A Bad Sign

If you get a bite from a fish like this really early in the trip, hope and pray that she throws your lure!

    You just new a decent fish would be laying behind that rock. It had been a while since I had chased smallmouth bass, but I knew that deep water behind a big rock with water rushing by on both sides normally means a good fish will at least see my lure. My first cast fell a little short of the rock, but it didn't matter. As soon as my Senko hit the water, my line began zooming off in an unnatural direction, and within two seconds I remembered why I love smallmouth bass so much. Fireworks. Standing in waist-deep water, this pretty smallie reached eye level at least four times before I was able to tease her out of the river.

    A minute later, my buddy Will caught one about 2 1/2 pounds and I knew we were destined for small fish and/or tough fishing the rest of the weekend. It always happens this way. Any time a river produces two really nice fish within ten minutes of your arrival, the best thing one can do is turn around and go home. Rivers have a way of teasing us like this: getting our hopes up early and grinding those same hopes out of us the rest of the trip. Predictably, those two fish turned out to be the largest Will and I would catch in a weekend of hard fishing on the Little Tennessee River in western North Carolina.

    On this mid-April weekend, Will and I met up with some members of NCRF and GRF (Georgia River Fishing) to make life miserable for the smallies. Turns out it was a pretty even match. Most everybody caught decent numbers of fish throughout the weekend, but almost all of them were extremely small. While the Little Tennessee is far from a premier smallmouth bass destination, you'd think that eight experienced anglers flogging the river for a weekend could manage more than two or three fish over two pounds.

You will find four or five suspension bridges like this crossing the Little T. Apparently, they were built back in the day so kids on this side of the river could walk to school on that side of the river. I'd still be in elementary school if I'd had to resist the Little T every morning on the way to school!

    This is not to suggest that the fishing wasn't eventful. It always is. One guy caught an estimated six pound catfish on a flyrod. Rock bass bit voraciously. Another guy caught a 20" rainbow and I caught my largest brook trout to date, a solid 13 incher. A couple guys accidentally went swimming and one or two more caught their first-ever smallmouth bass. The solid little one pound bass that normally make up about half a day's catch were just not biting. The eight-inchers we were catching did their best, but smallie-wise it was a tough weekend.

    The fellowship and accommodations were outstanding, however. I can't recommend Rose Creek Campground enough. They have extremely clean facilities, the prices are great, and the campsites are very private, and it is only minutes away from the river. I'm going back there with my family this summer.

    The best thing about weekends like this is the fellowship. Friday night we dined on steaks, grilled brats, and baked potatoes while Saturday's fare included more of the same plus homemade chili, sautéed peppers and onions, and freshly caught rock bass fried up nice and crisp. The laughs we shared over some cool adult beverages in camp are always remembered as fondly as any nice fish caught on the river.