====================================================
NAT GREENE CALENDAR
MEETINGS & EVENTS
Tuesday December 14 - Annual Holiday Party, Lewis Recreation Center,
7:00 p.m.
Tuesday January 11, 2005 - Monthly Meeting: Joe Craig, "Fishing the
Other Streams in England", Lewis Recreation
Center, 7:00 p.m.
Tuesday February 8 - Monthly Meeting: "Fishing the NC Striper and Shad
Runs", Lewis Recreation
Center, 7:00 p.m.
Tuesday March 8 - Monthly Meeting: Special Guest Author Jim Casada. Lewis Recreation
Center, 7:00 p.m.
Saturday March 26, 2005 - Annual Flyfishing Seminar and Spring
Banquet with Special Guest Speaker A.K. Best, Fly Tying Specialist, Author,
World Famous Fly Fisherman, 9:00 a.m. and 6:30 p.m, Cardinal Golf and Country
Club, 5700 Cardinal Way, Greensboro NC
----------------------------------------------------
EVERYONE INVITED TO NAT GREENE'S 2004 HOLIDAY PARTY
Nat Greene Flyfishers 2004 Holiday Social will be held at 7:00 p.m. on
Tuesday, December 14 at the Lewis Recreation Center. As is
tradition, Nat Greene will provide light treats and beverages for an evening of
socializing and friendship. All are welcome -- please come on down,
socialize with friends you haven't seen in a while, and maybe you'll even win a
door prize!
===================================================
HOME WATERS
Home waters. To me that means Spring River in Arkansas. “Bayou Access” and
“The Valley.” Although that’s not where I learned to fish. I grew up fishing on
lakes out of an aluminum John boat with my brother, Doug. We were flyfishing,
using 6-wt rods for bluegill and bass, but it wasn’t until I was 16 and could
drive that I caught my first trout. My best friend took me to Bayou Access and
we went downstream and “around the bend” to a place where the trout stacked up
in front of a limestone waterfall. Spinning gear and Kounty Kist corn were the
tackle of the day. We’d almost always catch our limit of six the first day and
six the second day for a possession limit of 12 stockers. After one trip I
dropped off a dozen cleaned trout at the home of my future father-in-law, only
because Marsha had said that her dad loved to eat fish. We weren’t dating at the
time, but when the day finally came that I once again knocked on that front
door, you can be sure that front door swung wide open to greet me. I didn’t
really plan it that way, but it worked out pretty well.
Over past Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, my brother and I have made a
mini-tradition out of stealing a few days to head up to the tailwaters of the
White and Norfork Rivers to fly fish for trout. Since our childhood we’ve become
more “serious” about fly fishing, tying our own flies and making bamboo rods. My
brother is head and shoulders beyond me in fly tying. He can sit at the bench
for hours tying the same exact pattern until he has dozens of perfectly
replicated flies. I don’t have near the patience he has. I tie a couple and I’m
ready to move on to another pattern.
I have started making bamboo rods though. I love the challenge even though it
drives me crazy. This summer I made a 7-ft, 4-wt “Sir D” for my brother. On its
inaugural trip to Norfork this fall at the Southern Rod Builders Gathering, my
brother out-fished me 15 to 1. I said it must be the rod. He just smiled and
kept catching fish.
Anyway, this past holiday we decided to make a day trip to the Spring with a
fellow addict, Steve, rather than make the longer haul up to White River. Nobody
had high hopes of catching anything, since we’d long ago given up on Spring as
not much more than a put-and-take bait fisherman’s stream. But wetting a line
with good friends is always a worthwhile endeavor. I didn’t know what to expect
of Bayou, since it had been at least twenty years since I drove down the steep,
slick access road. In damp, let alone wet, weather, you were stuck in Bayou
waiting for the sun to shine to get back up that hill. I knew the road had been
paved by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, so I expected the worst of
humanity to be there. In the past, the nasty access road kept the big campers
out of “our spot.” Now everyone could stroll in as they pleased.
We arrived at about 9:30 a.m. to find only one other vehicle near the river.
The forecast called for showers all day, so I guess that kept most people home.
We fell out of the truck and went through the endless chore of putting on
clothes, waders, and vests, stringing rods, etc. Man I was anxious to fish.
Doug caught the first fish and giggled like he always does, as if catching a
fish for the first time in his life. I quickly grew tired of that repeated
giggle as I worked to catch my first fish. I kept thinking that the high-tech,
micro nymphs that I was so painstakingly dragging along the bottom of the run
would fool these fish that had seen everything from marshmallows and corn to
RoosterTails. But the old stand-by olive woolly bugger was working like magic
for Doug and Steve. I’d hear this, SPLASH, and turn to see that smile on Doug’s
face.
Steve is an artist at catching fish on the end of the swing. He’ll stand in
the stream for hours dragging a woolly bugger downstream, stripping an inch or
two every so often, working it around every rock and snag. I know I’ve seen him
catch three or four fish a day that way on more than one occasion when everyone
else was getting skunked. I wound up catching only three fish to their eight or
twelve a piece that morning. At least I wasn’t shut out.
We went back into the town of Mammoth Spring, where a HUGE spring gives rise
to the 10-12 mile section of fishable trout water on the river. Below that it’s
excellent smallmouth water. We used to canoe the upper part on Saturday to fish
for trout, spend the night on the river, and then float the bottom section for
smallmouth on Sunday. What a great way to fill the time between classes in
college. In Mammoth Spring we ate lunch at a fried catfish place. Arkansas is
famous for fried catfish, and this place didn’t let us down. By the time we
finished, we had time for a couple of hours of fishing before dark.
We decided to try The Valley just below the spring. We used to drive through
a farmer’s field and put a couple of bucks in an old mailbox in exchange for
parking next to the river. Now, the Game and Fish Commission has paved a road
and monstrous parking lot there. I can’t imagine the fishing The Valley when
that parking lot is anywhere near full. Fortunately, there was only one other
car parked there that afternoon.
Doug went upstream, Steve walked straight out into the river, and I headed
downstream to a chute at the bottom of the riffles. The stream had changed a lot
in twenty years. The long deep chute in the center of the stream was gone, but
there was still one deep run along the far bank under a line of Sycamore trees.
This was the last moving water before the water began to slow above a dam and
trout hatchery that provides hundreds of thousands of fish for the local rivers.
I tied on a size-10, olive woolly bugger (I’m not stupid after all) and began
to work the shallow water near the chute. I kept dragging bottom trying to stay
as deep as possible, catching nothing but grass. When I worked my way over to
the deeper chute, the bugger was suspended higher above the bottom. As I made a
long cast under one of those Sycamores, the strike indicator stopped in that
sort of way that every nymph fisherman has come to love. I lifted the rod tip
and felt that great relief when a fish finally takes and the giggle begins to
work its way up from somewhere deep inside. A few minutes later, I smiled again
as that rainbow slithered back into the grasses along the bottom.
I wound up catching eight fish in about an hour before dark. My brother and
Steve caught two or three a piece. But the numbers didn’t matter. Steve had just
learned on Friday that he’d lost his job. He needed the diversion. I suppose my
brother and I needed the trip home. To home waters. To fish the waters of our
youth and giggle like we did when we were kids.
We never did get “around that bend” at Bayou Access to fish that limestone
ledge where the fish stack up. I guess we’ll leave that for another day. I bet I
start with an olive woolly bugger…
Greg Peters
===================================================
THE JOY OF KILLING TROUT
For many, it has become part of good sporting part of good sporting ethics to
release all the trout they catch. There are more fishermen every year and at
best a constant number of fish. Thus, each year there are fewer fish per
fisherman. So, if you release your catch and everyone else releases theirs, the
fishing is better for everyone, including number one. After a while it even
feels good to do it. However, one of life’s finer experiences lies in the
capture, killing and eating of the South’s rarest trout; the wild bred brook or
“speckled” trout. It is a worthwhile challenge that begins with finding your
quarry. There are more brookies around than you might think. In fact you
probably drive over lots of them on the way to anywhere in the mountains. But
the best ones are hidden deep in the hollers and recesses of the forgotten
places. It is tight in there and close work, with rhododendron growing out over
the small creeks. As you move up stream into the tall forest where little
sunlight falls the casting may open up. Ease along quietly from pool to pool and
stalk your fish. Crawl up to and look over the lip of a deep slow run and there
he is…
Holding easy in current and feeding gently lies a big beautiful nine incher
like he and all his ancestors have done for millennium. He is so close you could
spit on top of him, if it weren’t for the excited lump in your throat. Back off
and drop a fly anywhere near the fish and he is yours. Soon he lies glistening
like a rare jewel in the ferns on the stream bank. If you put him back in the
water he will swim away and soon be back at his feeding station. Its pink meat
is without a doubt, one of the best tastes the world has to offer. There plenty
of fish in this small, little known creek, maybe too many. Keep him. But don’t
just drop him into your creel to flop around. This fish challenged you and you
won. It deserves a quick death in the clear light of the forest floor in which
it was spawned. Rap him on the head with a small stick and he’ll be done.
Better yet, take your teeth and gnash him behind the eyes. There is a degree
of primitive satisfaction here. Try it; it will put you in touch with something
basic.
Carry that fish, along with a mess of its cousins (all the fish in these
little streams are related) and go directly to a source of heat: campfire,
stove, oven anything will do, except a microwave, and cook them. Sit down with a
chilled glass of wine or a can of beer, relax and enjoy your meal. You may never
eat a better one.
Submitted by: O. Fishery
Reprinted on a dare, from the Jan 7, 1986 NGFF Newsletter
===================================================
2003-2004 NAT GREENE FLYFISHERS CLUB OFFICERS
Greg Peters, President
656-7379
632-2366
greg.peters@syngenta.com
Neal Mitchell, Treasurer
643-5001
cell 706-1123
nealmitjr@msn.com
Jack Patterson, Board of Directors
674-9700
664-7776
jwpatterson@worldnet.att.net
Linke Combs, Board of Directors
282-7040
632-7572
lccombs@earthlink.net
Al Spicer, Board of Directors
855-1325
373-7087
alspicer@yahoo.com
Lorraine Rothrock, Trip Coordinator
288-9976
272-3962
cell 707-3761
lbrothrock@mindspring.com
Cindy Spicer, Banquest Chair (and a darn good one at that)
855-1325
703-5632
cell 406-6171
cspicer@BBandT.com
