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.