Jim Casada
08-21-2010, 01:59 PM
For much of the summer I've been intending to do a full day's trip on Noland Creek, a stream I've fished countless times in my life, and yesterday I finally got around to it. Here's a brief report, although thanks to chronic computer ineptitude (not to mention the fact I didn't even carry a camera) I can't offer anything but word pictures.
I got things squared away for my Dad (his breakfast fixed and lunch ready to pop into the microwave) and headed out to Noland shortly after 8:00 a.m. My intention was to walk a couple of miles upstream before beginning to fish. I hiked to the second bridge above the viaduct and changed from my walking shoes to wading boots.
Over the next few hours I covered prime water of the sort you find in all the middle reaches of Noland, a stream which changes size very little over a stretch of several miles thanks to a lack of significant feeders until you get to Mill Creek. The best thing about the whole day, without question, is the fact that the only mammals I saw from the time I left my truck until I returned were two deer.
I fished with my standard dry fly and a dropper rig, and never changed from the Herbie-Werbie (Tennessee Wulff) and beahead Prince I started with, although I did have to replace each fly once thanks to them coming apart after catching numerous fish.
As is often the case this time of year, there were a lot of "flips," follows without takes, short strikes, and flat-put refusals. I also just touched a world of fish, and what is especially telling is the fact that during the day I foul-hooked at least half a dozen trout with the nymph after they splashed at the dry fly.
I didn't count fish but in the course of perhaps six hours astream I probably landed between 30 and 40 fish and hooked perhaps that many more. Nothing in any way spectacular--everything I caught was in the 5 to 10 inch range, and every fish save one was a rainbow. I caught one small brown. I didn't see anything much bigger, if at all bigger, although it's possible one fish could have gone a foot (but it is equally possible it was foul-hooked and only went 9 or 10 inches). Foul hook one in the tail or back and it always seems bigger than it is.
While the fishing was about what I expected, given the time of year and the nature of Noland generally, there was a full measure of pleasure. I looked up at the old Queve Woody place and thought back on a man I knew (for those of you who have my book, there's a photo him in it--he's the guy standing on a bridge with several trout and the readily obvious fact he had only one hand). Shortly afterward there was the old I. K. Stearns place, again redolent with history, because he is the man who served as the executor of Horace Kephart's estate after the original executor, Jack Coburn, was killed in a car wreck in Nantahala Gorge not too many months after Kep's death (also in a car wreck). Then there's the lower end of Salola Valley, once a thriving settlement with an amazing amount fairly flat ground given how far back in the hills it lies, memories of the old sheep barn, and more. On the way out I was tempted to climb to the cemetery above the Stearns Place but didn't simply because it is a real haul to get to a site where there are 18 unmarked graves. I have made the climb several times in the past and figure the funerals held there had to involve a wagon. I just don't think pallbearers could have handled the grade for that long of a haul.
I did sopt and poke around a bit at the old home site which sits almost directly across the creek from the Stearns Place. Several pairs of boxwoods led from the road to the entrance to the house, and the concrete entrance steps are still there. This had to be a pretty affluent family, because if you poke around a bit in the nearby woods you will discover that they had a covered spring and gravity fed indoor plumbing (I would advise that kind of "poking" in dog days--wait until snakes have denned up).
By the time I got back to my truck, I was all too keenly aware of a favorite comment of Marty Maxwell, my longtime fishing buddy from Graham County: "I ain't as catty as I used to be."
In truth I was bone-tired and today I'm sore, but the experience, with the fishing punctuated by such things as lots of cardinal flowers at the peek of their bloom, butterflies on Joe Pye weed everywhere you turned, and ample time to contemplate what life must have been like here early in the last century, made my weariness a wonderful one.
As I've suggested before, awareness of the history (human and natural) which surrounds you as you fish adds immensely to the experience. Now I've got to complete my Indian Creek return to boyhood by fishing from the old Bock Laney Place to the place where the trail ends and the climb over Pullback to the Bryson Place begins.
Jim Casada
www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com (http://www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com)
I got things squared away for my Dad (his breakfast fixed and lunch ready to pop into the microwave) and headed out to Noland shortly after 8:00 a.m. My intention was to walk a couple of miles upstream before beginning to fish. I hiked to the second bridge above the viaduct and changed from my walking shoes to wading boots.
Over the next few hours I covered prime water of the sort you find in all the middle reaches of Noland, a stream which changes size very little over a stretch of several miles thanks to a lack of significant feeders until you get to Mill Creek. The best thing about the whole day, without question, is the fact that the only mammals I saw from the time I left my truck until I returned were two deer.
I fished with my standard dry fly and a dropper rig, and never changed from the Herbie-Werbie (Tennessee Wulff) and beahead Prince I started with, although I did have to replace each fly once thanks to them coming apart after catching numerous fish.
As is often the case this time of year, there were a lot of "flips," follows without takes, short strikes, and flat-put refusals. I also just touched a world of fish, and what is especially telling is the fact that during the day I foul-hooked at least half a dozen trout with the nymph after they splashed at the dry fly.
I didn't count fish but in the course of perhaps six hours astream I probably landed between 30 and 40 fish and hooked perhaps that many more. Nothing in any way spectacular--everything I caught was in the 5 to 10 inch range, and every fish save one was a rainbow. I caught one small brown. I didn't see anything much bigger, if at all bigger, although it's possible one fish could have gone a foot (but it is equally possible it was foul-hooked and only went 9 or 10 inches). Foul hook one in the tail or back and it always seems bigger than it is.
While the fishing was about what I expected, given the time of year and the nature of Noland generally, there was a full measure of pleasure. I looked up at the old Queve Woody place and thought back on a man I knew (for those of you who have my book, there's a photo him in it--he's the guy standing on a bridge with several trout and the readily obvious fact he had only one hand). Shortly afterward there was the old I. K. Stearns place, again redolent with history, because he is the man who served as the executor of Horace Kephart's estate after the original executor, Jack Coburn, was killed in a car wreck in Nantahala Gorge not too many months after Kep's death (also in a car wreck). Then there's the lower end of Salola Valley, once a thriving settlement with an amazing amount fairly flat ground given how far back in the hills it lies, memories of the old sheep barn, and more. On the way out I was tempted to climb to the cemetery above the Stearns Place but didn't simply because it is a real haul to get to a site where there are 18 unmarked graves. I have made the climb several times in the past and figure the funerals held there had to involve a wagon. I just don't think pallbearers could have handled the grade for that long of a haul.
I did sopt and poke around a bit at the old home site which sits almost directly across the creek from the Stearns Place. Several pairs of boxwoods led from the road to the entrance to the house, and the concrete entrance steps are still there. This had to be a pretty affluent family, because if you poke around a bit in the nearby woods you will discover that they had a covered spring and gravity fed indoor plumbing (I would advise that kind of "poking" in dog days--wait until snakes have denned up).
By the time I got back to my truck, I was all too keenly aware of a favorite comment of Marty Maxwell, my longtime fishing buddy from Graham County: "I ain't as catty as I used to be."
In truth I was bone-tired and today I'm sore, but the experience, with the fishing punctuated by such things as lots of cardinal flowers at the peek of their bloom, butterflies on Joe Pye weed everywhere you turned, and ample time to contemplate what life must have been like here early in the last century, made my weariness a wonderful one.
As I've suggested before, awareness of the history (human and natural) which surrounds you as you fish adds immensely to the experience. Now I've got to complete my Indian Creek return to boyhood by fishing from the old Bock Laney Place to the place where the trail ends and the climb over Pullback to the Bryson Place begins.
Jim Casada
www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com (http://www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com)