish after minimal hiking and they were fairly active. I broke my brand new $250 fly rod my buddy gave me as a gift. I did it while tying on a the first fly it had ever had tied on. The rod barley even bent (if it even did) and just snapped!! So, I had to trek it back to camp to get the extra one. Thank God I brought it. As i was leaving my buddy caught a nice stocker brook trout. I finally got back to the spot and they had shut down or got scared when he caught the Brook. We fished another half hour and headed back to camp to grill steaks, build a fire and plan out a strategy for the morning. Hit the river at 730 am and fish were everywhere, but they would not hit anything and were very easily spooked. Fished to until two and after trying almost every bug in the boxes I managed to get only a small brown to hit a streamer . But at least I caught him. Skunk gone and confidence up. headed back to our site for lunch and packed up camp so we could go back, fish til dark, and not have break down camp in the dark. All we talked about was how they were going to turn back on. Got the truck loaded up and headed back to a different section of the river. My buddy immediately spotted about 30 trout lazily nipping bugs on the top of the water. We discussed how to approach them without scaring them. We decided to take turns. He went first and i took a good vantage point to tell see if he was spooking them w false casts. One missed his cream midge right as it hit the water on the first cast. 2nd cast same results. then they quit hitting the midges. i came in with a caddis and same thing happened to me. Decided to change to a prince nymph and it was on!!! We did not move from that spot til dark and caught brooks and bows til we lost count!!! not very big ones but what a blast we had. Headed back
Well done. I will be up that way first of November. I heard it the fishing has been really good. I got new waders in the mail last nite.
Capt Chris.
1802 Action Craft. 115 yamaha.
Nice, great pictures.
that brookie looks like it ate a twinkie! fat. nothin better than a camp steak either
where are the beautiful pictures?
DH can be fun… You will do better if you don’t treat them like trout. They’ve lived in tanks eating trout chow their whole lives, they don’t know what a mayfly or a stonefly looks like.
Olive wooly bugger… thats it, just strip it and you’ll kill em’…
BTW- No pics of the brow???
Mad Mike
"to hell with insane… I’m OUTsane!!! "
lokos like a tiger trout mixed in there! nice job.
Far better it is to dare mighty things to win glorious triumphs even though checkered with failure, than to take ranks with those poor spirits who never enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in the grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
“lokos like a tiger trout mixed in there! nice job”
No tigers, just brookies… but looks like fun either way…
Mad Mike
"to hell with insane… I’m OUTsane!!! "
man that reminds of me of growing up 
was on those streams constantly groing up. man i really want to go to asheville now haha
where were you in the mountains?
quote:
Originally posted by flatscasterwhere are the beautiful pictures?
Um, trout and fall leaves are beautiful. Do you not think so?
Mad mike, that one on the rock is a rainbow and I thought that small one was a brown. Am i wrong about it? it looks like a juvenile brown to me. I tried a olive wooly and a black and purple and brown. nothing.
happy. we were right outside of asheville on the north mills river.
- I’d rather be a free man in my grave than living as a puppet or a slave.
That is a small rainbow… you can see the par marks on him… pretty fish, but not a brown… looks like you had a blast man. Good on ya…
Mad Mike
"to hell with insane… I’m OUTsane!!! "
Mad mike. Yea, now that you say it, it does look like a rainbow. When i caught it i thought it looked kind of strange to be a brown, but i thought that maybe they sometimes look different when they are that young. Also, My buddy was standing a few (50ft) feet away and I ask him and he said it looked like a brown. So , I thought it was from then on. Thanks for letting me know it was a bow. Now, I have only caught two browns and not three in my life. I got one in colorado a long time ago. I also noticed that it did not really look like this brown i caught a few years back in NC.
That being said, I have fly fished my whole life but mostly at my parent house. They stock the creek by the house with rainbows every year and they all look more like the one on the rock in blurry pic above . I have just recently (last 4 yrs) made a few trips to NC to fish and the rainbows i have caught there all seem to be different looking. I think is pretty cool that they look so different. I caught a bow back in 08 in Nc that was really brilliantly colored. The part that is pink was really dark and his back was really green. He was also really small. I thought then that he was a wild trout. Was i correct in my assumption? Does something cause them to look so different or is it just like a red fish with multiple spots and it is genetic? I have also just recently started to fish with other flys besides wooly buggers. The trout at my parents creek will absolutely murder woolys so i have not really had the need to use others. I am finally learning the names of the other flys and such and about nymphs and all that jazz. I hate to bother you but I would really love to hear anything you tell me. And yes we really did have a great time. Planning on going back soon. Probably going to a different place because every time i go i like to try a different place. I have fished the davidson, the little river and the north mills. Any other pretty places to camp and fish t
Well as to the coloration… most of that will come from habitat. Freshly stocked rainbows have been living in tanks eating trout chow… therefore they are more silvery, muted and just kind of lack luster… but let that same fish live in the river for a few years and his colors will really start to pop after having a healthy diet of stream born food.
If you want to tell wild from tank bred, look at the fins… for the most part stocked fish are going to have rounded, rather soft pectoral and accessory fins namely because of beating them against the concrete tanks his whole life. even as they live in the streams their fins will never fully recover… where as a wild fish has very firm angular fins…
For example this is a very small wild brown…
note the yellowish brown color, and intact fins…
These fish are all from a DH stream… (no browns) note the beat up fins, and these have been in the river for a while so their color is better but nothing like a true wild fish
If you have any questions feel free to fire away man… I’ll do my best to help…
Mad Mike
"to hell with insane… I’m OUTsane!!! "
Good info. This thread makes me miss 2 years ago fishing foscoe nc. Thanks for the post
“My fish served a whole lunchon. Your fish look like a munchkin”
167 Ranger Cayman
Yamaha 115
“Hydrophilic”
2007 Toyota Tundra TRD 5.7L V8
GO PIRATES!
North mills! Yessir I’ve spent some time there. CANNOT beat the camping up there. Loved going up there in high school BC there was no adult supervision 
Absolutely love the hiking on the art loeb trail which is right up the road from the trout hatchery. Gods country up there fellows
Thanks alot mad mike. This explains why all of the ones at my parents look the same. They usually dont survive the summers due to heat. they either get caught, eaten or die before they can start to change color. I am headed back in a week so i am sure more questions will come. I really appreciate it.
- I’d rather be a free man in my grave than living as a puppet or a slave.
Haha. Foscoe NC! Used to work at the gem mine in foscoe when iwas in college! Those were the days