Still no shad

I never got a chance to get out to the river. I went to Wilmington this last weekend. Had a great time but didn't catch any fish. I'm going to try to hit the Neuse this week. I heard from a guy who knows a guy. That the fish are still coming up the Neuse and are pretty far away from Raleigh still. We'll see. I'm keeping my hopes up. I might not be able to try until I get back from San Diego. Which will be the second week of April.

The Quest for Shad

Ever since I've moved to Raleigh I've heard about this fish that swims all the way from the ocean up into the nearby rivers and small creeks in the surrounding area. They call them the Southern Salmon or poor mans tarpon. More commonly known as just "shad". They can get up to 5lbs and are supposedly really fun to catch. I wouldn't know. I've been trying to catch these things for 2yrs. I've been reading about them and from what I've found your best bet is to have a boat and to fish up near Weldon on the Roanoke River. They also come to the Tar River and Neuse that flows from Raleigh's, Falls Lake.

This year I decided to really target them. The hot season for the shad run is in March, I recently finished my first fly tying class and I've found some flies that are supposedly great for shad. I tied some up and went out to a small creek near Tarboro. It had just rained a couple days before and the water was really high. I heard from a local that it was about 4ft higher then normal. Needless to say I was skunked. I really wanted to avoid driving anywhere far from Raleigh. My family has planned a small vacation and I'm leaving for the west coast in a couple weeks so time is shrinking on me. I tried again last weekend on the Neuse right down from the dam. Again I was skunked. The weather was beautiful and I read reports of people catching shad in Weldon and the lower Neuse where it hits the sound and goes into the ocean. I think maybe it is still early. I'm going to try to coerce my brother-in-law into going fishing with me probably the last time I'll have this Saturday. The last shad attempt. I've found a stretch of the Neuse that they have to go by. Unless we get a torrential down poor. It could happen, rain is in the forecast for tonight. Either way I want to try. This has been the hardest fish to catch, and what makes it worse is to hear the stories and reports of other people catching up to 30-40 fish.

We'll see what happens this weekend, my fly arsenal is listed below. I will definitely update the site with pics, whether I finally get a shad or come home empty handed.

The Old 26incher

I think fisherman use a different measurement system then everyone else in the world. You will see someone catch a fish, ask them how big it was only to get a answer that seems exaggerated. There’s one number in particular that reigns top of the list in North Carolina. When I first moved to Watauga County I started fishing close to town. I fished this one section pretty regularly and never caught anything over 12inches. I talked to a guy one day who said he caught a fish that was 26inches from the same area where I had fished many times before. I never doubted it and continued to fish the water vigorously for a month or so. Still, I never caught anything over 12inches. As I became more familiar with people and places, I started to ask around to find the best fishing spots. Again this 26inch figure came up. There was a creek north about 30miles where supposedly 26inch fish are caught all the time. I fished it and the water was only about 2ft deep in the deepest places. I couldn’t see how a fish over even 20inches could live there very long. I figured maybe in its hay day there were huge fish there.

I started to really fish the whole area around the county. Meeting fisherman and it seemed whenever someone wanted to tell me about a big fish they caught that day or ever, it was 26inches. I started to want to laugh whenever someone said that number it was so funny to me that these big fish were always 26inches. Not 30 not 25 but 26. It really made me question the actual size. Especially when I’ve seen many anglers catch a fish right in front of me and tell me it was at least a 15inch fish when maybe it was 10inches. The reason I bring this up is there are many thoughts about what makes a good fisherman. Some people believe it’s how many fish you catch; others believe it’s how many BIG fish you catch. Whatever you believe is your opinion. I personally believe a great fisherman is someone who can CATCH fish in any conditions. Some have told me the size exaggeration comes from the stereotype that all fishermen are storytellers and should exaggerate. I never liked that theory. I started to call out everyone who made these claims of 26inch fish asking for pictures or did you measure it with a tape? This offended too many people. No one wants to be called a liar especially not someone from the south. Regardless, most people could never give me good evidence of how they got this 26inch measurement. I figure people catch a big fish and the adrenaline is running, it’s probably the biggest fish they ever caught. They start thinking about other stories of people catching huge fish and describing it to them. Then they think this fish is probably at least that big. So it’s probably 26inches. Or others believe no one will believe 30inches and 26 sounds better then 22. My advice is marking your rod where certain measurements are. 15inches up from the butt make a mark. Then make another one 20inches and so on. Then you can just lay your rod next to the fish and know right away how big it is. Don’t be one of those guys telling the tale of the old 26incher. Nothing is worse then telling someone a story only to see the expression of disbelief come over their face.

Getting Over Myself

My brother in law Russell is the kind of fisherman, I like to call the intellectual fisherman. He reads fly fishing books and articles, studies the art. He applies what he learns step by step. I mean he’ll follow what he’s learned exactly as instructed. If it says twist 8 times then tighten the knot, you know that knot has 8 twists in it. I remember fishing with him in Watauga County. The first thing I noticed right away was he got real low almost like he was trying to hide from someone. Then moved really slow to the stream. I almost started laughing. I’ve read articles about stalking fish but I’ve never actually watched someone do it. It was pretty amusing. He stayed low and cast from a crouched position. I walked upstream maybe a 100yds from him and I stood straight up almost the opposite of what he was doing. I also immediately got in the water where he stayed on the bank and fished the water in front first. I sat there and watched him work the bank then moved slowly into the water working it just as though he were following an instruction guide for how to fly fish.

I have always thought it was funny how we were complete opposites. Russell would check his knots after catching each fish, stand to where he’d cast the least shadow. Make sure his line did not make too much of a wake when it landed on the water. I on the other hand would hardly ever check my knots, the only time I did would be after getting a really nasty snag in a tree or on some rocks underwater. I never have been a cast snob. I’ve seen to many fish caught with ugly casts. I also never cared where the sun was, I did pay attention to my shadow. What’s amazing about fly fishing and all the information on “the right way” to do it is, everyone does it differently and still catches fish. Who knows really what way catches more fish. I’m sure my way is not the best, but I know for sure it’s not the worst. To me, that is what makes it really fun, finding out what works best for YOU. You can read technique and how to books all you want. It is nothing compared to getting out in some trout water and experimenting.

Another time on the same stream Russell and another friend Jeff and I were fishing. It was Jeff’s birthday. He used to be a fly fishing guide. Needless to say I was not intimidated but I did think I was going to get out fished and it was going to make my technique look like crap. In the beginning I just watched Jeff. I always wanted to be a guide and I wanted to see how similarly we fished. After watching him for about an hour or so I realized there wasn’t much of a difference. In fact, in my opinion he didn’t fish with the attention to detail that Russell fished with. I started to re-evaluate my opinion of guides. I always held them as some super natural almost wielding fish to their line type of a person. Now I was starting to think otherwise. Maybe a guide is someone who just has a lot of experience on one stretch of water. Or possibly it’s a person who has fished a lot of different types of water and knew someone who had a fly shop. My personal favorite is thinking it was just someone who loved to fish that got lucky and was at the right place at the right time. The day went on with us fishing, spread out on the water. Russell was catching fish on wooly buggers. I was doing well with a bead headed muskrat emerger. The fish seemed to really like this fly. They must have been looking for stonefly nymphs on the bottom. Also they liked the gray color as apposed to black. I was catching fish at a steady pace of 1 every 20minutes. Jeff wasn’t catching anything. At first I was a little happy. I thought I’m better then this guy. Then I started to feel bad, because be it he was a guide in the past or not, it was his birthday and he was out here not to show us up but just to have fun and catch fish which wasn’t happening. I came over to him knowing he hadn’t caught anything but asking anyway if he did. He said “I can’t seem to find what they want to eat.” It does suck to be the only one not catching anything. My confidence can really plummet. After getting skunked on a few fly fishing trips I’ll start to go into a little trout depression. I’ll think things like, man I forgot what catching a trout feels like or maybe I’m not a very good fisherman. Then you get a tug on your line catch a fish and you forget the 3 fishless trips, your self esteem shoots threw the roof and again you think you’re ready to be the lead in a fly fishing video.

I showed Jeff what I was using, then I did something I never thought I’d be generous enough to do. I asked him if he wanted to use it. At first he gave me a look that I could read what he was thinking just from the expression of his face and eyes. Like I know how to catch fish, I don’t need someone to tell me what to use. Then I said “well it’s your birthday, you can have this fly.” I saw his expression instantly change into a expression of gratitude. He didn’t take the fly but I knew he liked that I wasn’t making it a competition. There’s always a competitive nature with men. We went on that stream all about having fun but once we stepped in the water we were watching each other out of the corners of our eyes. Russell is probably the least competitive. He always appreciates the true value of things and knows just being able to be outdoors fishing is great. After catching a couple I didn’t care what happened, I always want to just catch at least one fish. What’s funny is after I was so hyped about how Jeff was going to fish I can’t remember if he caught anything or not. I believe he did. I think that was the day I realized did it really matter? Fishing is more then who catches the most or who fish’s with the best technique. It’s also not about what you did in the past. Once you enjoy fly-fishing just for what it is, you’ll enjoy it much more. Even if you don’t catch anything.

Fishing Ethics

I started thinking about this the other day after reading a letter someone was going to send the wildlife politicians about legalizing power bait on artificial only streams. There is an underlying war between fly fishermen and bait fishermen. Where the ethics question comes in is, I’ve met many “fly fishermen” that push the limits of the rules to their personal standards. Here’s an example. Some fly fishermen do not believe in using bait or powerbait. Talk to a fly fisherman long enough and he’ll tell you a story of tying a rubber worm or god forbid a real worm on his line and fishing with it. Droppers are used often when fly-fishing. Most people go with 1 dropper. Usually only 1 because if you use more you can tangle your line more often. Some use as many as they can. How is this sporting? I heard another story recently about a technique that is basically chumming. This “fly fisherman” told me when the fishing is rough sometimes he’ll look at what nymphs are under the rocks. Tie on a pattern similar, then shuffle his feet knocking the rocks about and up rooting the nymphs then he casts downstream. This is a great idea but is it sporting?

What most fishermen in general hate are poachers. There’s been many techniques that give nature lovers and fly fishermen the chills. One is taking a car battery and hooking jumper cables too it, then throwing them in the water. This will send a shock through the water stunning any fish close enough and making them easy pickens for a net. Another is to dump milk or Clorox bleach in the water. Fish cannot process this threw their gills and will start to die. These are extreme and horrible things to practice. I’ve also heard of people spear fishing for trout in streams and rivers. This is still somewhat sporting because you are spear fishing but it’s still pretty easy pickings. Plus most spear fisherman will go after larger fish. The worst of the worst is the people who follow the stock trucks then after the stock truck leaves they net the stunned fish and take them home. Fishing is totally different from even 10yrs ago. People are using every advantage they can. Even so called “fly fisherman”. I put that in quotes because many fly fishermen hold themselves in some superior category. Like they have a greater knowledge of nature and fishing. Many push the rules as they see fit. My advice would be don’t do something you will regret. Before you break the rules think about how it will feel afterwards. I’ve put a rubber worm on my fly line and caught a big trout. It didn’t feel right. I felt like I cheated. It definitely wasn’t as much fun as catching a trout on a fly I tied. We need to do all we can to keep the purity of the act of fishing itself. I don’t fish just to catch fish. It is an experience. I love showing people how to fish. To me it’s about enjoying the great outdoors, learning about nature, respecting and making a relationship with the water and life living in it and around it.

Learning to Fly Fish

When I was first learning to fly fish. All I used was dry flies. The only flies I knew really were a royal coachman, mosquito, ant, and adams. I didn’t read many books. I never talked to many fly fishermen about what they were using. I always felt that was kind of taboo. Now, I’ll do it in a heartbeat. I love the fly-fishing experience and the idea of finding exactly what the fish are biting on, but I also like to catch fish and not take all day to do so. If someone is catching fish, I’d like to know what they caught them on. When I first moved to NC. My Fiancés brother told me about how he liked to fly fish. I told him about all of my spin fishing experience in the Sierra’s. He explained to me he hadn’t had much luck with trout. I told him the streams in NC can’t be much different then the streams in California. We kept talking and I eventually said "I can probably catch more fish on a fly rod then you." He decided to take me up on that challenge and we went to a creek he knew about. On the drive there, I looked at all the water we were passing and kept commenting on all the places that looked like they could hold fish. The water did look similar to creeks in the Sierra Nevada. We parked and got our gear ready. He gave me a fly and he watched me scramble down to the creek. The water was clear and I looked around for fish but couldn’t see any. It was kind of strange to me, the water looked the same as the sierra’s but no fish were anywhere. I cast to all of the spots I felt were likely to hold fish but wasn’t able to even get a bite. I know I wasn’t doing something right as well because my fly would never stay on top of the water. I figured I just needed some floatant. I went to talk my buddy and asked him for some. As I was walking up to him I saw he hooked a nice little rainbow. As he was unhooking it, he saw me walking up and said “any luck?” I told him no and explained that I can’t seem to keep my fly on the surface. He said “It’s not supposed to be on the surface it’s a nymph.” I said “what’s a nymph? He explained to me what it was and I learned there was a whole new dimension to fly fishing I had no idea about.

I always thought fly-fishing was a surface thing. In the movies you always see someone making a delicate cast on calm water and a fish always rises, taking the fly right away. I figured that’s how it is. Now I was learning about nymphs and streamers and what they were supposed to imitate. I’ve always been interested in science and biology so learning this stuff was fun for me. It was another excuse to be nerdy. It took awhile for me to understand the whole cycle of different bugs; caddis, mayfly, stonefly and midges. It was harder to tell what’s hatching then I thought as well. I found a neat trick one day. There was a nice mayfly hatch going off and they kept flying near my face. I always wear a camouflage hat that has mesh in the back. I took that hat off to shoo away the bugs and when I put my hat back on I could feel something crawling in my hair. After freaking out about what was in my hair I saw that it was a mayfly. I then realized when I swatted at the mayflies with my hat they would get stuck in the mesh. That became my bug net from then on. It’s hard to get into thick hatches in the mtns. At least it was for me in the years I lived there. I never was in the legendary hatches you hear about. Probably one of the best ones was a big hex hatch. I believe they were green drakes but I never kept one to verify it. I was with a guy learning to fly fish. I never heard them hatching in the Watauga River so when I first saw them, I was like what are those, crane flies? I caught some in my hat and instantly I saw they were huge mayflies, green with big orange eyes and spinner tails. I showed my buddy but he had no idea what a mayfly was let alone a drake. Many of them would be stuck together passing me trying to mate. I figured that night would probably be one of the best fishing nights of the year. I had never fished at night and it is pretty spooky at night on the water. I regret not going but honestly I did not have the gear for it. I've seen various hatches since then, big golden stoneflies, sulphur mayflies and caddis. I still have never been in a hatch that was going off so much that you could barely breathe without inhaling bugs.

Why Fish?

People often wonder why people fish. Some know people fish for food and for a living, in boats that go into the open ocean and are gone for six months. Other’s know fishing as sitting in a boat on a lake with a good beer or book. Some see fishing as a way to get in touch with nature. I think the hardest fishing for people to understand is catch and release fishing. I’ve had many people look at me in bewilderment when I answer their question of what I do after catching a fish with “I let it go.” Many can’t fathom why anyone would want to spend hours pursuing something just to let it go. This story is about how I came to be a catch and release fisherman.

First off, I don’t even like to eat fish. When I do eat them they are either in stick form or ordered at a seafood restaurant, which I rarely visit. I’m not against anyone eating them. I just never found them to taste that good. There was always a moral growing up to only kill what you’re going to eat. This motto would be another motivation factor of catch and release. I grew up learning what I like to call the old school of fishing. This includes a spinning rod, most likely a zebco or something that has the actual reel covered up and casting is all about pushing and releasing a button to let line out. I was about 8 when I first learned and my relatives or whoever was nice enough to take me did all the rigging of line and hooks for me. The bait of choice was usually night crawlers. I learned at a young age how to cast. I was notorious for not leaving my bait out a very long time. I always wanted to reel in my line after 5min. I never remember catching much. All I can remember about my early fishing days was that I enjoyed it. My mother had some friends that had a ritual to go to the sierra’s every year. They invited us to join them.

Lee Vining


I still remember seeing the creek in the Lee Vining camp ground. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. Huge tall pines and beautiful crystal clear water. All of my previous fishing experience had been in lakes. I was so eager to get started fishing that I ran to the water with my pole in hand. I still had everything rigged up for a lake. I went to cast in the creek and my line shot across the 15ft wide stretch of water into the bushes on the other side. I ended up just snapping the line. I ran back to my mother and had her set me up with a hook to go out and try it again. I didn’t have any luck for the rest of the day. I watched some other kids camping with us catch fish. It looked really easy. I started to feel stupid for not being able to catch one fish.

The stock truck came the next day and everyone in camp was on alert. People scrambled to spots where the stock driver dumped a net of trout into the stream. My mom grabbed me and took me over to a pool that had just been filled with freshly stocked trout. There were at least 4 other people around this pool. Everyone was trying different things. I was armed with a treble hook and the bait of choice for the sierra’s; Patzke’s red fire balls salmon eggs. I remember seeing all of the fish just sitting there schooled together but none were taking my eggs. My mother explained to me about how the fish were stunned from just being stocked and it was going to take them time to get used to the new water. It wasn’t long after she said this that the fish started to investigate the baits around them. People started to catch fish and one fish instantly grabbed the eggs. My line jerked and I knew for the first time and could see that I was connected to a fish. I freaked and handed the pole to my mom. She was surprised and didn’t know what else to do but reel in the fish. I was mad because I felt she caught the fish and I didn’t. She gave me the pole back and asked me to try again. Of course my next 50 casts yielded no fish.

The next few days were a cycle of me snapping line in various parts of the creek and going back to my mother to have her re-tie on a hook. She was finally fed up with this and rigged my line with a swivel that had a type of safety pin at the end so you could use hooks that already had a leader with a loop end. This worked great. I’d carry packs of these around.
I watched a guy fish a run one afternoon and he caught about 6 fish from one spot. He was using live crickets. He was very nice and talked to me even though I was probably annoying him. I didn’t know it at the time but I was learning. Use other people to find locations of fish. Don’t pass up a spot later just because someone found it first. Be polite and don’t disturb the water while someone’s fishing it. If you pass that spot later and no one’s around, throw your line in. I remember thinking to myself, I’m coming back here tomorrow morning when no ones here. Sure enough the next morning I grabbed my pole and took off for that spot. I was so eager, I made sure everything was set. I dropped my line in the water and watched my eggs disappear. Then I went to reel in, felt a tug, and I knew I had a fish. I was so happy I caught a fish but didn’t know what to do with it after I caught it. So I did only what I knew. I took the fish still on the line back to my mom. She unhooked it and told me if I’m going to catch fish I needed to know how to unhook them. The fish count increased with each day. I was taking each fish I caught back to camp to put in a cooler. Eventually, I was given a satchel that doubled as a creel. It was so weird to drop a fish in and feel it flip against my side while I cast for another trout. After awhile I would start to get numb to the feeling.

I still wasn’t as good as the other kids camping with us but I knew I was getting better. I also loved fishing the streams in the sierra’s because of the scenery. To this day I can remember things that are like no place I’ve been since. Hiking next to the stream you have to navigate boulders, logs, roots of trees. You enjoy views of valley’s and glaciers. The water is so clear you can see the fish you’re trying to catch. This gave you an advantage, you could see how they reacted to bait and lures. You started to learn a trout’s behavior. I never noticed then but I know now, that I used to watch trout and search for them as much as I’d fish for them.

One of the kids in the camp received a fly rod and was using it for the first time. I was really intrigued at how the line moved threw the air. It was almost hypnotizing. This kid was not much older then me so I started to wonder if I could learn how to do that. What happened next is the reason to this day I always wear a hat when fly-fishing. This kid was casting when all of a sudden he let out a scream that sounded like he was being murdered. First his dad ran over, then his mother, then more people. I found out later he had gone to do a forward cast and got the fly stuck in his head. He had to be taken to the hospital and they cut the hook out there. He came back to camp with a inch square of hair missing. I decided then fly-fishing probably wasn’t for me. Little did I know it would become an addiction later in life.

The Family

My family has always gone to the Sierra’s. Not consistently, but they all have had plenty of experience there. My grandfather would take the family to Tom’s Place and Rock Creek. The next few years after I was 11 my mother would take us camping with them. My family is pretty competitive. There was never that much trash talking in the beginning of a camping trip. Though it didn’t take long for people to start asking how many fish did you catch? Then it turned into to a full-scale competition of who can catch the most fish. A tradition started, whoever caught the least fish had to clean everyone’s catches. This competitive nature resulted in some serious massacres. The limit in the Sierra Nevada at least when I was fishing was 5 fish over 10inches. I remember fishing with my uncles. I caught my 5 and went to watch them fish. I remember them catching 5 but they kept fishing. Then kept asking each other what was the count? They went to fill their coolers with water and I remember them saying “what are we going to do with 22 fish?” Even at a young age I knew there was something wrong about that. I could also see my uncles realized they had not gone about things the best way either. They really didn’t care about the fish but they knew they had done something wrong.

My grandfather has always preached respect of nature. Maybe not in his exact words but when he talks about animals and the circle of life. I have always felt he spoke of a connection with everything and respect should be given. He was really into Native American beliefs. I think this is where he got his point of view. I have many fond memories of fishing with family. We’d go to Crawley Lake, Twin Lake’s, Tom’s Place, Rock creek or remote creeks off the beaten path. I learned many fishing techniques and also learned many things from my uncles. When I was about 14 my dad bought me a pair of waders. I was notorious for losing hooks. I would go threw 25 hooks in 3 days. My uncles would get so mad at me and give me a hard time about it. Eventually one them fished with me and made me get snagged hooks out from under the water. I always had a fear of the water. I never liked putting my hand in the water where I couldn’t see. Usually that would be a place where your hook would get stuck, in fast moving water or under a ledge or roots or a rock and I’d just snap my line. I was afraid something in a place I can’t see might bite me. Not a fish but something un-discovered by modern science. Something no one else seemed to understand. To this day I still don’t like to put my hand where I can’t see what’s going on. It took me a while to venture far with my waders on. My mother had always talked to me about under toe and getting stuck under logs and drowning. I always was paranoid of this. It took me a bunch of trips and fishing with uncles to finally get over this.

My family eventually started to go to the same creek in the Sierra’s. It started to be a guys trip. The men of the family would get together to fish, tell stories and cook good food. I really loved this annual event. I became super familiar with the creek and would find the same holes to be productive year after year. I kept running into the occasional fly fisherman. The technique looked so enticing but I was catching plenty of fish with how I was fishing. I was getting used to my waders and was learning how fish and use pockets of water. I also learned the advantage of waders and how to get to places. My skills were coming together. I was catching tons of fish. So many that I was going way over my limit and had to let them go. This is where my next step towards catch and release came. My uncles would give me a hard time but now I realize their hazing helped me to be a better fisherman. One uncle nicknamed me “lunkhead” for the way I waded. He would tell me he could hear me coming from a mile downstream. He would get so mad because I’d spook fish he was trying to catch. This really made me pay attention to my wading. Another uncle would laugh at my tag lines I’d always leave after tying a hook on. He’d always say “you have so much tag line you look like you’re trying to tie a leader or something.” I was and am pretty lazy. When I’d tie a hook on many times if there was a long tag line I’d just leave it. If I never caught fish with a long tag line I probably would have been cured of that habit. I still caught fish. My uncles also taught me about getting to the places where no one usually goes and try the spots that no one usually fish’s or doesn’t bother fishing. Many times I’ve caught a fish 2ft from shore right under a bank I was standing on. Or 3ft from the tent I was camping in. People so often overlook great spots on streams because they feel the water is too shallow or some place might be over fished or the spot looks to likely to get your hook snagged. This is my advice. Take that chance on a spot that looks great but has huge snag potential. What’s worse? Losing a hook, or catching a trophy trout? You might get lucky and pull out the trout of your life.

Sympathy

When you catch a fish with a treble hook and bait 90% of the time the fish swallows everything. So lets say you caught your limit, what do you do? At a young age I didn’t think much about the fish so sometimes I’d just tear the hook out of the fish. This would result in ripping half the fish’s stomach out in the process, or I’d just cut the line and leave the hook in. Even when I’d let a fish go after doing this I knew the chance of survival wasn’t good. The fish would swim sideways or upside down. Some wouldn’t have the strength to swim against the current. I started to talk with more fishermen and many would give me a hard time for leaving the fish in the creel after catching them. They would say I should put them in water until I cleaned them or slam their head against a rock to kill them right away. I watched someone do the rock slam one time. It looked so brutal I could never see myself doing it. I started to put fish in a bucket or leave them on a stringer in water and drop them from place to place, then I’d talk to people who thought that was even worse. They’d talk of it as slowly suffocating the fish. All of this thinking made me start to look at the fish more like a living thing instead of a prize. I started to really care about the fish I caught. The squirming fish in my creel started to really bother me, instead of me ignoring it a few minutes later. I would make sure they were put in a bucket then cleaned right away.

Some of the relatives that camped with us would only use lures. I talked with them one day about why they did this. They told me one reason was bigger fish were caught, another was the fish were easier to release. The fish would never swallow the hook. This would stop you from destroying their insides when releasing them. I started to fish exclusively with lures. I would only resort to bait when I was desperate. This honed my fish finding skills even more. Most of the water in a glacier fed creek is not ideal for lures. Lures are heavy and the creek bottoms were mostly cobblestone type rock with moss and twigs embedded in between. Add to the mix stumps, logs and tree branches underwater you have snag city for lures. This made me really sharpen my casting accuracy and take advantage of water where I could fish lures. I caught less fish but the fish I did catch were many times larger. Also I found I could release the fish and they seemed less stressed. Occasionally I’d have a problem removing the hooks and would mess up a fish’s mouth or I’d land the fish improperly bouncing the trout on all the boulders and other debris on shore. Most likely the fish would die after release. I slowly learned what not to do. Many times if I knew the fish wasn’t going to make it, I’d keep it. The only problem with that is I’d have to find someone who’d want it. Most people didn’t want them unless they were cleaned.

I didn’t mind cleaning fish. Most fisherman have never seen actual trout eggs. They are pretty neat to see. They look nothing like what most people would imagine. Cleaning fish is a effective way to see what trout are taking as well. In the old days people would catch fish and instantly slice their stomach open and check for what the trout was eating. Eventually some people that would camp with us were fly fisherman. I would talk with them all the time about fly-fishing. They would always come back with less fish but all of their fish were alive and well when released. I had to admit that attracted me. I was still too caught up in the amount of fish caught and the size to try fly-fishing. As the years went on I talked with more fly fisherman. I started to read occasional articles about it. I started to try flies on my spinning rod. I could hardly ever see fish taking the flies but I would catch fish occasionally. Stocked trout in the sierras are pretty ignorant. They like drag, you can drag a fly back on the surface and entice hatchery trout from all directions. Also, in California they do not stock browns and brookies like they do in other parts of the US. If you catch a brook it will most likely be in a high up glacier fed lake or a finger off of a main creek. The brook trout are tiny averaging usually 4-5inches. The browns are beautiful but not much bigger. In some lakes they get to huge sizes in the double-digit pounds. In the creeks you’re lucky to ever catch one over 12inches. If you get in certain elevations you can catch Golden Trout. These are very pretty fish. I’ve never caught one over 6inches. After research and compassion for trout I started to really work on catch and release. I would use lures only. I eventually bought a fly rod and used it half the time. I didn’t really know what I was doing with it. It was a 9ft 5wt. I didn’t know what that meant when I got it. All I knew was it was way to long to do a decent cast. The flies I used were attractor dry fly patterns. I would catch fish rarely. I would get so frustrated I’d usually go back to using my spin rod with lures. I eventually put the fly rod down and just lure fished. I became a snob to bait fisherman. Thinking, that was for people who didn’t know how to fish. I liked the challenge of lures.

I fished with lures and flies off and on for about 10yrs. I bought a fly rod and would fish with that for awhile, if it didn't produce fish I'd switch back over to lures. I started carrying a net because I knew it was better for the fish when releasing them. So much damage is done when a fish bounces around on the bank of a stream. I started to read more books about fly fishing and I moved to North Carolina 3 years ago with at the time my fiance. I moved to a small town called Boone. There was really nothing to do there but fish. Once you get to real mtn communities you'll find true fly-fisherman. I mean people that have been doing it since they could barely walk. They tie their own flies, build their own rods, and know every nook and cranny of a stream. The experience they have is priceless. They've seen the streams at their best and worst conditions. It's hard to find these guys and when you find them it's hard to get any fishing advice from them. Getting the knowledge they have takes a lifetime and it's understandable why they want to gaurd it. It's the edge they have. I hope to be one of these guys someday.

To be continued......