jsullivan03
Senior Member
A buddy and I headed to NC around 5 am on Friday morning with high hopes of big fish. Drive past the Nantahala DH, notice that it is flowing clear so we figured our original destination should be fine too. We get there to find the water is up by about a foot and a half and has a stain to it. Oh well, time to throw on the sinking lines and strip meaty flies all day. So that is what we did. I only managed one fish to hand, but what a fish it was.
Not long after that fish, my friends gets one on around the same size or bigger but it came unbuttoned not to long after that. We continue to fish for the rest of the morning with no success. After taking a break for lunch and setting up camp, we went back to the water. Working different holes for awhile we just can't seem to move any fish so we go back to where we were having luck before. I'm on one side of the river and my friend is on the other. Next thing I know, his rod is doubled over and he is screaming to bring the net.........
that being said, I'm going to go on a side note here. At 5am as I am picking him up, he holds up his large boat net and asks if we should bring it. I look at it and ask him if he really wants to be carrying that thing around all day long? I mean if you can get the head of the fish into the net you should be able to get it out of the water. Now back to my story.
........I toss my rod and fly box on the bank and quickly work over to where he is. By this time the LARGE rainbow has made a couple jumps and let us see how big it actually was. We move downstream with it and it jumps again. After that jump the fight got harder on him for some reason. Come to find out, the fish had disloged the hook from its mouth and re hooked itself behind the gill plate. Seeing that, I move further down stream of him to get a net on it. Now I know I said that if you get the head of the fish in the net you should be able to get it up out of the water, but when the head of the fish won't fit in the net what do you do? I tried anyways got it in, but it gave a good kick and rolled out. The line popped and that is the last we saw of the fish. But, for good measure I did get a picture of what he would have looked like if we would have gotten it in. I'm willing to bet the fish was all of 26 inches, if not better.
We fished a little longer with no more luck. Decided to call it a day and go back to camp to change clothes before we went to dinner. A friend of ours gave us directions to a good restaurant that we liked to never have found. Once we did finally find it, we realized it had closed down. But we did find another establishment right behind it that caught our eye.
We got a good laugh out of that, and found somewhere else to eat. After that we went back to camp to get a good nights sleep for the next days adventure.
The next morning we packed down camp, and headed to the Tuck to launch a floatilla of boats and see what it would produce. They all show and we set off. We start fishing a few runs right at the boat ramp and watch the boat deemed the SS Estrogen float on past us (our good friend had a boat full of women that day). One of the girls was sitting in the back seat fully turned around fishing with her legs off the back of the raft. We thought that might be a recipe for disaster. Next thing you know, we hear a loud squeal and think maybe one of the girls on the boat has gotten a fish. Nope...she is in the water. We originally had thought she got bumped off because of the way she was sitting. Come to find out, they had gotten stuck on a rock and she jumped out to push them off said rock. Little did she know the water was not as shallow as she thought. One of the guys in a kayak came to the rescue and got her back in the boat safely. That was the last we saw of them until we got to the take out. We fished hard all day with only about 4 fish coming to the boat. The water temps were extremely low and the fish that did eat, were giving very subtle takes. I only caught one and missed the set on a few others. I didn't get a lot of pictures on the float, but I did get a shot of one of the drift boats on the river.
After our day of fishing, we headed back to GA and turned the truck towards home. All in all it was a great weekend to be on the water.
Not long after that fish, my friends gets one on around the same size or bigger but it came unbuttoned not to long after that. We continue to fish for the rest of the morning with no success. After taking a break for lunch and setting up camp, we went back to the water. Working different holes for awhile we just can't seem to move any fish so we go back to where we were having luck before. I'm on one side of the river and my friend is on the other. Next thing I know, his rod is doubled over and he is screaming to bring the net.........
that being said, I'm going to go on a side note here. At 5am as I am picking him up, he holds up his large boat net and asks if we should bring it. I look at it and ask him if he really wants to be carrying that thing around all day long? I mean if you can get the head of the fish into the net you should be able to get it out of the water. Now back to my story.
........I toss my rod and fly box on the bank and quickly work over to where he is. By this time the LARGE rainbow has made a couple jumps and let us see how big it actually was. We move downstream with it and it jumps again. After that jump the fight got harder on him for some reason. Come to find out, the fish had disloged the hook from its mouth and re hooked itself behind the gill plate. Seeing that, I move further down stream of him to get a net on it. Now I know I said that if you get the head of the fish in the net you should be able to get it up out of the water, but when the head of the fish won't fit in the net what do you do? I tried anyways got it in, but it gave a good kick and rolled out. The line popped and that is the last we saw of the fish. But, for good measure I did get a picture of what he would have looked like if we would have gotten it in. I'm willing to bet the fish was all of 26 inches, if not better.
We fished a little longer with no more luck. Decided to call it a day and go back to camp to change clothes before we went to dinner. A friend of ours gave us directions to a good restaurant that we liked to never have found. Once we did finally find it, we realized it had closed down. But we did find another establishment right behind it that caught our eye.
We got a good laugh out of that, and found somewhere else to eat. After that we went back to camp to get a good nights sleep for the next days adventure.
The next morning we packed down camp, and headed to the Tuck to launch a floatilla of boats and see what it would produce. They all show and we set off. We start fishing a few runs right at the boat ramp and watch the boat deemed the SS Estrogen float on past us (our good friend had a boat full of women that day). One of the girls was sitting in the back seat fully turned around fishing with her legs off the back of the raft. We thought that might be a recipe for disaster. Next thing you know, we hear a loud squeal and think maybe one of the girls on the boat has gotten a fish. Nope...she is in the water. We originally had thought she got bumped off because of the way she was sitting. Come to find out, they had gotten stuck on a rock and she jumped out to push them off said rock. Little did she know the water was not as shallow as she thought. One of the guys in a kayak came to the rescue and got her back in the boat safely. That was the last we saw of them until we got to the take out. We fished hard all day with only about 4 fish coming to the boat. The water temps were extremely low and the fish that did eat, were giving very subtle takes. I only caught one and missed the set on a few others. I didn't get a lot of pictures on the float, but I did get a shot of one of the drift boats on the river.
After our day of fishing, we headed back to GA and turned the truck towards home. All in all it was a great weekend to be on the water.
