Big Helton DH fly-fishing

I was in West Jefferson overnight and decided to wake up early and fish the Big Helton Creek near the VA line. Got to the water around 8ish and began casting left and right. Not much luck for the first little bit and no bites in the first spot. Moved up stream to another hole and found two small rainbow's in the fast water. Tied some new gear on and moved up into a big hole near a bridge (the one they must have dumped them from) Right next to the bridge I caught 4 nice brook trout, all over 12in. I seen one come out of the dark and look at my fly that could have pushed 18-20 in. All in all I had a great trip with good weather and scenery. Glad to know those fish will be in that delayed harvest water till the spring time.. I hope...

Ton's Of river fishing!!! Mid- October around Asheville NC...

With fairly consistent water levels and weather recently, I had the chance to hit the waters hard over the last weekend. I fished with my wife on Sunday and my good friend Cory on Saturday, both trips were on the French Broad River. These trips produces good varieties of fish including many smallmouth bass, bream, one musky 14in., rock bass red-eyed, and one 18 3/4in. Rainbow Trout on a mepps in-line spinner. The in-spinner moving quickly across holes was the key to good takes from sm bass. A few nice fish fell for the rubber bass jig with kicker legs. And a three decent fish came off a suspending hard minnow bait , jerked rapidly through deeper holes near shore. None to topwater at all..

Separately, I fished the Tuckasseggee River the end of last week below the delayed harvest area, and did really well with smaller in-line Bass Pro spinner's that looked like little trout patterns. Caught 13 trout within the mid morning hours. Also, used a small B-pro-wee hard bait crawfish pattern with green on top and orange belly bottom. Trout love a small crawfish pattern with a constant retrieve across runs.

Noontime Bass...on the French Broad River

First fish fell for all pumpkin seed color all rubber jig from Gitzit "spider-jig"

 A good coastal fishing buddy of mine John came up for a short mid-week fishing trip. He loves catching small mouth as much as me and heard that the bite "is" on. So, after a night gambling in Cherokee we got up and hit the river around 11ish. Water was down 2in. further than before but about the same clarity.  John fished multiple bass jigs all day and I fished crank bait, spinners and jigs some. We ended up putting 3 nice small mouth in the boat and one fat bream.  The bass were all over 14-15 inch range, nice work John.  Later that evening he caught another smallie in the pigeon river on topwater popper, that fish was also in the 14in range.

This one ate a football headed bass jig with trailer curls. 

Made the cast of a lifetime and was rewarded with this slab of a bream. It liked my new color of jig...

Pigeon River Smallies 9/17 Top-water only

Best Fish Overall!

I took 30mins and fished a couple pull-off's on the Pigeon river yesterday. Was just casting from shore with a topwater popper- Sebiel Smasher, the one with glitter liquid inside. The small mouth were killing it, caught 4 of 6 good hits in a short amount of time. Enjoy the pic's.

Mid-week French Float

Got a chance to meet up with a friend around 5pm yesterday to do a short float on the French Broad river. The river had cleared but it was still running at good water levels. Bass were biting a array of lures including crank baits, in-spinners, jigs, and top water poppers. Key was to throw something that caught there attention in all that water. We lost the two biggest fish of the trip, one due to the bulldog pulling downstream in heavy current, got the angle on me. It was nice to be back on the river with a good bite, after such a long wet season this year.

A day in Pisgah NF...