|
July 2006 Newsletter
Jim Casada
Web site:
www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com
1250 Yorkdale Drive
E-mail:
jc@jimcasadaoutdoors.com
Rock Hill, SC 29730-7638
803-329-4354
The
Greatest Trout Streams in the Smokies:
North Carolina
A century ago,
Horace Kephart came to North Carolina’s Great Smokies seeking refuge
for his troubled soul in an area he described as “back of beyond.”
He found what he sought, and in one of those developments any lover
of wild and remote places has to applaud, the area that became his
adopted home (and the place where I grew up) has become even more of
a “back of beyond” than it was in his lifetime. That is thanks in
large measure to the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National
Park, although certainly the half million acres of the Nantahala
National Forest figures prominently in the equation as well.
While it long has
been and remains our nation’s most popular national park in terms of
annual visitations, most of the Smokies nonetheless experience
relatively little in the way of pressures connected with the
presence of humans. Studies have shown that roughly 9 out of every
10 visitors stick strictly to the roads of the Park, and of the 1 in
10 who ventures off the beaten path, relatively few do so as
fishermen. As a result, the Park, with streams filled with wild
trout, is an angler’s paradise.
Although you might
get some arguments on the matter from folks in Virginia,
Pennsylvania, and New York, a solid case can be made for the Park
waters providing the finest fishing for wild trout east of the
Rockies. There hasn’t been a trout stocked in Park streams for many
decades, which means that every trout swimming in them was born and
raised there. They may not be “natives” in the sense of having
always been residents of the Park, as the names old timers still use
(California trout for rainbows and German or Loch Lomond trout to
describe browns), rightly suggest. Still, they are stream bred, many
generations removed from any thought of concrete hatchery walls or
pelletized food. In fact, locals view hatchery-raised trout with
disdain, dismissing them as “dough bellies.” Also, the higher
reaches of some streams contain the true “natives,” speckled trout,
and the Park has just changed its regulations to allow anglers to
catch and creel speckled trout (call them brookies if you wish, but
to any staunch son of the Smokies they are specks, speckled trout,
or simply natives).
You can find fine
fishing in almost every Park stream, but for a variety of reasons,
with accessibility leading the pack, some of these waters are quite
“technical” in nature. “Technical,” incidentally, is a convenient
term trout fishermen adopt to explain why they have trouble catching
fish. Another problem is popularity, with Hazel Creek being a prime
example. Although remote, Hazel Creek has received so much national
attention in print, not to mention holding such a special place in
the minds of local anglers, that it can at times resemble opening
day on heavily stocked state waters. Or, as I once heard a great
fisherman of my youth, Claude Gossett, put it: “If you want to have
a place to fish there, you’d better tote your own rock to stand on.”
Thankfully, by way
of sharp and most welcome contrast, at least to folks like yours
truly who think the perfect trout fishing day is one when they never
see another angler, there are plenty of destinations on the North
Carolina side of the Park that let you savor the splendors of
solitude. What follows is a detailed look at five of them, offering
information not only on how to get there but regarding other matters
such as stream size, nature of the fishing you can expect, and the
like. They rank among my favorites, and that selection is based on a
marvelously misspent lifetime filled with tight lines and fine
times.
Of course, as
Grandpa Joe was fond of saying, “a man’s got to have some secrets.”
That is, in case you miss my point, a hint. I’m offering readers
five prime destinations that get them far away for pressured waters
and too many people, but it should also be recognized that careful
study of topo maps, along with meticulous research, will reveal
other destinations that rank among my truly special secrets. For now
though, here’s a literary ramble down five pathways to piscatorial
pleasure.
Left Fork of Deep Creek
If you really want
to escape, leaving behind not only other fishermen but even so much
as a hint of a maintained trail, then give some thought to fishing
the Left Fork of Deep Creek. You won’t find trails leading to it in
any of the guidebooks or hiking manuals, nor will you find much
information about the area in Park literature. The reason is
simple—there are no maintained trails on the Left Fork. It’s about
as remote, other than the headwaters of Raven Fork, as you can get
anywhere on the North Carolina side of the Park. It wasn’t by
accident that the great hero of the Cherokees who fought against
removal to Oklahoma, Tsali, sought refuge here after killing one of
the troopers sent by Andrew Jackson.
Yet once you wade
the waters of Left Fork, you will be enchanted. For starters, the
stream, although averaging only 15 or 20 feet wide (less as you work
your way toward its headwaters hard under the towering peak that is
Clingmans Dome), is amazingly open. That’s because once or twice a
year tremendous downpours on its headwaters scour the stream and
keep vegetation pushed well back from its banks. As a result, the
fisherman has easy casting rather that the dabbling or bow-and-arrow
casts typically found on higher elevation streams.
There are two
basic ways to get to the Left Fork. You can fish upstream from the
point where it joins the Right Fork to form Deep Creek proper. The
trail is right along the main stream here (on the opposite side from
where the Left Fork meets the Right Fork), and unless you know where
it is or study a map with great care you likely won’t even notice
the point at which the stream divides. Further complicating matters
is the fact that the Left Fork, at this confluence, breaks into an
island or delta-like pattern that can be really confusing. A better
approach, and it is one that lands you squarely in some of Left
Fork’s finest fishing, is to drop down off the Fork Ridge Trail,
which runs along the ridge top dividing the two forks of Deep Creek,
into the Left Fork several miles further upstream. The ideal place
to do this is at the point where the trail leading up from Poke
Patch Campsite on the Right Fork joins the Fork Ridge Trail (the
Poke Patch backcountry campsite is also the closest designated place
for overnight camping, and it’s an ideal base of operations).
Just be sure you
pay attention as you bushwhack your way down to the Left Fork after
leaving the trail. You will have to make your way back out, and as I
learned to my dismay several years ago, you can get turned around in
a hurry, fighting your way through laurel and rhododendron hells, if
you fail to pay attention. Incidentally, if this should happen, you
will readily understand why the word “hells” has long been used to
describe such thickets.
Once on the
stream, you will find a mixture of browns and rainbows, with
increasing numbers of speckled trout as you near the confluence with
Keg Drive Branch. The stream is your trail back out once you finish
fishing, so be sure to leave plenty of daylight to retrace your
footsteps. One final note on the Left Fork—as a teenager, many years
ago, I spent a wonderful week camped here near “Little Dam,” the
then visible vestiges of an old splash dam left over from pre-Park
logging days. My companion was Bill Rolen, the son of the Deep Creek
Park ranger at the time. We probably weren’t supposed to camp there
(you certainly aren’t now), but the week remains one of the most
vivid and wonderful of all my fishing memories.
Twentymile Creek
Located at the far
southwestern end of the Park, Twentymile Creek is in one sense as
accessible as any stream on the North Carolina side of the Smokies.
You can drive right to the ranger station near its mouth, traveling
over asphalt for all but the final few hundred yards when you turn
up the creek. To reach the creek, drive southwest along U. S.
Highway 28 out of Fontana Village for a few miles to where the
stream enters Cheoah Lake and turn right onto the gravel road that
leads to the seasonal ranger station. There is a parking area just
above the ranger station, and this is where the trailhead begins.
The trail
(actually an old road from pre-Park days) follows the stream quite
closely for four and a half miles, and this comprises the portion of
the stream that is of primary interest to anglers. Twentymile Creek,
which gets its name not from its length but from the distance it
lies from Hazel Creek, is for much of its drainage a rough, tumbling
stream full of plunge pools, fast-flowing rapids, and steep gorges.
It is best fished in summer and early fall, when water levels are at
their lowest. A day on this stream will give you plenty of exercise,
since it makes for tough going in places, but there are ample
rewards to be garnered from its turbulent waters. It is primarily
populated by rainbows, although periodically you will connect with a
brown trout.
Eagle Creek
Eagle Creek is one
of several Park streams that flow into the north shore of Fontana
Lake. Accordingly, there are only two ways to reach this stream—by
shank’s mare or via boat. The latter approach is strongly
recommended, although there are several trail systems, all described
in detail in Ken Wise’s fine book, Hiking Trails of the Great Smoky
Mountains, which provide access by foot. Incidentally, Wise’s book,
although written with the hiker in mind, should be a required
purchase for any serious fisherman focusing on the Park. It’s that
good.
In the case of
Eagle Creek, the vast majority of anglers prefer to conserve their
energy and arrange for a boat shuttle from the Fontana Village
Marina or go to the trailhead at the stream’s mouth via their own
watercraft. Once there, you have the option of several backcountry
campsites, and one of these, the Lower Ekaneetlee site (#89 on Park
maps and two miles upstream from the mouth of Eagle Creek) gives you
a ready choice of fishing either Eagle Creek or its Ekaneetlee Creek
feeder. Somewhat larger than Twentymile Creek, this stream and its
feeders offer many miles of fine fishing for a mixture of brown and
rainbows, and it receives far less pressure than nearby Hazel Creek.
Forney Creek
Although I
hesitate a bit to say so in print, it is my personal opinion that
when all things are considered Forney Creek, which like Eagle Creek
empties into Fontana Lake, offers the finest fishing on the North
Carolina side of the Park. It is sufficiently remote to offer just
the right amount of challenge when it comes to accessibility, big
enough to produce nice-sized trout and ample elbow room for casting,
and characterized by the sort of mixture of pools and pocket water
you envision when thinking about streams in the Smokies.
For the hiker, the
easiest and shortest route to Forney Creek is from the trailhead at
the tunnel which ends the so-called “Road to Nowhere” that runs out
of Bryson City to Noland Creek. Just beyond the bridge that crosses
Noland Creek you go through a tunnel and the road ends. The
Lakeshore Trail begins here and four miles of travel on it will lead
you to Forney Creek. From there, you can follow the Forney Creek
trail upstream or down. There are several backcountry campsites here
including Lower Forney (#74), Bear Creek (#73), Upper Forney, also
know as the old Civilian Conservation Corps site (#71), and Jonas
Creek (#70). You can also travel to Forney Creek by boat, launching
at any of several sites—a recently constructed one at the end of old
State Road 88 near where the Tuckaseegee River enters the lake, from
Almond Boat Dock, from the Wilderness Marina launch off Round Hill
Road, or from the ramp at the end of Forest Road 2550 (the Tsali
camping area). The latter is the easiest to locate, lying off
Highway 28, but the trip from the Wilderness Marina one is the
closest. In each instance, make sure you have a good lake map, for
this portion of Fontana Lake, with its Tuckasegee, Little Tennessee,
and Nantahala River arms, can be somewhat complicated to the
uninitiated.
From a fishing
perspective, Forney Creek is a pure delight. For many years it was a
predominately rainbow stream, but in the last decade or so brown
trout have, in the local vernacular, “took holt” in a major way.
Some of the larger pools in the lower reaches hold huge browns (you
are more likely to see them than to hook them), but you’ll still
find plenty of ‘bows in pocket water and where the current flow is
more rapid. A medium to medium-large stream by Smokies standards,
Forney Creek offers upwards of 10 miles of fishable water, with its
larger feeders adding a couple more miles.
Lower Cataloochee Creek
Before the
introduction of elk in the Cataloochee Valley, this part of the Park
was a fairly well kept secret. Local folks knew that it provided a
Cades Cove-like setting without all of the human traffic and
hurly-burly. The elk have changed all that, although the major
impact on fishing is in a lowering of aesthetic appeal rather than
any alteration of quality. Fortunately, there is one section of the
Cataloochee where you can get away for the elk watchers, still enjoy
peace and quiet, and sample first-rate fishing. This is, oddly
enough, the lowermost reaches of the stream. Here the Cataloochee
leaves its peaceful valley setting, with old homes, churches,
graveyards, and a school house standing as silent reminders of a
world we have lost, and enters a gorge-like area that carries the
stream to its confluence with Waterville Lake.
While Cataloochee
Valley is accessible by road (Take the Waterville exit off I-40,
cross the Pigeon River, and turn left at the end of the bridge. Then
follow a paved road for two miles to an intersection where you will
turn left onto a gravel road, old N. C. 284, which leads into the
Cataloochee Valley. Or, take Highway 276 out of Maggie Valley to
Cove Creek Road, follow it for just under six miles, and you enter
the Park and soon drop down into the Valley.), such is not the case
with the lower reaches of the stream. In fact, there is not even a
maintained trail into the area.
One approach is to
park in the area where Little Cataloochee Creek enters the main
creek, then work your way downstream. As you do so, you can take one
of two available approaches. The first involves scrambling
downstream for the distance you think you can cover in a day of
fishing, then working your way back to where you began your hike.
Alternatively, you can fish a pool or a short stretch, climb out and
rock hop downstream, and then repeat the process. Either way this is
rugged territory best fished with a partner, although the fact that
you can drive to your starting point makes it a quite reasonable
venue for a single day’s outing, in contrast to some of the above
scenarios where overnight stays are almost mandatory.
There you have it,
five destinations on the North Carolina side of the Great Smoky
Mountains National Park I consider real dandies. All have brought me
joyous times over the years, all promise solitude and a comparative
dearth of other anglers, and all carry you to trout-filled waters.
The rest, getting there and catching fish, is strictly up to you.
Thank you for subscribing to the
Jim Casada Outdoors
newsletter.
Feel free to contact Jim with your comments, questions
or suggestions at
jc@jimcasadaoutdoors.com.
|