linville/wilson creek

i've been telling my brother (who lives in STL) for a few years that he needs to explore the linville gorge with me. finally made it happen a few weeks ago. first day was just about perfect weather. we went down the conley cove trail, which is rough but not the most challenging trail in the area. had a 25 percent chance of showers, so didn't want to be dumb and go down cabin that day (if you've been down/up cabin, you know why it would be dumb on a rainy day). wound up not raining until almost 6:30, after we reached the car.

as i've said before here, i never know what to expect fishing-wise in the gorge. found out pretty quickly it was going to be a smallie-goggle eye day instead of a trout day (even though we worked a spot that almost always produces at least one quality brown trout). i was cool with that. used two-inch grubs on 16th-ounce jig heads, most of them with some type of orange hint to the body. water was a little high, so my weightless soft plastics didn't fly in the slightly quicker current. he caught 15ish fish, i caught 10ish (because he's my brother and doesn't fish much, i was ok with him catching more because i was able to convince myself it was my helpful instruction that lifted him to the top of the scoreboard. is that true? maybe. shaddup. ha). no size of consequence to any, unless you count a couple goggle-eye that were pushing 10 inches.

as always, the gorge was an amazing visual experience (you can barely see my brother next to that rock on the left).

found this dude under the tent as we were packing up the next morning. fun.

we were going to take the cabin trail into linville the next day, but the forecast changed dramatically overnight, from 10 percent chance of light rain to 70 percent chance of drenching rain in the morning turning into thunderstorms by 2ish. thanks, forecasters. so instead, we adjusted plans to head over to wilson creek for the day, because he'd never caught a trout. i tried to tell him that the timing of this wilson creek trip--the last gasps of the hatchery-supported season--couldn't be worse because the stream would likely be pretty much cleaned out, but we'd give it a shot anyway. didn't even see any trout at the first two spots, both of which are normally money for me. ugh. did see this guy, though, trying to scurry across the road.

don't worry, i got better (ok, please tell me somebody gets this? anyone? anyone? bueller?)

anyway ... at the third spot, we finally found a few fish. i caught a nice brookie on one of my magic two-inch senkos, and a few minutes later, he caught his first trout, a feisty brown, on the same thing. there were a few small smallies and aggressive sunfish in the swim, so we had a good time. as we had walked into this section twenty minutes earlier, though, he saw a big ol' trout chillin' in the middle of the creek, 20 feet from the shore in about eight feet of water. it had ignored my brother's offerings, and anxious to get him his first trout, we left that one alone and tried to find some less-finicky fish.

this time, though, i told him we weren't leaving until he caught the big'un or he scared it completely away by running too many lures into his zone. we were going to stand there and change tactics as many times as possible. so he threw the senkos again, and nothing. after 10 minutes of that, i had him put on the two-inch pumpkinseed-and-orange grub with the 16th-ounce head, the combo we used at linville. he threw it well upstream and slowly matriculated it back toward the fish.

as the lure worked into the potential strike zone, we both held our breath. then, the beast turned abruptly in the direction of the grub. "i think my lure's right there," he whispered quickly, in the same excited tone we all used at one point as a kid to say, "i think i just heard santa's reindeer." man, i wish i could bottle the raw excitement of that moment of anticipation. then, boom. he felt the strike and set the hook. the trout did that thing all trout do, thrashing side-to-side, head-to-tail, in that awesome manner that takes them from nearly invisible in the water to unmistakable.

he worked it like a pro, holding the rod tip high and giving the fish room to run. i had made sure to adjust the drag just in case we fooled the trout into biting. then he said, "I wish we had that net." my stomach sank. i had a net in the car, but had forgotten to take it with me to that spot. we were now more than a half-mile from the car, but he was absolutely right. we needed the net. there was a bit of a rock bank where he was standing, and the water dropped three or four feet immediately. zero chance we could land this fish right there and have any regard for releasing him safely again. so i took off sprinting for the car, already completely drenched from the all-day rain. made it there, sprinted back (well, sprinted part of the way back. i need to run more often), praying all the way i wouldn't round the corner to see him holding an unbent rod and wearing a look of disappointment on his face.

he still had the fish. i let out a whoop. we landed the fish, took a couple quick pics and he released the beauty, making sure it was moving well before letting it slide out of the net and head back toward deeper water.

yep, that'll do. i've caught plenty of picture-worthy trout in NC, but not sure i've ever enjoyed a catch more. and i didn't even get this fish.