Today was a good day...

The carp have been shy lately. I haven't seen them in the pond by work in a month or so. I tried my luck today and was able to catch some gills and little bass. The gills were decent size a little bigger than my hand.

The picture really doesn't do it justice. The color on the gills out of this pond are beautiful. I think it's because the water is really clear.

Later I met a friend at Crabtree Lake, I had never fished there before. The water looked really good and you could see rises in all direction. I went with a popper first but didn't have much luck. I decided to try a big bead headed brown bugger. I worked one section then went to a nice eddy. After a few cast I latched onto this guy.The take was pretty ferocious. The fly was only in the water for seconds before the fish hit it. I thought maybe it was a carp because it took line instantly. As I started to fight it more I realized it was a cat. The fish in this lake are supposedly unedible due to contamination from hazardous waste dumping in the past. I think this fish is a good indication the fish population might be bouncing back. It looks pretty healthy.

The Elusive Roanoke Bass

It's been over a year since I was at the Eno River. At the last Trout Unlimited meeting I had the chance to met Sam who lives on the river. He told me about some locations where he caught Roanoke Bass. I've been trying to catch one of these fish for awhile. I was pleasantly surprised when Sam invited me to fish with him. I jumped at the chance and looked forward to it all week. We headed out on an overcast morning and the weather was great for August. The temperature wasn't that bad, maybe in the mid 80's. The Eno looked just how I remembered, pretty similar to a mountain stream but has a style all its own

Sam gave me coordinates to where the Roanoke's were supposed to be. We decided to try some water he hadn't fished much first. We worked pockets here and there and it wasn't long until we caught probably the most prevalent fish in the Eno.. Sunfish never get boring, when you think you've seen the prettiest one you'll catch one even better looking on the next cast. This river has to be the best sunfish river in North Carolina. It is great for beginners. The fish are feisty and they almost always hit top water poppers. The action is exciting. We found one pool were I found a pod of sunfish under a tree. I caught a fish on almost every cast. The strikes varied from a sip, inhaling, to a rocket launch accompanied by water and a glimpse of fins as your fly disappears. As we waded there were tons of dragon and damsel flies. Minnows jumped here and there, probably escaping roaming bass. While working some of the pockets that Sam recommended I wasn't able to catch a Roanoke. I decided to take some pics of him fishing because often when you go fishing you never get pictures of yourself.I went to tell him do some false casts so I could get some pics and in the middle of my comment....Fish On! After a few seconds Sam says "It's a Roanoke!". I couldn't believe it, I was just fishing in that same spot 5minutes before he got there. He was able to land the fish and show me what the fish looks like.This was a nice fish and you could tell it had been eating well. The fish looked just like the rock bass I've seen in Virginia. I was really excited and eager to catch my first Roanoke but it was not in the cards for me. I was still happy to catch sunfish. The experience made me eager to get back and go for the Roanoke again. Sam is great fishing partner and I look forward to fishing with him again. On the hike back upstream, Sam almost stepped on a moving rock.A good size snapping turtle. About the diameter of a basketball. Not something you'd want to annoy. That's the fun part about fishing you'll always see other wildlife, turtles, insects, birds you rarely see anywhere else. It's hard to come off the water after days like this.

Another Catfish on A Fly

Fished at a buddy's pond tonight. Caught a few gills and this guy on a san Juan worm. He gave a pretty good fight.

Fishing in Boone

I guess I never will learn from past experiences. What I have learned recently is when I think something is not a good idea it probably isn't. An example, I had a reel that has a broken crank on it. I've been just using my palm or finger to reel in line. I decided to finally remedy this. I wanted to switch the line from one reel to another, so I started stripping it off, I got impatient and started just bundling the line all over the back of my car. While doing this I thought "this isn't a good idea", but kept doing it. Then after wards I looked at the birds nest of fly line and forgot about it. This weekend in Boone I wanted to go fishing but needed to put that line on my other reel. The ball of tangled fishing line was intimidating but I started to work at it. It was HORRIBLE! The whole time I fought with it I thought, how did I let the line get like this? and I should just cut the line here and start over. I spent an hour untangling and stripping one peice trough the mess of tangles. I would slowly get a few feet of line as a reward each time I removed a tangle. I did this for about an hour. I got all my gear together and made my way to the Watauga River. The river was stocked the week before and I was sure it had been poached plenty but had to have a few trout left.

When I got to the river and started to put on my gear I noticed my boot didn't look right. The front of the sole seemed to be coming off. These were my Korkers,less than a year old. The bottom front was coming off, this kept the felt sole from staying attached. This irritated me but I still figured I could walk with one felt sole and the rubber on the other boot. When I stepped in the water and slipped a little on the rubber sole side, I thought "this is a bad idea." I made my way carefully upstream, tap dancing here and there. I made a few casts untangled my leader which was way too long. I wanted to make sure I had plenty of tippet so I tied on about 10ft of it. I felt like such an idiot. Fishing with a 18ft leader. Talk about hard to cast with a dropper, it was ridiculous. I went with a caddis and a black stonefly as a dropper. The leader was so long I snagged the stonefly on the bottom every third cast. Combine this with me slipping and my REEL FALLING OFF, I was not a happy camper. Why does my reel always fall off? I used to make so much of a fuss about people paying a lot on equipment. Now I realize there is something to that. You might have spent a lot for a reel but I bet it doesn't FALL OFF while fishing. It's so annoying to do two false casts hear a PLOP! Then see your reel go down stream. While walking up to unsnag my stonefly I slipped and did something I haven't done in my illustrious fishing career. At least not since I've labeled myself as an adult. I started to slip and I was like this isn't good. Of course I slipped on the rubber sole side, I knew I was hitting the water but didn't know how this was gonna go. The water was about 3ft deep and half of my body went under. My head actually almost went in as well. This was the worst I have ever fallen while wading. The cold water shocked me and I cut my hand stopping myself on the sharp rocks. The whole ordeal made me want to just call it a day and pack up.

No way I was doing that though. I'm in Boone, I drove to far to just pack up after 10min of fishing. Plus I knew this is my normal scenario of learning things the hard way. I need to slow down take my time and be more careful. I worked my way fishing up stream going here and there. Eventually I came to a fast section where I caught a trout. It's the one in the picture at the top of the post. I've decided I'm not going to post pictures anymore of fish I catch. The reason being it is such a pain to get everything together. Unless I use a different camera it takes about 2min from fight to picture. I feel bad for the fish and this one I'm sure got away fine. It was just annoying to hold him and stress him longer than was needed. I kept fishing moving further upstream, that fish would be my only trout for the day.

The Watuaga is a strange river. I guess all rivers are similar, I'm just not used to fishing them. What's strange is how the fish species will change drastically with the seasons. In the spring, fall and winter months, the water is mostly trout water. You see suckers occasionally but you never see a large or small mouth bass, or blue gill and rock bass. In the summer every slack water pool seems to have rock bass in it. Where are these fish in the colder months? Do they migrate? I'm not really sure but it's fun to catch different fish. I caught a couple rock bass then came to a slow slack water section full of sediment and slow deep water. Definitely not trout water but perfect for gills and bass. I cast toward some foliage near the bank with a popper. Made a twitch and WHAM, fish on! The fish was large but I could tell it wasn't a trout by it's flash beneath the surface. As it came closer I saw a shimmer of the golden under belly, it was a beautiful sunfish. I'm not sure if it was a sunfish or some of the gill species that only inhabit the Appalachian. Either way it was one of the prettiest bluegill I have ever caught. I wanted to take a picture but after the last fiasco I decided to just let it loose. I think the fish was appreciative. It was a great day even with the disturbing beginning.

Nice Links

Here are some nice links I found about setting up droppers and explanations on how fish see.

http://www.midcurrent.com/articles/techniques/monahan_seeing_double.aspx

http://www.underwateroz.com/pg4_trout_vision.htm,

Another Day at Pilot

Tried Pilot again last weekend. A buddy from work came with me. It was his first time climbing outside. He did really well. We did a lot of 5.6-5.7 routes. By about 11am the weather was getting so hot it sucked the life out of you. I also took about 5 falls off of a route I did cleanly last week. My husband is going to kill me. I was able to make it up, but really struggled about half way through. Here's a movie of me climbing Grandpa's Belay. The movie is titled wrong.

Climbing with Friends

My wife let me get away for the day to climb at Pilot Mountain. I think it's been a year since I've been here last. The weather was warm and humid but actually a pleasant day. The hike down to the wall was pleasant. The forecast called for a day in the 90's. There was a nice breeze and it pretty much stayed in the 80's.A friend was nice enough to show me some anchor techniques. We actually repelled off the anchor I tied. I was really proud of myself.After getting schooled it was time to get ready to climb. It's amazing how much stuff you pack in. The first routes we climbed were in the Little Amphitheatre section. We did Dirty Rotten Scoundrel, Place your Bets and Grandpa's Belay. The climbs were 5.6-5.7. Really fun to start the day.One of the cool things climbing is how you meet people We met another group climbing with a guide, and as what often happens we shared ropes. This helps you get more climbs in and it's fun to meet new people. We moved to another section called black rain. I started a route called, My Wife's Gonna Kill me.I was able to get up that, but I failed on a 5.9 route to the right called Black Rain. I took a nice 10ft drop and bruised my heel. I think the fall and the route kind of psyched me out. Definitely doable. I'm looking forward to trying it again next time. I only got really 4 climbs in, but I did them all cleanly. I found places to rest where I didn't hang on the rope. It was a really fun day.