Hey Y’all!!
Three weeks into North Carolina’s Delayed Harvest Season and finally the fishing is red hot and upon us. All the invested hours of tying flies, prepping gear, and studying the water is paying off with overwhelming success. The stocked trout are a joy to catch and the released Rainbow, Brown, and Brook Trout that are in the waters right now are biting very well and offer a great day of fishing to even the most inexperienced of fly fisherman. While they do offer a mild challenge, it is a great time to take your not so “fish-wise” friend, child, or better half to the river to get a very enjoyable fly fishing experience without having to hire a guide. A common misconception though, is that the Delayed Harvest is only for novice fisherman and offers no challenge to the experienced angler. This could not be farther from the truth. In my opinion, the most significant and yet overlooked appeal of the Delayed Harvest is that it creates food scarcity on the rivers. When the rivers and streams are stocked to the gills with thousands of trout, wild trout are unable to find the readily available food sources that they have been gorging on all summer. This is a very important phenomenon, especially when it comes to the waters that are highly overfished. Even if the waters are “catch and release” year-round, you can just about count on the fact that a large trout in these areas as seen just about every fly imaginable. Many fisherman talk about the challenge of catching wild trout, but that challenge pales in comparison to the difficulty of trying to catch highly pressured trout. This is what you run into at places like the Davidson River. Matching the hatch is easy, putting a fly right in front of a fish is easy, but getting that fish to bite when he is scared is almost impossible. During the DH there is a time when this fish just can’t take the hunger anymore and when that time comes they will be looking for the first fly that matches what they are looked for. I wouldn’t call these fish desperate, but I would go as far to say that they resort back to their natural predator instincts.
This weekend I was on Wilson Creek, my favorite Delayed Harvest stream in the entire state hands down. My lovely Fiancé and I went up to the stream and camped out for the weekend and we had great luck on the streams. I caught a great number of trout and she captured some great pictures. Most of the pictures were of my furry fishing buddy Coal but there were a few good shots of me with a rod in my hand. I enjoyed the company, especially when trout missed my dry flies. I was able to haul in many trout of all three species but the biggest fish of the trip was a 23” Rainbow on a #20 Blood Midge tied on 7x Tippet. It was a fantastic trip and I am really looking forward to getting back up there. So by now I hope you realize how good the fishing is at the moment, just to give you a heads up like always I am going to post my patterns used below:
Weather
Friday 10/18: Mild Overcast
High 75 Degrees
Water Temp: 52 Degrees
No Wind
Saturday 10/19: Heavy Overcast w/ Short Patches of Sun
High 67 Low 42
Water Temp: 45
Sunday 10/20: No Clouds w/ Full Sun
High 65 Low 35
Water Temp 47
FLIES USED (Listed in Order of Importance)
#20 Red Blood Midge
#22 Zebra Midge
#18 Beaded UV Quilled Buzzer/Midge
#18 Midge-decator Dry Fly
#14 Green Prince
#12 Carolina Adams
#12 Orange / Olive Stimulator
#12 Thunderhead Adams
#14 Red Copper John
#14 Green Bean
#16 Black Elk Hair Caddis
