PeteCz
10-28-2007, 10:27 AM
What were we thinking about??
I'm not sure what possessed me to even suggest this idea, but I wanted to try out Abrams Creek to see if all that I had heard about it was true. Steve (sdetoro59) did not protest too much, so off we went at 8:30am from Maryville yesterday morning heading to Cades Cove...
Ok, everyone who knows anything about Cades Cove on a Saturday in the Fall will know where this is headed...
We spent about an hour traveling the last 5 miles of Cades Cove to the Abrams Creek Trailhead. There were deerjams, bearjams, leafjams, viewjams and plain old I-think-I'm-going-to-see-something so-I-better-stop-in-the-road-and-hold-up-traffic jams. I'm not sure when I have last spent a more annoying hour in traffic (even on I-40).
Anyhow, we finally made it to the parking lot, rigged up and hit the trail. Not ever having hiked to Abrams Falls before we were not sure how far to hike before jumping in the stream, so we wound up hiking over Arbutus Ridge and down to the far end of the big horseshoe.
There were two things I had heard about that stretch of water that I was somewhat skeptical about: 1) The horseshoe takes a full day to fish and 2) the rocks in Abrams are slicker than anywhere else in the park. Here are my observations:
1) If you fish slowly, and only fish half the 'shoe, you better hike quickly on the other half or you will take longer than a full day and may have to pitch a tent. It seemed like a lot more than 1 mile.
2) The rocks are slicker there than anywhere else. The silt on the rocks below the water line is ridiculously deceptive. I fell in three times and Steve has an Abrams Creek tattoo for his efforts (He slammed his shin against a rock and has the stripped skin to show for it).
3) If you're fishing with a buddy, don't ever put your brand new, favorite fishing rod on the ground while you're landing the best fish of the day (a nice 9" rainbow) or it will most certainly get stepped on and crushed...I get to see how good the TFO warranty is. Not only did the rod get broken in 3 places, but I lost a broken section of it hiking out of the stream. I'll keep my fingers crossed that I can get a full replacement...
Now for the fishing:
Abrams was a bit lower than I had hoped but not so low that it wasn't fishable. In fact, there were a few areas that were tricky wading (due in large part to the slick rocks, but also some deep water. There are a lot of fish! But they don't always act like they do in other streams. In fact we probably only caught a dozen rainbows between us (Steve caught most of then since I didn't have a rod most of the time - I got to thinking that my wife paid him to step on my rod after all of the fishing I had been doing this year:smile:).
We caught about 50 shiners (and that may be low). I think the shiners are proof that Brown's don't exist anymore, because if they did, all of the shiners would be eaten, and there would be some monster Browns in there...
The few nice rainbows that were caught, came to hand on a #16 Yellow PA. Most of the trout that we saw were hanging out low in deep pools. They looked like they were schooling. I have no clue how many nice fish we spotted, but it was a lot. On the lower 'shoe there were no trout in the faster water, only deep in slow pools and there weren't interested in anything (dries or nymphs). The action was better on the middle of the horseshoe, where the trout were acting more predictable (in the faster water, behind rocks, etc...). We didn't fish the upper 'shoe, because we were running out of light and were in "hiking only" mode.
In general, the fishing wasn't great (it was OK) and certainly didn't warrant the effort to fish it (traffic, broken rod, slippery rocks, shiners, etc). Maybe if the water is up and the tourists are gone it would be better...
On the way out we decided to take Hyatts Lane to Rich Mtn rd (which really didn't save anytime, but avoiding the 6 miles out of the cove). On Hyatts lane we passed in between a tourist and a deer (a nice 6 point in Eastern terms). And when I say passed between, I mean we almost hit her and the deer at the same time! She couldn't have been more than 10 feet away from the deer. I decided to drive in between them and try to get the deer to jump back up in the field and away from the idiots. I think all of the people who hop out of their cars must think the Park is one big petting zoo!!
I'm not sure what possessed me to even suggest this idea, but I wanted to try out Abrams Creek to see if all that I had heard about it was true. Steve (sdetoro59) did not protest too much, so off we went at 8:30am from Maryville yesterday morning heading to Cades Cove...
Ok, everyone who knows anything about Cades Cove on a Saturday in the Fall will know where this is headed...
We spent about an hour traveling the last 5 miles of Cades Cove to the Abrams Creek Trailhead. There were deerjams, bearjams, leafjams, viewjams and plain old I-think-I'm-going-to-see-something so-I-better-stop-in-the-road-and-hold-up-traffic jams. I'm not sure when I have last spent a more annoying hour in traffic (even on I-40).
Anyhow, we finally made it to the parking lot, rigged up and hit the trail. Not ever having hiked to Abrams Falls before we were not sure how far to hike before jumping in the stream, so we wound up hiking over Arbutus Ridge and down to the far end of the big horseshoe.
There were two things I had heard about that stretch of water that I was somewhat skeptical about: 1) The horseshoe takes a full day to fish and 2) the rocks in Abrams are slicker than anywhere else in the park. Here are my observations:
1) If you fish slowly, and only fish half the 'shoe, you better hike quickly on the other half or you will take longer than a full day and may have to pitch a tent. It seemed like a lot more than 1 mile.
2) The rocks are slicker there than anywhere else. The silt on the rocks below the water line is ridiculously deceptive. I fell in three times and Steve has an Abrams Creek tattoo for his efforts (He slammed his shin against a rock and has the stripped skin to show for it).
3) If you're fishing with a buddy, don't ever put your brand new, favorite fishing rod on the ground while you're landing the best fish of the day (a nice 9" rainbow) or it will most certainly get stepped on and crushed...I get to see how good the TFO warranty is. Not only did the rod get broken in 3 places, but I lost a broken section of it hiking out of the stream. I'll keep my fingers crossed that I can get a full replacement...
Now for the fishing:
Abrams was a bit lower than I had hoped but not so low that it wasn't fishable. In fact, there were a few areas that were tricky wading (due in large part to the slick rocks, but also some deep water. There are a lot of fish! But they don't always act like they do in other streams. In fact we probably only caught a dozen rainbows between us (Steve caught most of then since I didn't have a rod most of the time - I got to thinking that my wife paid him to step on my rod after all of the fishing I had been doing this year:smile:).
We caught about 50 shiners (and that may be low). I think the shiners are proof that Brown's don't exist anymore, because if they did, all of the shiners would be eaten, and there would be some monster Browns in there...
The few nice rainbows that were caught, came to hand on a #16 Yellow PA. Most of the trout that we saw were hanging out low in deep pools. They looked like they were schooling. I have no clue how many nice fish we spotted, but it was a lot. On the lower 'shoe there were no trout in the faster water, only deep in slow pools and there weren't interested in anything (dries or nymphs). The action was better on the middle of the horseshoe, where the trout were acting more predictable (in the faster water, behind rocks, etc...). We didn't fish the upper 'shoe, because we were running out of light and were in "hiking only" mode.
In general, the fishing wasn't great (it was OK) and certainly didn't warrant the effort to fish it (traffic, broken rod, slippery rocks, shiners, etc). Maybe if the water is up and the tourists are gone it would be better...
On the way out we decided to take Hyatts Lane to Rich Mtn rd (which really didn't save anytime, but avoiding the 6 miles out of the cove). On Hyatts lane we passed in between a tourist and a deer (a nice 6 point in Eastern terms). And when I say passed between, I mean we almost hit her and the deer at the same time! She couldn't have been more than 10 feet away from the deer. I decided to drive in between them and try to get the deer to jump back up in the field and away from the idiots. I think all of the people who hop out of their cars must think the Park is one big petting zoo!!