Fly Fishing for Trout in South Carolina

A decision was made. We would go camping. Yay! Only, I would pitch the tent to sleep in and my pic chick would have the SUV with inflatable mattress, etc… .

OK, good enough for me. At least my snoring would be a non-issue. Actually, another benefit was the tossing and turning factor; I could waller all I wanted to and not worry. Plus when daylight broke, I could get up, rig the rod and hit the water running. But, to tell the truth, there was no running to it. We were on a small creek that had been restored to its native trout species: the Southern Appalachian Brook Trout. My mission: see if I can catch one.

Ok, so it wasn’t a lunker, unless you consider the fact that this was reproduction from the recent restocking. That made it special for me. It, and others like it, will never achieve a lot of size, but that’s not the point. It is a true Southern native, and that’s all that matters. Back home again. What a feeling. Thanks to all the hard work by the SABT committee and the SC DNR. You guys know who you are.

The plan was to mentor on the Delayed Harvest section of the Chattooga River. I had my heart set on it, but since time was too limited to actually go and check the water level due to earlier rains, the plan got changed. Twice. The next option, Tuckasegee, also got changed. Seems that the keepers of the dam decided they needed to discharge water (possibly due to more than expected rain?) and the water level was not safe for wading. Rats.

That’s how we ended up on the North Mills River. I’d heard about it, but this was a first for me. And Wes. And his neighbor Paul and his son Jordan. It turned out to be quite nice, in spite of the lengthy walk. True, the walk was down a gravel road, but it was pretty much downhill, meaning that coming back out was gonna be uphill. The four of us dropped out of the group to hit the river and fish downstream while Watts and company went on up. As it turned out, it seems that we got the better deal. Apparently the upper stretch had more folks than the section we were in. I started feeling a mood change when I latched into a rainbow in the first hour, and even better when a second ‘bow followed it. Things slowed a little, so I changed direction slightly (like 180) and moseyed upstream to try any likely-looking water I happened to find. Had to pass on one nice hole due to the occupancy, but managed to find a spot. The reward was in the form of another rainbow, and a bonus brown trout erased any lasting negativity. I decided that this day was turning out alright.

Stayed longer than I intended, and because I had the car keys and lunch was in the car, I headed back to get with the guys. Finding Paul and Jordan, I was informed that Paul had tied into a nice 16-incher. Also, that Wes had gone looking for me. After a while, we were all back together and made the trek back up to the parking lot. We decided that going back in was not going to be as long a walk. And to help with that, it was also decided to fish downstream so that the trip out would be shorter. Well, it was, but it was also a heckuva lot steeper, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Wes went downstream a little farther while I stayed with Paul and Jordan. Lo and behold, Paul connected again and again with another rainbow, followed by a very pretty brookie. I was getting a little envious; I have a bit of a soft spot in my heart for brookies. As if to assuage my feelings, a spunky rainbow decided to try to patch things up for me, bringing my number up to five. I could live with that, yep.

I caught up with Wes down below to find out that he also made acquaintance with a couple of rainbows. I tried my luck there while he went downstream once more, and Paul and Jordan passed me, following Wes. I stayed and worked that spot longer than I should, but no cigar this time. Plus, I left a fly in a tree branch. Drat. It started looking late, mainly because it was, so I scooted down until I caught up with them. It wasn’t but a couple of minutes later that Paul and I heard Wes whooping it up, so we scurried around a short bend to see him bent over, holding something in the water and hollering for the camera. Ok, I laid down my Sage and got close to snap some shots of Wes holding a nice brookie. Good work there.

After that, we steeled ourselves to head straight up the hill and pick up the road back to the vehicle. What the return trip lacked in distance this time, it more than made up for it in steepness. And it seemed that the closer we got to the road, the steeper the hill became. We rested more, I know that. But that, too, was alright. I was thankful for the exercise and, oh yeah, the trout didn’t hurt matters either. At least we now have another place to visit… .

Weekends, that is. How lucky is that? My wife decided that it was her turn for a trip to the river, and so it was. I had misgivings when she wanted to visit the famous Bull Sluice (Deliverance), because I never fish the sections where boating is allowed, but I figured it would turn out well as a photo op.

I was kind of glad once we got there. The bridge was newer than I remembered, and there are parking areas on both sides of the road. Not many people there so we walked upstream to the viewing point where we were stopped by rock structure that we couldn’t get past. We should have taken the trail down from the upper parking lot and we’d have been on the right side of the railing. Oh well.

The water was still fairly low and we watched two kayakers come through in some pretty short kayaks. They looked like they were sitting in red mini-bananas. My prejudice is showing (I’m not a boater). Ho hum.

So that got tiring and we decided to take a look above the Highway 28 bridge. The parking was a little too full when we arrived, so after a bit, I decided to go on up to Burrell’s Ford, thinking it would be busy as well. Turned out not to be the case, so I suited up and got in just to see what was what. Spoke to a couple of fly fishermen coming out who said the trout weren’t biting. I noticed the bait fishermen seemed to be empty-handed also. Hmm. Well, I was there and not about to leave without trying.

Well, I know. This is an older picture that I used back in ’05, but that’s what I ended up with as a result of a little probing with my favorite little gray partridge hackle nymph. Once I figured out how to present it, that is. In fact, it’s been that long since I have kept a few for the table and I didn’t feel bad about it at all. One of the main reasons is that I’ve learned from the fisheries biologist that the stockers there are pretty much not going to survive the summer, between the corn fishermen and the drought conditions that are so common. And, yes, it also felt good because I got to use a brand new landing net (Christmas present). Thanks, Wes. It worked perfectly!

And that turned out to be a good ending, I thought … all the way home.