9-20-00 Wednesday I went back Wednesday to Upper Creek. I got there and was fishing by 2pm. I walked down the trail till I got where we left off from the previous trip. I put on a Royal Wulff and caught one within 10 minutes. I did pretty good this time. I managed 10 for the day and several nice ones on but didn't land them. I hiked all the way up the gorge and found, what I thought was the start of the head waters, but it turned  back into some major falls again further up. This creek goes on & on. There are some really deep pools in this creek. You will need some big weights to get your nymphs down to the bottom quickly. I fished a nymph set up on the way back down stream. I was hitting all the pools where I didn't land any thing. It worked good. I used a size 10 Flash back Hare's Ear with a Copper John dropper. I stayed till 7:30pm on the water. There was absolutely no hatch of any kind the whole day. I didn't see one mayfly all day long, and I did better this time To find this creek you will have to access Highway 181 and then turn off a dirt road called Craig Creek road or Fire road 982. The road is not marked with a street sign. It is a dirt-gravel road. It is 4.6 miles past Brown Mountain Beach Road till the turn off. Go down till you cross a concrete bridge the road turns sharp to the right and the road you want goes uphill to the left a little. This road to the left is Fire Road 197. Go up that road till it dead ends into a bunch of dirt piles that are hump shaped. Park and walk down to the left towards the creek. Start walking up stream till you see the big pools, they are about 5 minutes from the parking spot. Good luck

8-11-2000 Friday This Upper Creek is in Burke county. This creek is designated Wild Trout Waters. I started out for Upper Creek at 8:00am. I started fishing by 10:30. I put on a Royal Wulff and got hits right off. Then I caught a brown trout that was 171/2" long. What a monster.  I finally reached some water falls and big pools. I looked up at the first hole and saw a huge trout about 17" jump clean out of the water and flip in the air. I couldn't believe it. I put on a 10'  7X leader and fished a dry March Brown and tried that with no success. I fished that hole for 15 minutes trying a nymph set up of Zug Bug with a dropper Hare's ear. No luck in that hole. I couldn't believe I didn't get that big trout. I moved up to the next hole and caught a nice rainbow that was 10" long. I let my nymphs drift under a long under cut rock and whammmmmm.there he was. I couldn't even lift his head up to see him. I finally got him to the top of the water and couldn't believe the size of this wild brown. My heart was pounding as I watched this trout swim from end to end of this pool that was fairly small in width and length. To find this creek you will have to access Highway 181 and then turn off a dirt road called Craig Creek road or Fire road 982. The road is not marked with a street sign. It is a dirt-gravel road. It is 4.6 miles past Brown Mountain Beach Road till the turn off. Go down till you cross a concrete bridge the road turns sharp to the right and the road you want goes uphill to the left a little. This road to the left is Fire Road 197. Go up that road till it dead ends into a bunch of dirt piles that are hump shaped. Park and walk down to the left towards the creek. Start walking up stream till you see the big pools, they are about 5 minutes from the parking spot. Good luck

7-18-2000 Tuesday Me and my wife headed out for Upper Creek in Yancey county at 8:00am. I started fishing by 10:30. I put on a Royal Wulff and landed my first fish about 15 minutes later. I got several hits after I put on a Flash back pheasant tail as a dropper. I landed two more off the dropper. They were all about 7"-8" range. I fished up to the main road and about 200 feet past the road and then headed to South Toe river about 1/2 mile from upper creek back towards the main camping area. I got 3 hits and managed to get 2 on the line only to have them get off. These fish were barely hitting the fly  and were very skittish. If you didn't get them the first time, few of them hit the fly again. The water was extremely clear and the level was normal. So the fishing was slow and precise. I got 2 hits off the Caddis fly and none off the Light Cahill. There wasn't any good hatch going on. I did see a May fly but couldn't catch it to see what type it was. The Upper creek produced more fish for the amount of water I covered. It does get tight on the upper creek once you past the bridge on the main road going up stream To find this creek you will have to access the Blue Ridge Parkway. The road is not marked with road signs. They are gravel roads. If you come up Highway 80 and get on the Blue Ridge Parkway, turn left and go through 2 tunnels and it will be the first road on the right.  The road you want is called South Toe river rd. Go down it till you come into where the road splits and take the major road to the left. Follow it till you cross the 3rd creek it has a sign for Upper creek

7-15-2000 Saturday The weather was the best it could possible be so we headed out to Upper Wilson Creek. The sun was shinning and the breeze was cool. We hiked in 1.1 miles down 4wd road also called the "Wison Trail Ln " & you can't drive down it either. It is a nice steady decline down to the bottom of the creek. We fished about 15 minutes before I landed a wild brown about 8" long. I caught him on a Royal Wulff. My father tried a Hare's ear flashback but no success I fished about 15 more minutes before getting another hit. But I missed him and he didn't strike again. These fish were lighting fast and skittish. If you didn't get them the first time, few of them hit the fly again. I figured the water would be discolored a little from all the rain and that the level would be up some too, but it wasn't. The water was extremely clear and the level was normal. So the fishing was slow and precise. I only managed 3 brown trout out of the day and about 10 strikes. The part of the Wilson we were at was not to tight, so it is easy to fish and move about. But it is extremely rocky, due to being right on the back side of Grandfather mountain To get to where we were at you enter a road called Edgemont Rd ( and it does have a sign) off of 221. It is exactly 6.8 miles from the beginning of Edgemont rd. to the Jeep Trail. You go down Edgemont till you reach a T in the road and turn right ( on the  left it is Globe rd., it is all clearly marked) Go down till you see Wilson Creek Trail Road, there is a green road sign clearly marked and a small path in front of a little brown cabin. There is a pull off for you vehicle. The trail should have a trout unlimited watch sign on a tree to the right 20 feet down the trail. The walk should take about 40 minutes. 15 minutes is very rocky going down after that you will hit your first creek and it is all flat and level from there on out. There are 2 old shack type cabins down there. When you reach the second BROWN shack (has an old pick up shell cover on cinder blocks to the left of the cabin) go 25 yards more on the path and look to the left and you will see a path into the forest of pine trees. Go down that path and follow that to the water. It is 50 yards from that point on to Wilson creek.

4-7-2000 Friday This trip to Stone Mountain State Park (map) was great. I started at 3:30 pm and only fished till 5:30 pm. I caught 24 trout and missed about 20+. I fished the East Prong Roaring River from where you park for the Falls, up to the bridge at Bull Head Creek about 3/10 of a mile. There were so many I couldn't believe it. I used a Royal Wulff,  size 14-12. This fly has been really great for me this year. It's all I seem to use anymore. I added a dropper to it when the action slowed down. I used a  gray midge pupa about 5:00 pm. There was a huge midge hatch going on 80 yards from the bridge to Bull Head Creek. You had to swat them off your face it was so bad I caught a nice size brook that was 14 inches long. I caught mostly 10 inchers and several that were 12".
I saw several people who were standing in the same hole & casting for 10-15 minutes as I was coming up the creek. They never landed a fish. I came right behind them and threw 2-5 times per hole and caught one every time. One of the first lessons I learned in fly fishing was to watch who was catching and who wasn't. I just sat and watched people fly fish when I haven't caught anything and watch them catch one right after the other. One of the best patterns I learned for Nymphing in the spring and summer came from a fellow I met at Stone Mountain. He was approaching a big pool, and no one there had caught anything. Everyone was relaxing as he proceeded to come through and catch 6 to 7 in a row. I mean on every cast he got one. I followed him around and watched him. Everyone else went back to fishing. When we were away from the crowd I asked him what he was using. He was reluctant to say at first, then he said " ok ". He showed me what it was, how to set it up, and how to fish it. I went back smiling like the fox that got the hen. Lesson for the day here is watch and learn, ask too. It always helps. Good luck and good fishing

4-22-2000 Saturday Well, we finally got to fish with Joe Humphreys at Boone Fork. There was a group of 10 of us who were signed up for the class. It was a good group. We had expert to beginner. One of the guys there was a recruiter for the Carolina Panthers. It was his first time fly fishing and he caught his first fish.......It was a rainbow that weighted over 10 Lbs.
The morning was cold so Larry built a campfire for us. We drank some coffee and Joe told some stories and gave us some pointers to watch for before we began. Most of the time we practiced  casting techniques and watched Joe fish and read the water. One thing about Joe is he gets his flies caught just like you or me. But he never lost a one. He showed us some neat tricks for getting the fly out of the trees. He even threw directly into a briar patch on purpose with a heavy weighted nymph and got it back out, just to show us. It was unreal!! Joe is the best nymph fisherman I have seen. He shows you how to change up to catch fish. Most people walk around fishing the same thing at the same depth in every hole and rapid. Joe changes his depth of split shot and flies a lot compared to most. If he gets in a really deep hole he will switch to a level line so the nymph will get to the bottom the quickest. He did just that in one of the holes. He showed us what it was like with a regular fly line weighted down with split shot. Then he took out a level line and fished it, and it resulted instantly in a rare 7Lbs golden trout. The day was off to a good start with a catch like that.
Joe showed us also how to fish a wet fly properly. That was an eye opener. Joe fished a pair of Royal Coachman wet flies and was landing fish when no one else could. One thing I noticed  was Joe was using flies the had white wings on them, all day long. He used a Royal Trude & the coachman. He did use a Tellico nymph most of the time, but later in the day he switched to the wets and did dries for a few minutes. So I switched to a bright green sparkly bead head prince with the white on top and got a 7-8 Lbs rainbow on. I lost him when he threw the hook though. I did catch a 6 Lbs rainbow though. I was fishing my usual 5 piece Winston  4 weight with 6x leader and tippet, Oh yeah it was a light rig! Most guys were fishing 3x and some were still breaking lines from these big trout. It did take me longer to land them though.
I had a great time and learned a lot from one of the masters.  My father went and shot all the pictures of this trip for the web site. He also paid for this trip as a gift, so a big thanks goes out to him for all he has done. We will have some more pictures soon. If you are interested in learning Joes techniques you can get the books he has written. The first one is
On the stream with Joe Humphreys & the second is Joe Humphreys Trout Tactics
I have read Trout Tactics. It is one of the best.

3-9-2000 Thursday The fishing on Watauga River, unlike 90% of the other times, stunk bad for some reason. I hardly caught any thing. I got a total of 4 rainbows, and small ones at that. I fished the gorge area from the ham shop at broad stone rd.  & 105 up about 1/3 of a mile.
The day was great as far as weather and temperature. I had bought a new pair of wading boots and was tripping all over the place, I need to brake them in bad. So half was my fault for spooking them. When I wasn't tripping and making noise. They were still not hitting very hard. I tried every fly possible, finally got them to hit on a size 10 Daves Hopper. Weird fish! I was finessing every thing too. I was using droppers and kept down sizing every thing. I finally gave up when they started hitting my Bio Strike( that's a clay like substance you put on your line like a bobber, to see strikes). There was a huge stone fly hatch starting at 10:30, so I did all the stone flies from nymph to dry from big to small from using droppers to not using them and still not one hit! Except on my Bio Strike. This has happened before in the summer. One time I got so ticked at the fish for this that I put hooks in the Bio Strike and fished that by it's self. I might add I caught some nice browns that way! Gotta do what you gotta do

3-31-2000 Friday Well I did it! I got above the falls on Jacobs Fork creek in South Mountain State Park (map). It is a long climb up! Plus add the 2 miles of wading through the stream and back again, I think the total is around 6 miles. I don't recommend this unless your are...........insane. But the fishing was fairly good. I knew it was going to be a good day when my first cast yielded a rainbow. I caught about 25 rainbows most of them were 7" inches up to 9" inches. I used a Royal Wulff  just about all day. I tried a Blue Wing Olive (BWO) but was having a hard time seeing it because I was fishing the riffles. The BWO was not making it. I used a  Hatching Midge as a dropper and picked up a few off that. There was a good mayfly hatch all day long and some stone flies about 11:00am.  The trout seem to hold in the front of the pools on that day. There was only one good size trout per hole, and you only get one shot! If I didn't catch him on the first strike I moved on cause he won't hit it again once he has felt that hook in his mouth. The fishing is fairly tight. And by that I mean when it's not tight you can roll cast 15' feet, if it's tight, you can roll cast your tippet and when it's really tight you can bow and arrow shoot it. There are some places you can get a full cast in. But the further up stream you go the tighter it gets. This is good classic small stream fishing.
There was a really big trout(14"inches) in one hole, but when I cast the fly I couldn't see it so I peeked my head over a rock to see the fly and when I did that fish was about to take it and saw me. Man I could kick myself 10 times for that!

3-25-2000 Saturday The trip to Jacobs Fork in South Mountain State Park (map) was pretty good. The weather was great and the stream was beautiful. We waited for our friends to meet us at 10am at the main parking lot. We suited up and headed for the delayed harvest waters right there where you park, just to warm up and fool around some. I got one to rise at my Royal Wulff.  I got the urge to go into the upper parts of the creek, where it is designated wild trout, like I had planned. So I headed up past Jacobs fork in the wild section. A little ways past the big stone faced rock on the right, I got into the first pool. There I crept in above a little waterfall and cast about 6 times before I found where they were hiding. I had on a size 14 Royal Wulff. There was 2 small waterfalls coming at me, and I threw right between them where the water was calmer. Wham!! Right off the bat--I got good hits They were only 6"-7" inches long, but they were fun. I moved up to the pool that is just below the High Shoals Falls pool. It looked perfect but nothing there. So I went down 10' to the smaller pool and caught 6 rainbows that were 6"-7" long. They came out (like lightning) from under a big rock that overhung the pool. It was 12:30 by then, and I had to meet up with everyone at 1:00 pm to eat, so I started back down. We started back fishing at 2:00;  thanks to my father's great smorgasbord picnic we were fat & full. My father was getting weary from all the climbing, so he headed back down to open waters at the delayed harvest part, while the 2 of us headed for where it starts the designated wild trout section, right where the picnic area is that branches off for Shinny Creek trails. We fished with little results. I was fishing dry flies but no luck. But I was wanting to head for the higher parts like before. My fishing buddy opted to go back to delayed harvest waters. Being nice, I went with him (brokenhearted over the thought of leaving wild trout waters). We caught nothing at the delayed harvest section. Maybe because 10 others just fished it 5 minutes ago and tromped through the waters....but we all learn through these type of experiences.
I cover a lot of ground when I fish. Most people cover less ground than I cover. The type of fishing I do is more precise. I plan where to go into the hole, so I can make my first cast the best. Some times that's the only cast you will get. Work the small creeks by starting at the back of a pool 10-15 feet away from the edge of the pool. Cast into the spot and work the sections according to the length of your tippet. This stops you from spooking fish by not casting your fly line over top of them. The next most important, if not the most important thing, "Pretend that every cast you make, you know a fish will hit it." This will help you concentrate and get into the flow of stealth fly fishing. It will help you be ready to set the hook too. And it will help you get into the habit of  crouching down when you are nearing the place you want to cast. You will start to see that one bad cast will ruin a good hole, but one precise cast after another means success. We all learn by mistakes, I am no different. I have spooked more trout than you can imagine. Some times I still do! Being as sound travels 5 times faster through water than air you are at a disadvantage already. (Be Precise and Plan)

3-12-2000 Sunday This trip to Stone Mountain State Park (map) was great. There was a weather front that came through and dropped the temperature 30 degrees. But that didn't matter to the trout evidently. I figured the cold spell would drive the fish down. It was a partly cloudy day, so I figured that any hatch would be short lived if one even happened. I caught nothing on any type of nymph. I fished the East Prong Roaring River from the Baptist church at Garden creek to where Widows creek  joins the East Prong and a 100 yards past that. I never got to the intersection of Bull Head creek. Everyone was fishing the big pools and not one person was fishing the riffles. There would be 3-4 people in one hole trying to fish. No one was hardly catching anything. One guy caught a trout on a dry caddis. So I tried some dry flies and was getting hits every once in awhile, I was fishing small dries of 16 and up in size. I tried all types and finally tried a big size 12 Royal Wulff. I got hits right off with it. I caught 3 in about 10 minutes. I was in some tight places just roll casting, mostly. I would hit  the little alley ways in the creek. I was getting mostly brook trout and a few rainbows. I caught about 10 before I had to go. My little boy was hungry and tired. My wife was a trooper and took all the pictures.