Hi guys -
I’m headed up to Stone Mountain State Park, in NC the weekend of Nov. 13. Me and the boys are planning to bring our flyfishing gear and try hitting the streams for the first time. I have never flyfished for trout in freshwater, so I’m looking for any and all advice you can give me. Pretty much clueless! Here are some questions, for example:
Is the fishing any good this time of year?
Anyone ever been to this particular place?
What type of flies will I need? Where can I get them?
I’m bringing my only rod (an 8#) which I know is big but I’m gonna make it work I guess
Do I need waders? If so, what should I get?
Anything else I should know?
Thanks in advance! I will be super pumped if I catch just one fish, my boys will be too.
-Optiker
the 8wt will be huge, try finding a smaller rod first. the fishing is great this time of year. small dry flies and emergers will work. if the waters dirty, use san juan worms or wooly buggers. drag free drift is the main name of the game. learn to mend effectively and you should have no problems. Chas angler has some good trout flies. talk to mike or josh- they can help. 5x tippet is about the norm. i have a few rods, you can borrow one of mine, im in west ashley.
waders-maybe- i always wear em, but try not to disrupt the water if possible. simms is the best. from 200-700 bones. ive had the guide model for 12yrs and they have seen lots of action- from NC to Alaska, fishing, duck hunting, surf fishin, firewood duty. they are the bomb. felt soles are a required safety piece too, i wear a 13- you can use em too
I used to fish that water every Friday for a little over 2 years before they changed my work schedule. Tie up some egg patterns on #12 or #16 hooks. Bright yellow fuzz balls. Small dark dry flies in the afternoon if the sun comes out and a hatch starts. Pheasant tail nymphs, gold ribbed hairs ear, and small stone fly nymphs.
There are some EXCELLENT pocket waters unless the Army COE has done more construction since last fall.
Deep pool below the waterfall about 200 yds downstream from the confluence of bullhead creek almost always produces. The shallow pool aboe the waterfall is hit and miss, I have caught 50 trout from it one day and zero the next week.
The series of stair step pools for the next 1/4 mile below the deep pool all the way down to the riffle at Widow’s Creek produces if there is decent water flow.
The HUGE bend pool where the bridge and old church are gets overfished. It’s worth wading the tail end of the pool and flipping a nymph upstrweam on the inside of the bend tho.
The series of pools directly behind the church all the way down to the handicapped access pier is good for small brookies and bows. watch your line closely and set the hook every time it stops drifting for a second. #16-#18 PT nymphs are my choice for that section.
Finally skip way downstream to a pull off not too far from the park exit. The stream runs through a nice bottom area. Plenty of deer, plenty of beavers in that area and usually plnty of trout. Fish the heads of pools and the backside of the boulders .
You’re welcome to swing by here and I’ll loan you my custome 3 wt and a couple of 6 wts. You know where i live.
There is nothing - absolutely nothing- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Kenneth Grahame
Wow thanks guys. TB that is amazing detail that will help tremendously!
Very generous offers of borrowing your equip too. Thanks again.
Thats the kind of stuff that makes this site great
You can also check out Albright’s website they are unloading inventory and are selling some rod/reel/line outfits for around 60 bucks, which will be fine for trout in NC mountains(3/4 wt model). I like to use a bright egg pattern with a nymph dropper, the egg serves as a strike indicator as well as fly, but will make cast a little more tricky. Also copper johns, prince and red fox squirrel nymphs do well in the NC mountains. But take the flies mentioned above and you should be fine. And I would say waders would be extremely helpful.
The MOST important thing I learned this summer from guiding in Aspen is you will not catch fish if you don’t drift the flies to them drag free. Period. I took out never-evers who caught fish all day because they simply drifted the flies well and had guys who had fly fished 15 times who couldn’t get a bite because they wouldn’t drift it correctly. The only exception to catching trout while stripping is if they are chasing streamers, which the browns could be in the fall, but I caught all my fish in streams/rivers this summer on bugs.
Your best bet is nymphing as a beginner and this is how my client rigs were set up this summer. Take a 3-5 weight with a floating line, get a few strike indicators (i highly recommend Rio’s football shaped foam ones - they move the most if the flies touch anything) and some SMALL split shot and 5x and 6x flourocarbon tippet. Run a 9 foot leader down to the 5x and tie on your first fly. Go small, 16-22’s when the water is really low and clear, which I’m guessing it is this time of the year. Then off the top fly give yourself another foot long section of the 6x and go to the second smaller fly. Add the split shot approximately a foot above the first fly and the indicator a few feet above that according to depth. If you aren’t catching fish it could be a simple adjustment of fly depth which correlates directly to amount of splitshot and indicator position so play around with those.
For fly selection go simple and small (14-22s): pheasant tails, hairs ears, simple midges, rs-2s, caddis pupas, princes. I bet you can find a fly shop around there that recommends some patterns.
In terms of nymphing you don’t even have to really cast. It’s all roll casting from 10 am to 2 pm with your arm in a position like the statue of liberty and anywhere from 10-20 feet of line outside the rod tip. Take your time and hold your arm up and let the rig be downstream of you. Take your time on the cast, its just a simple pop and flip the rig out there. It’s nothing like double hauling into the wind
I’ve been out of town for a couple days so I missed the last couple posts. Thanks for all the tips Hokie…
Question: Recall that I am a never-ever when it comes to stream trout fishing… what do you mean when you say drag free? As opposed to what? I think that you mean to leave some slack in the line at all times, no? I also don’t know what it means to “mend”? Thanks for the help and patients with my dumb questions
I ordered the 3/4wt from Albright that riverbum suggested and I just got it delivered (yes!) I gotta say, its a nice quality setup for $60! It came complete with everything but flies. Really nice travel tube, sleeve and reel pouch with it too! I’ll be making a run to CA next week to pick up some flies…Really looking forward to going
to mend you flip some line upstream so your fly line doesn’t drag the fly across the surface.
You probably know how to throw a right or left hand curve. Be sure to show your boys.
I hope last week’s rain flushed out a lot of the leaf debris.
There is nothing - absolutely nothing- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Kenneth Grahame
Staying drag free means to keep your fly at the same speed as the area of the stream it is floating in. You are simulating a bug floating in the current of the stream. So to make it look at as natural as possible you want to drift in unison with the stream flow. Often when casting across a stream your floating line will be in a faster section of the stream while you fly is in a slow pool. After a few seconds of drifting the fast section will grab you floating line and then start to pull your fly unnaturally fast. So to avoid this you “mend the line”, or flip some extra floating line upstream to give you some extra time before faster water starts to drag you line. There are some decent youtube videos on this casting technique. Good luck.
Thanks guys, I checked out the YouTube stuff last night and I think I got it now. Not saying I can do it But I know what you are talking about now. Makes sense.
Another thought on trout fishing in mountain streams. Nymph fishing can be an incredibly effective method of fishing - I do quite a bit of it. BUT, there is nothing like watching a fish hit a dry fly on the surface of the water. If you see fish hitting the top of the water, you’ll see - small, irregular splashes in the stream, or you may see the fins or noses of the trout breaking the surface, or you may see the classic rings/ripples of water if the water is still enough - you should definitely try throwing a dry fly at these fish. They are keyed into bugs on or very close to the surface of the water. It is an awesome feeling to have a fish rising in the stream in front of you, cast your dry 5 to 15 feet upstream of it, let the fly drift over the fish (drag-free, yet another place you can use these mends everyone is talking about), and watch the fish swim up and take the fly. What a rush!
For that time of year a size 14-18 Parachute Adams or size 16 yellow stimulator are great searching patterns. Not too many think hatches, so a good general dry fly pattern that approximates many bugs is a good choice. That being said if you are trying to dry fly fish and nothing is coming up or you’re just not seeing any rises, switch to the nymph fishing, the trout are down there somewhere and they are feeding on something.
Or you could try a combination of the two (if you can fish 2 flies at once on certain stream, check the regs). Tie a 12 to 36 inch section of tippet to the hook bend of the dry fly with an improved-clinch, tie a nymph on the tippet, fish the rig. Now the dry fly acts as an indicator and a fly. Classic dry-dropper rig, probably my favorite way to target stream trout. You’ve got a chance to catch fish up top or on the nymph and you’ve also got the outside chance of the double! (… very rare, but does happen
occasionally)
Good luck up there. The mountains of WNC are my stomping grounds, killer fishing in those hills, killer.
1720 Key West Sportsman
115 Mercury 4 stroke
-or-
1997
Hi guys, I’m headed out this afternoon. Do you think all the rain will shut things down? I guess the rivers should be raging pretty good. Hope to post a report when I get back…
I’d start at the tail end of the park and work upstream. Yo can drive past the main road to the park about 2 miles. Turn right at the first road past the school. Follow it up a couple miles and watch for the sign to get in the back entrance.
Hopefully the rains flushed the leaves for you. Have fun.
There is nothing - absolutely nothing- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Kenneth Grahame
