Birthday Fish’n
4/21/26
I decided to fish the delayed harvest area on Wilson Creek in the Pisgah Nation Forest in North Carolina for my birthday. Down at the creek I lit up a cigar and prepared to relax and have fun fishing. The sun was still rising above the mountain side but threw shadows of anything standing on the other side of the creek. Birds were chirping and the sound of the water tumbling and waves over rocks and boulders made a soothing and quaint sound for an enjoyable adventure.
The water was gin clear and mostly shallow in between the deeper holes which were more like big pond water. How deep I couldn’t tell you but at spots the deep pools were maybe encompassing 20 yard to 30 yards. At the tail end they would spill water down creek into wide shallow waves and riffles, which most of the time, weren’t any more than knee to shin deep. With the sun shining down on the gin clear creek the depth below the riffles were deceiving.
The morning was slow going without a strike as I casted streamers. The first location I stopped at yielded nothing. Though there were small bugs flying around I didn’t see anything rising. I was surprised that I didn’t even get a strike around the many brush and downed branches along the waters edge.
My second stop I added weight to the tippet and was casting out into a deep pool as far as I could. I finally got a strike and pulled in a speckled trout.
Later on I hooked into a rainbow that took the bugger and I missed a take. By then quite a few hours had passed by. I was getting a lot of exercise wading and walking the stony creek banks as I fished and walking back to the truck.
When I got back to the truck it was nearing 1:00. The sun was up above shining bright. I decided to drive up creek and see if there was any other place that looked good to fish wanting good riffling water emptying into a deeper section.
My last stop was up from a bridge. There was a small family taking in the sun, on a blanket, on the sandy bank. Across the big pool of water a man was fishing off the big boulders and, I assume, his daughter was playing around on the rocks. I was almost ready to call it a day but decided to walk down to the creek, from my truck, and see what was above the bridge.
There was a nice narrow channel of wavy water streaming down from a big pool above. The water looked to be maybe knee deep in spots but mostly looked shallow. I took a stand, away from the water, and started to cast a Woolly Bugger towards the far bank where it was shaded. I only casted a couple of times without a strike when I noticed a rise just downstream in the shallow water near my side of the creek. Well, though it may of been a small minnow or fish, I decided to knot on a dry fly.
I looked into my fly box and picked out a #14 Elk hair caddis. I knotted it on to my 4x tippet and doped it up with dry fly dressing. I really didn’t know what to expect. I made a cast and dropped my caddis on the wavy current three quarters of the way across. I was still trying to locate my fly on the glare of the wavy water when I saw a quick rise to the top of the waves. I wasn’t sure where my caddis was but instinctually I raised and reared back the rod and pulled in slack line. The tip section bowed, the line tightened and pointed towards the water with a frisky fighting fish on the other end. I walked to the waters edge and played the trout to the net. You talk about a happy guy on his birthday. This was it! Catching a nice frisky trout on a dry fly and getting it to the net.
Grandpa always said that where there’s one there’s two. Casting out the caddis would sink earlier then I wanted. I decided to nip off some of the 4x tippet and knot on a section of 5x. The caddis I was using was pretty much drenched and tore up. I took another #14 caddis from my caddis fly box and knotted it on. I made a cast nearer the shaded far bank and watched as the caddis drifted towards an overhanging branchy bank-side brush. A trout rose, splashing the surface, immediately and I was Jerry on the spot. I raised the rod and another trout was fighting at the end of the line. He scurried about tugging and pulling till I got him to the net. It was a fine looking rainbow.
I missed one more quick rise on the #14 caddis. In time I tried a couple of different caddis in the narrow channel without another take. I finished casting streamers in the deeper water upstream from the bridge without a strike.
Though it was a long day, without many strikes, the two I caught on dry caddis was the topping of the day!!
Happy Birthday to me.
~doubletaper
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