GSM Wild Trout, Little Pigeon Smallies & Cheoah Lake Bows
Made our annual spring trip up to the mountains for some trout and small mouth action and boi fishing was good but tough with some of the lowest water ive seen for this time of year and super clear visibility 6-8ft vis on the little pigeon and 8-10 vis on the upper little river and 10 to 15ft! on Cheoah lake combined with blue bird skies made for some tough technical finese fishing. We started on moday floating a section on the little pigeon targeting small mouth and had a blast the water was so clear you could see hundreds of drum, redhorses, stonerollers, carp, huge gar, roxk bass and plenty of smallies, some we saw and tried so hard to catch were easily pushing 5lbs but the biggest we managed was around 3-4lbs which was still a blast on ul's. We had to sight fish almost everyfish we caught looking into the schools of mixed fish and saying theres a smallie cast and letting it fall was the key that day they would not eat it on the raise ended up catching about 50 fish between us didnt take many pictures that day but did of the super dark smallies and a bloated rockie. For the past few years ive been catching these sunfish that I can't quite identify they look like a green sunfish but ive never seen any with this coloration before which almost makes me belive its a hyrbid of something if anyone knows chime in id love to know its the second picture.
Day 2 of the trip we headed up to backcountry camp #24 a good 5 mile hike up to some good wild bow and brownie water once again water was super low and extremely clear so we knew we had to be super sneaky being aware of our shadow and slowly work our way up to each pool and riffle. Fishing again was tough but we managed 4 good eating size keepers 2 wild bows and 2 wild browns (they were delicious! ) the first evening and countless small ones. The second day we started early which was a mistake the trout we not in a feeding mood that morning for some reason but come 10 oclock they turned on and caught 30 b4 heading back to the trailhead didnt get to take any pics of the second day as my camera battery quit that morning. We even found a dead sculpin which ive never seen b4 except in pictures.
Thursday I went over the mountain and headed to fontana dam to check it out as ive never seen the lake or dam before and man talk about beautiful country it is a sight to behold, truly gods country out there, met some AT thru hikers and gave them a ride down to the post office which they were extremely grateful for then I headed down below the dam to Cheoah lake and man it was even clearer than the mountain streams I could see every pebble sitting in 10-15ft ft I was in my little 8ft bass raider with only a trolling motor so I knew I couldnt go far but made it 3 miles down found a nice bank and started casting an 1/8 oz grub hoping some some smallies but to my surprise thats not what I ended up catching. Evidently that is a killer tailwater trout fishery that both the twra and the nc dnr stock with brown rainbow and brookies I managed to get into a few nice keeper rainbows which were sight fished I was out from the bank 50 ft casting parallel to the bank and letting it sink and then jiging it up and watched as the rainbows would chases it almost to the surface then I'd let it fall and they would crush it! fishing with my long UL rod it was a blast only two picture fish that day caught 15 10" and under
All in all a great trip with many memories made cant wait to come back there this summer with my big boat and really get on em, they say its the finger lakes of the south and ive seen pictures of some of really nice trout caught from there.
Till next time good luck and happy fishing
TnCreekMaster
Last edited by TnCreekMaster; 04-23-2016 at 09:51 AM.
GSM Wild Trout, Little Pigeon Smallies & Cheoah Lake Bows
