deermaster13
Senior Member
Nice!
Welcome Guest!
Great Day of Fishing in Good Company
- Thread starter NCHillbilly
- Start date
GLS
Classic Southern Gentleman
Try this with big scallops: Thin slice top to bottom and shuffle lemon slices between the raw scallop slices and refrigerate for a couple of hours. Discard the lemon slices and serve the scallops with wasabi and soy. I ain't telling you two how to fish; you already know how. 
Gil
Gil
FordGT40
Member
Awesome pictures! What kind of camera do you use?
Just a little Olympus TG-5 pocket point-and-shoot. Not a bad little camera, and it's waterproof to 50'. I killed my last Canon when I got caught in a massive downpour several miles back in the mountains.
Awesome, awesome stuff!
Rabun
Senior Member
Beautiful areas you wonder through! God's Country! Thanks for taking us along for the ride. Not a bad shore lunch...some times you just have to rough it
whitetailfreak
Senior Member
I've also wondered what camera you use. I always use my phone, but need to rethink that apparently. Awesome pic quality on your end.
Buckman18
Senior Member
One day I’m gonna bring my eagle claw over there and show y’all how to fish. 
Just kidding of course! Great job!
Just kidding of course! Great job!
whitetailfreak
Senior Member
One day I’m gonna bring my eagle claw over there and show y’all how to fish.
Just kidding of course! Great job!
Hey, those yeller glass Eagle Claw rods with the tape measurer on the butt section are hard to beat. My dad would punch somebody in the mouth if they tried to take his ?
Buckman18
Senior Member
That’s all I use when I fly fish on a speck or small/medium size bow stream. I betcha I’ve owned 10 of them in my life. Great rods! And WHEN you trip and break one, you’re only out $25!
They include a ruler for both Killer Kyle sized fish:
And Buckman size fish:
Last edited:
Taxman
Senior Member
Thanks for taking us along!! Sad to hear about the first creeks
lower output. It sure looked nice. Identification and edification of all the flora
and fish species was great!!
lower output. It sure looked nice. Identification and edification of all the flora
and fish species was great!!
I bet I've caught ten thousand trout on a yaller Eagle Claw. I didn't know that they made any other kind of fly rods for years.One day I’m gonna bring my eagle claw over there and show y’all how to fish.
Just kidding of course! Great job!
Bream Pole
Senior Member
really appreciate your posts. I enjoy your experiences.
cramer
Senior Member
What a day, great scenery, food , fishing and friends
After a few hours, we decided to climb back out to the road and try another creek a little lower down the mountain.
View attachment 971137
This creek is mostly populated with wild browns, with specks intermixed and taking over a couple miles up above some falls.
We caught a bunch of colorful browns:
View attachment 971138
View attachment 971139
This hole in particular was good to us. We took turns at it, working up from the tail of the pool, and wound up catching a slam out of this one hole.
View attachment 971140
Nice little brown:
View attachment 971141
This fat rainbow (which are very rare in this creek: )
View attachment 971142
And this hawg of a speck?/brook that I caught in the head of the pool:
View attachment 971143
He was in the 12"-13" range. There are native specks in this creek, and it isn't stocked at all, but I don't know about this one.
Either
A: He is a holdover stocker brook that swam up from some stocked water a few miles down the creek that this creek flows into (if so, I don't blame him, and this is the most likely scenario,)
Or
B: This is the biggest, and least colorful wild speck I have ever caught. Maybe they're like cottonmouths, and their spots fall off when they get big and old.
He had a #16 beadhead hare's ear nymph broken off in him. I took it out of him and put it in my fly box before releasing him. Ad Victorem Spolia and all.
Wild fish are purty.
View attachment 971144
That speck is a HAWG!!
fish hawk
Bass Master
Wow,thats good stuff.
Uptonongood
Senior Member
Great report and excellent explanation!Not a dumb question, but there is a huge difference. All specks are brook trout, but most brook trout aren't specks.
The native mountain specks are southern Appalachian strain brook trout, an isolated and genetically distinct variety/subspecies of brook trout that have been trapped in the higher elevations of the mountains of NC, SC, and GA since the climate warmed at the end of the Pleistocene. Industrial logging and the introduction of non-native browns, rainbows, and northern-strain brook trout almost wiped them out in the early 1900s, and they have been driven back to the highest, coldest, smallest streams in the mountains, usually ones with a big waterfall or other barrier that browns and rainbows can't get over. Often, due to genetics and habitat restrictions, a full-grown, mature speck may often top out at 4"-5" in length. A 12" speck is about the equivilent of a 15 lb largemouth, or maybe more rare. They are very colorful, and extremely wary and hard to sneak up on. They require extremely clean, cold water to live. They are also almost impossible to raise or grow in captivity.
The northern-strain brook trout are native from Virginia to Canada. They grow a lot bigger, are less colorful, and less wary. They are also easily raised in captivity, and are stocked by the thousands in hatchery-supported streams. It's not unusual to catch stocked northern brooks over 20" long.
Native Specks in spawning colors (full-grown size in a small creek: )
View attachment 971161
View attachment 971163
Average northern-strain brook trout:
View attachment 971164
Too cool ??
