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he Southern Appalachian Mountains that run through the Carolinas are loaded with trout,
small mouth bass, and just enough muskies to keep you coming back again and again.
With thousands of miles of streams and acres of lakes, there are more than enough places
to cast a fly. Trout rivers like the Davidson, The Tuckaseegee, the Chattooga,
(where the movie, Deliverance, was shot), and the French Broad give the angler a multitude
of runs and pools in which to fish. Add to this the many medium and small streams, and then
you have a lifetime of spots to cast toward.
Lakes Jocassee and Glenville hold a large population of both native and stocked trout.
Find the small mouth bass in those two lakes, along with the French Broad, and the “Tuck,”
and the fly-fishing is heating up. Just to top things off in these mountains, you’ll find a few muskies
in the French Broad, to put you in business.
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Let’s take a trip through the Carolinas with a fly rod. For this trip,
we’ll start in the mountains,
and work our way to the coast.
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Drifting east, we enter the transitional area of the foothills. Here, we concentrate
on the warm water species. The largemouth bass, bream, and the hybrid bass are the
most often fished for in the area. The hybrid is an interesting fish, a cross between the
saltwater striper and the freshwater white bass. It’s an aggressive, hard-fighting fish ready
to take a streamer or popper, whenever it has a chance. In these foothills, Carolina
anglers can make an easy move from conventional tackle to fly tackle. They already know
the spots where the bass and bream live and how to take them, so all that is left is to
figure out how to get a fly on those spots. Lakes, like Keowee, and the Savannah River pair
(Lake Hartwell and Lake Thurmond), make for great lake fly-fishing.
Add the older lakes of Hickory and James and you’re
all set for great lake fly-fishing. A special spot in the foothills is Stone Mountain State Park,
near Traphill, NC. All but one of the streams there are delayed harvest, offering excellent trout
fishing from October 1 into early June. (Delayed harvest is a method of providing trout fishing
through the winter by stocking fish in a river and using the catch and release system from Oct. 1
until the first Saturday in June.) The one exception is Bullhead Creek. This water is run on the
beat system, another method to keep fish populations up in which the angler signs up for a
section of a river, pays a fee, and no one else can fish his water that day.)
On a first-come, first-served basis, you can sign up for one of the beats, and it is yours all day.
This trophy water is fly-fishing only and “catch and release.” While in the foothills, don’t
forget to try the farm ponds. A courteous request to the landowner may get you
permission to fish these private fisheries.
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The largemouth bass, bream, and the hybrid bass are the
most often fished for in the area.
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Moving farther east on our trip to the sea, we arrive in the heartlands of the Carolinas.
We are still working on the warm water fish. The Roanoke River trio of Lakes – Kerr,
Gaston, and Roanoke Rapids, offer over 150,000 acres of fishing. On this river, as it runs
out of the last dam to the sea, you’ll find shad and stripers making the spring runs from the
Atlantic, making this quite a fishery.
Two other great heartland lakes are Marion and Moultrie, better known as Santee Cooper.
Known years ago for their striper fishing, they have become excellent bream and bass lakes.
These are shallow lakes, making them perfect for fly-fishing. Lake Murray, with its large areas of
shallow flats, is a natural for casting a fly to the bass and the bream. Spring is a prime time to
chase bream during the mayfly hatches.
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The Roanoke River trio of Lakes – Kerr,
Gaston, and Roanoke Rapids, offer over 150,000 acres of fishing.
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In the early spring, and a little closer to the coast, streams like the Tar and
Pitch-Kittle Creek hold huge numbers of spawning hickory and American shad. These
hard-fighting fish provide a good way to get rid of the winter doldrums.
When fishing the Carolina coast, we are mostly looking at saltwater species.
From the Outer Banks to Beaufort, SC, the angler can fish some of the best sea trout,
spot-tailed bass, and flounder fly-fishing in the country. Places like Cape Romain National Refuge
are well known for their flats. Patterns like Lefty’s Deceiver and the Merkin Crab are as strong
here as on any flat where a boat can be polled. Inlets like Georgetown, Hatteras, Ocracoke, and
Capes Fear and Look Out give fly anglers entrance to the ocean wrecks and the Gulf
Stream of the Atlantic.
The Currituck Sound is an interesting body of water – brackish (a mixture of salt and fresh),
with a tidal flow. The fish here are both fresh and salt varieties, so be prepared for a challenge.
One day you can find fish on a spot, then overnight, the wind can change and that spot will be
dry the next day on the same tide.
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The Carolinas have excellent and varied fly fishing. Enjoy it, be courteous to those
fishing around, and take care of our resources.
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When going to the Carolinas to fish, go online to contact local guides and fly
shops to find out the local game plan before leaving home. When you arrive in the area,
go by the local shops and get updates on the fishing, weather tides, etc. By all means, get a few
of those secret local fly patterns.
The Carolinas have excellent and varied fly fishing. Enjoy it, be courteous to those
fishing around, and take care of our resources.
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Captain Ray Henley
has been an enthusiastic fly fisherman since the mid fifties. He has fly-fished
the United Sates, Canada, the Bahamas and Bermuda. After spending sometime
as the fishing editor at the Jacksonville Beach Sun Times in Florida, he now spends
all of this time fly-fishing.
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