GSMNP Raven Fork Wild Trout
Headed up to the smokies last weekend for our annual spring trip fished the little pigeon Monday and managed 22 fish between three of us in 2 hours mostly smallmouth up to 4lbs, some rock bass and a few sunnies. Saturday we went over the mountain to NC to go for some backcountry brookies in ravens fork canyon, got to Hyatt ridge trailhead about 930 and made our climb up 2 miles gaining 2400ft in elevation then down into the untouched canyon that is ravens fork, this is truly a wild place so rugged that even the early loggers couldn't pull logs from it do to it being in a steep canyon. The wildflowers were in full bloom, whole mountain sides were covered in white pink and purple flowers.
Started out fishing upstream from camp 47 and made it up 3/4 of a mile before turning back for camp, caught about 25 fish between us, almost all brookies except for one 12" rainbow, we kept 6 for the fire and man there's nothing like some wild trout over the campfire after a long hike. We were fishing mostly 1/16 and 1/32 Oz jigs with either 1" or 2" grubs in white, green pumpkin or just plain pumpkin, there was almost no surface activity so we knew it was going to be a good trip for our style of fishing.
Second day hit the river about 9 after it warmed up a bit and boulder climbed our way down about a mile and started fishing our way up, again catching almost all brookies from this beautiful clear stream, it's the largest stream in the smokies that has brookies, in places it's 200+feet wide compared to other brookie streams that are only 20-50ft wide it was a real treat to have plenty of casting distance for a change. We ended up catching catching close to 75 trout for the 2 days we were there and add the fish from the little pigeon we had over a 100 so all in all a great trip with some great people in a breathtaking wilderness.
Good luck and happy fishing to all
Tyler~
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