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Today I'm here at Jones Gap State Park on the little Saluda River.
I'm going to be learning all about trout fishing with one of our freshwater fisheries biologist Kevin Kubek.
So Kevin tell me about what we're about to try in this area.
Well this is a dry dropper rig that's what we call it. So what we have is a dry fly this is a yellow humpy it should float.
This is designed to resemble an aquatic insect that's hatched out and is floating along the surface before it flies away,
Or something that's fallen out of the trees or the stream side brush and has landed on the water.
And then I've tied some line to the bend in this hook and we have a second fly about two feet below the dry fly.
And this is a copper John nymph this is designed to sink near the bottom.
And drift down along the bottom and resemble some of the aquatic insects that crawl along the bottom in the rocks
We should give this a try.
There you go, perfect, watch that drive, there he is, fish on, perfect job, perfect job, oh nice.
The dry fly, you got him? Nope here we go beautiful, beautiful fish. First trout ever on fly.
But a fly fisherman basically has to carry everything on him, that's right alright we're free, as opposed all right with free a typical angler.
That's the average wild rainbow in the southern Appalachians eight or nine inch fish,
But you notice right away the coloration in that fish is, really vibrant, a lot more vivid than what you see in stock fish.
And he still has his par marks which is an indicator that is a young fish still right.
That's probably a two or three year old fish they reproduce naturally in this stream.
This water stays cold enough and the habitat is of high enough quality that trout can reproduce and there he goes, there he goes.
He's not the only one in here either so and the goal is to get the fly to drift about the same speed as the current, you want it to resemble natural food.
Trout are smart they know how fast things are supposed to drift past them.
And if your fly is what they call dragging that's probably the biggest challenge in fly-fishing is avoiding drag.
The main thing, there's a fish, subsurface fly, beautiful ring you got the net? Good, this is a pretty fish right here.
You might need to get a close-up this guy, typical southern Appalachian wild rainbow trout here.
Rainbows will have that pinkish stripe down the side. It's about a 10 10 or 11 inch wild fish, that's a pretty good one.
That's great, little practice makes perfect.
I'm going to take a look at your fly when it gets back here, that drive fly looks weird it might be tangled up. yeah there's a knot around it I see it. We can get that off.
A large portion of time on the stream is spent untangling line.
That's just part of the game and getting it out of trees.
Rhododendron especially loves to grab onto the fly so this is where the people talk about patience and fly fishing, I think the patience comes into play when you're up tangling your line.
More so than patience in terms of catching fish.
We may have caught the two the owners of this pool, usually there's one or two fish that are sort of the dominant fish in a given spot.
And in these pocket water streams it pays to keep moving to fish new spots rather than sitting on one spot for a long time.
Occasionally you'll catch two or three fish out of a pool but the name of the game is moving from spot to spot.
We do have some open area behind us so we could try some regular casts here. I think I will.
It really turned out to be a really nice day. Definitely this is we're approaching primetime for for trout fishing oh wow, nice.
Oh he's running a little bit, oh he got snagged.
He attacked the dry fly but he spit it out. Hey we grabbed him
Another young rainbow trout, a wild fish, you see how sharp the fins are and that color. Alright, excellent, turn him loose.
Today was the memorable day an exceptionally fun one I caught my first trout on the fly.
Kevin I want to thank you so much for taking your time out and share trout fishing with me and most importantly your patience, you're welcome.
Trout fishing can be somewhat challenging at times and a little frustrating but it's totally worth it.
And we'll catch you guys next time.