SC Trout Stocking Report and A Glimmer of Hope – Maybe

 Fly Fishing  No Responses »
Jan 202012
 
Falls on the Limber Pole

Well, well, mother nature gave the Upstate a real shot of winter last weekend and she has something a little different in store for this weekend. Looks like rain on Saturday and Sunday, but all hope isn’t lost. Temps will be considerably warmer this weekend with highs in the 60s on Saturday and around 50 on Sunday and the lows remain well above freezing. There is one more glimmer of hope. Even though the rain chance both days is rather high, it appears that actual rainfall totals won’t be too high. Possibly a half inch on Saturday and maybe a tenth of an inch on Sunday. That’s fairly tolerable, but then again that’s putting a lot of trust in the weather man.

The SCDNR was back at it this week, stocking over 3,800 trout into several locations including the Chauga River, Chattooga River, North, Middle, and South Saluda rivers, and the Lake Murray tailwaters.

Fishing was tough last weekend. A combination of a small bead head nymph with an even smaller nymph dropped behind just didn’t produce anything on wild trout water. Generally stocked trout are a little more eager to bite, and don’t shut down in cold weather quite like wild fish do. I’d go straight to a #16 hare’s ear with a #18 or #20 zebra midge or Copper John dropped behind it, or possibly a San Juan worm with a small nymph dropper. A small BWO parachute may come in handy as well, as this type of weather is often their preference. If none of that works on hatchery fish, try a woolly bugger. If that doesn’t work, get out of the rain and go home before you catch a cold.

Be sure to keep an eye on water levels too. Right now everything appears to be right at average, but that could change if there are some locally heavier rainfall totals in places. I’d go 6x tippet on wild water and the usual 5x should be fine on stocked water. If the bite seems awkwardly slow, drop it on down to 6x on the hatchery supported water as well. If nothing else, there should be some decent NFL playoff games on this weekend.

 Posted by Mark at 11:22 pm  Tagged with: , , ,

Frozen Reels and Hidden Gems – A Fly Fishing Report – More or Less

 Fly Fishing, Notes From The Creek  3 Responses »
Jan 192012
 

Last weekend brought what appeared to be some actual winter weather to Upstate SC. This trip was primarily a scouting mission, but there’s no sense in checking out new streams with no fly rod.

East Fork of the Chattooga

East Fork of the Chattooga. Looks fishy.

I hit a short section of the East Fork Chattooga on Friday afternoon, and was met with frozen line guides and inactive fish. I’ll call them inactive, however since I really didn’t even see one, its hard say they were completely inactive. The afternoon brought mostly frozen line guides, and once the reel started freezing up, I decided to pack it in for the day.

I have fished a few different sections of the East Fork, but the portion picture above was new to me. Saturday brought about a little expedition to totally new water over in the Lake Jocassee watershed on the west side of the lake. This stream, Limber Pole Creek, was a real gem of a find. It was a larger stream than I had anticipated at the point I made entry.

Limber Pole Creek

Limber Pole Creek. Looking upstream from the trail crossing, Limber Pole forks right while an unspecified stream forks left.

I worked downstream from this location, as was really surprised to find that it wasn’t nearly as rhododendron choked as I had envisioned, on the way down. With that being the case, I was able to parallel the creek from the bank, and cherry pick a few of the better looking holes. There was no shortage of potential snags, and traditional fly casting was off limits for the most part, but not fighting through rhodo thickets was a nice change. Still nothing doing in the catching department, but there were definitely several places I want to go back to when the time is right to drift a little parachute Adams.

Falls on the Limber Pole

Small falls on the Limber Pole

On the bright side, freezing line and reels weren’t an issue on Saturday. I seem to struggle to catch fish anytime those freezing type conditions prevail. The wild trout especially, appear to really shut down during those times, but it was nice to get in some water and give them a shot at least.

There are several more streams in that general area that require some scouting in the future. Hopefully the catching part will improve as Spring approaches. If nothing else, as a consolation both Saturday and Sunday were excellent days to be outside. Still a little chilly, but tolerable for sure. I fished mostly a #16 hare’s ear nymph with a small Copper John or an Owl Jones zebra midge dropped behind it.

blue sky and trees

On the bright side, Saturday was about as Bluebird a day as you could ask for.

 Posted by Mark at 8:32 pm  Tagged with: , ,

SC Trout Stocking Report On Ice 1-13-12

 Fly Fishing  No Responses »
Jan 132012
 

Well mother nature has decided to give us a little taste of winter this weekend. I spent a couple hours on the East Fork Chattooga River today, and even at 2:00 p.m. my line was still freezing to my rod. Eventually my reel froze up as well.

The SCDNR did stock over 2,000 trout into Upstate twaters, which included the Chattooga River DH section, Table Rock State Park, Brasstown Creek, and Rocky Bottom.

Chilly weather will continue through the weekend with highs at Mountain Rest forecast to struggle to reach the mid 40s, and possibly upper 40s by Sunday. Lows Saturday and Sunday mornings will be in the upper 20s, so I wouldn’t try to get a real early start. Best chances for catching fish will most likely fall between 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.

I fished today with a small beadhead nymph with a #20 Owl Joneszebra midge dropped behind it, which was met with no success, but that will remain my strategy on wild trout water on Saturday. Hatchery supported water may see better results with about the same set up. Wouldn’t hurt to have a few buggers handy for stocked fish also. May as well leave your dry flies at home this weekend, except maybe on Sunday if you’re on some lower elevation water where it may be just a little warmer. I’ll have more time to fish on Saturday, so hopefully I can find something that will work. If so, I’ll report back here Saturday night.

 Posted by Mark at 10:59 pm  Tagged with: , , ,

More Good News For SC Brook Trout

 Fly Fishing  No Responses »
Jan 132012
 
wild brook trout

According to a recent article published by the SCDNR, more plans are in the works to restore additional Brook Trout habitat in the Jocassee Gorges region in Upstate SC. A coalition of agencies including the SCDNR, US Forest Service, Trout Unlimited, and Duke Energy have been working together to assess stream conditions to determine whether they are capable of sustaining wild brook trout populations, as they once did many years ago. Restoration projects on other streams have proven to be very successful, so we’ll hope this new project will be equally as successful.

Restoration of two streams in Jocassee Gorges could begin as early as Fall or Winter of 2012. That’s certainly good news for our brookies and those of us who like to fish for them. Quite frankly, I would be happy if they removed all rainbow and brown from our wild trout streams, returning them exclusively to the Eastern brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis), our only native trout which isn’t actually a trout. The Eastern brook trout as well as the Southern Appalachian strain are salmonids. Rainbows and browns would be fine if left in our hatchery supported waters. I certainly wouldn’t want to see them totally removed.

You can read the entire press release at the SCDNR website.

 Posted by Mark at 1:56 am  Tagged with: ,

SC Trout Stocking Report – Kicking Off The New Year

 Fly Fishing  2 Responses »
Jan 072012
 

I suppose being a new year, there should be some resolutions on my mind. I’ve never been much for resolutions in the first place, however I would like to resolve to try to have an original thought or two to post this year. I know its been pretty much a rut around here, but we’ll see how it goes. Also, my biggest goal is simply to recover from whatever mystery condition I’ve been dealing with for nearly three months, which has certainly been a distraction. I hope to scout some more SC wild trout water in the near future, and I received some Rio tapered trout leaders the other day. Perhaps I’ll do a little review on those at some point. Hopefully there will also be some really neat new fly rods coming available this year as they roll out the rod shop (garage).

On to the trout stocking report. The SCDNR got down to business this week and stocked over 3,100 more trout into the likes of the Chauga River, East Fork of The Chattooga River, Lake Murray Tailwater, and the Chattooga River.

The weather for this weekend looks to be fair, with a chance of rain sneaking into the forecast on Sunday. Otherwise, things look decent with highs on Saturday in the mid 60s dropping to mid 50s on Sunday. Looks to be cloudy, so the fish may not be as spooky as they can be when its bright and clear. The lows will remain well above freezing so fishing has a chance of being rather productive.

Carry your usuals if you go. Small para Adams and BWOs, elk hair caddis, prince nymphs, hare’s ear nymphs, woolly buggers around size #8, and maybe a red fox nymph, or WD-40 nymph. The water is back down, so at least 6x tippet on the wild fish and 5x should be fine on hatchery supported water.

 Posted by Mark at 12:12 am  Tagged with: , , ,
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