The Fishing–thank you for asking…

 

When we fish along Abrams Creek with its well traveled trail alongside, we get lots of inquiries about the fishing (and about BEARS). To Most we give an honest appraisal and point out what wildlife we have seen, but there are Some tyros who deserve an altered reality. The mind boggles at the answers we might give….
The facts of the matter are:  We fish daily and sometimes twice daily in that first three hundred yards of the Creek before it gets too rugged.  The first day the action was lively and there were several noteworthy fish.  The second morning we tried to be first on the river, but  the Otters beat us to it and kept us amused most of the day.  They were feeding on some kind of bottom feeding fish (there were hundreds) and they were quick to announce their successes to us.  We think their trout eating habits are greatly exaggerated by unsuccessful fishermen.
By lunch we are on the porch of the Cades Cove Visitor’s Center enjoying a snack and the music of  Tymes Past.  We enjoyed meeting Earl and Betty last year and it was nice to get caught up.  Earl has a huge inventory of corny jokes and puns.  Betty keeps trying to get him to play –especially gospel songs – and he keeps trying to play “Buffalo Girl.”  It’s hilarious. 




On the last evening Pat put on another of her seminars catching fish for the ladies on the bridge.
 “Why I didn’t believe there COULD BE any fish in that shallow water!”
We know.  Neither did we….

Unproductive fishing in pretty places

This area is blessed with beautiful water and lots of stocked trouts, but our stumbling methods haven’t produced ANY fish.


THERE ARE LARGE NEOPREME HATCHES…SEE THEM FLUTTER?

Pretty fisherwoman

But we have been singularly unsuccessful despite our sartorial splendor.  The worm and spinning rod works well from the tiny perches by the river (at the bottom of 50 foot slides) , but fly fishing has not produced for us.  We will doggedly continue…

Fishing Abrams Creek

Abrams Creek wells up at the West end of Cades cove in the GSMNP, having flowed through  caverns under the cove. It joins Mill creek just at the trailhead bridge for the Abrams Falls hiking trail.  It’s a pretty busy place –-hikers going and coming, others just riding down from the cove road for a looksee. Its bed is jumbled strata standing on end with bridges of moss covered rock just inches under the surface with 6 foot deep holes on either side.  Deer love to wade and crop the moss and bears frequently use the “bridges” to cross the creek. The rocks that are not moss covered are slimy as greased cannonballs and loose.  Abrams is also just full of trout.
Staying at the Campground in Cades Cove makes this the water of choice.  Morning or night, the fishing is always bracketed by five miles of pleasant driving thru the cove and real chances at sighting deer, bear and turkeys. 
Some memories from four days fishing Abrams.

• Patty fishing upstream of me while a deer wades within eight feet of her, munching on moss.  I took some satisfaction to see a four legged creature also slips and stumbles on the rocks!
  
• Patty holding a virtual seminar on catching trout in the junction pool just below the footbridge.

“Look dear, that lady is fishing.  Are you catchin any?”   
“Well, I just…..OH! there’s  one….”  She did that 5-6 times two nights in a row.   

• After one little demo, the family wandered away and quickly returned.

“ You want to see a bear?  He just crossed right behind ya.”  Sure enough, there were wet tracks and a black bottom just topping the hill. 
One might ask what fishing success Al was having these nights.  One might ASK…
      

To SMOKEMONT

The traffic around Atlanta was tolerable and the drive was easy -–up the valleys, all four lane now on US 23 to the Great Smoky Mountain Expressway -–easy except for that one long hill over Brushy Fork Mountain to Dillsboro. There we “joined the circus.”  We were in trail with three huge circus midway haulers. We were crawling, but we were in good company.

Big splashy drops of rain out of  a partly sunny sky greeted us at the Park boundary. The Park looks newly minted -–fresh asphalt, new Visitors Center at Oconaluftee, freshly baled hay still standing in the fields which are now an “Elk Viewing Area.”  Sixty million dollars in stimulus money helped the park dig out of a 100 million dollar maintenance backlog, but the new Visitor Center was paid for totally with donations from Friends of the Smokies and fees on the North Carolina Smokies car tags.  (We anted up for our renewal membership and now have a brick in that beautiful building.)

Smokemont Campground has also had an overhaul with new water system and new
asphalt, but the old CCC stone restrooms are still standing tall.

We set up in a steam bath, but we were soon rigging fly rods and down to shorts and wading boots.  The water is painfully low, but easy to wade and it is true—some of the prettiest water on Bradley Fork is IN the campground. Hard to figure where the fish were; we both stepped on some and caught them in both riffles and pockets , but not many…