Читать книгу The Ultimate Fly-Fishing Guide to the Smoky Mountains - Greg Ward - Страница 8

THE MAJESTIC GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS National Park is a rugged half-million-acre wilderness sanctuary located on the border between Tennessee and North Carolina. Encompassed in the park are several steep, tree-lined ridges, separated by deep valleys. There are more than 1,000 miles of cool, crystal-clear streams.

One of the most diverse biospheres on earth, the Smokies range from an elevation of 850 feet at the mouth of Abrams Creek to 6,642 feet on Clingmans Dome. The flora are incredibly diverse, with several trees reaching their record growth in the park. There are 13 major watersheds in the Smokies, as well as a number of smaller ones. These streams range in size from the largest, the Little River and Oconaluftee River, which during periods of normal flow are big enough to float a canoe down, to an almost endless number of small headwater rills. Living in these streams is a wide spectrum of aquatic insects and invertebrates, as well as more than 70 species of fish, including darters, suckers, dace, shiners, chubs, sculpin, bream, bass, and the native brook trout. Since the turn of the century, two other species, the rainbow trout and the brown trout, have become part of the ecosystem of the Smokies, although they are considered “exotics” by fisheries biologists.

The Brook Trout (Salvelinus fontinalis)

THE BROOK TROUT, known affectionately to the mountain folk of the Smokies as the “spec,” is not a true trout, but a char. The world’s trout—salmon, grayling, and whitefish—are members of one homogeneous group. The trout, in turn, are divided into two technically separate groups, the true trout and the chars.

This classification is arrived at principally through skeletal structure, teeth, and scale differences. This is of little importance to anglers, as the more apparent differences in coloration are obvious. Chars always have a dark background color with light spots. True trout, such as the rainbow and brown, always have a light background color with dark spots.

The brook trout is distinctive from other fish with its “worm like” markings on its back (known as vermiculations) and white-edged lower fins. The brook trout, like all chars, spawns in the fall. The brook trout of the Smokies are most closely related to lake trout, Dolly Varden trout, and Arctic char. They are the most handsome of all of the trout found in the park, in coloration and appearance. Only the ruby-flanked Arctic char that I’ve caught in the rivers and lakes of Quebec, Labrador, and the Northwest Territories are more visually stunning (and more tasty).

I grew up boulder-hopping headwater streams for brook trout. In 1978 I caught my largest brook trout in park waters. It was a 15-inch specimen taken while fishing with Vic Stewart at Meigs Creek. I have chased brook all over the South and Northeast as well as western waters where these bejeweled fish have been introduced. Once while caribou hunting along the Leaf River in Quebec, we fished the quarter-mile-wide river where every cast resulted in latching into a 5-to-7-pound brook trout. The first day of this was fun, but after catching and releasing scores of these leviathan brook trout, it occurred to me that it was far greater fun to ambush an 8-inch brookie in a rivulet in the Smokies.

In the Smokies, the brook trout feed on numerous forms of aquatic insects, including stone flies, mayflies, and caddis flies. Terrestrial insects are also an important part of their diet, and include bees, wasps, beetles, ants, jassids, flies, and grasshoppers. Crayfish are important daily fare, as are minnows. The brook trout is capable of digesting a stomach full of food in less than half an hour, a fact that prods the brookie to constantly look out for almost any edible morsels.

The brookies of the Smokies were “marooned” here after the glacial epoch. Originally an ocean-dwelling fish from the Arctic, the brook trout migrated down the eastern seacoast, fleeing the freezing onslaught of the ensuing Ice Age. When the rivers had cooled sufficiently to offer suitable habitat, the brookies moved upstream and established themselves. As the rivers began to warm, the brook trout were forced to retreat into the cool mountain headwaters.

The brook trout was once abundant in the Smokies. Accounts of fishing trips made into the mountains prior to 1890 tell of fish being caught by the hundreds. Large-scale logging operations came into the Smokies in the late 1890s. Whole watersheds were logged out, dams were erected on the streams, railroad lines were built up alongside many streams, and fires fed on the slash left behind by the timber-cutting operations: these were but some of the devastating problems the brook trout faced. All logging operations ceased in 1935 (approximately two-thirds of the Smokies were logged during this period), and better land management helped heal the wounds left by the previous forty years.

Estimates of the total amount of original brook trout water are speculative, but most agree that it was between 400 and 440 miles with the present boundaries of the park. There is reasonable documentation that when the park was officially established that brook trout had disappeared from over 150 miles of their former range. By 1980 these fish are believed to have lost an additional 130-to-140 miles of stream.

Rainbow trout were introduced into every major stream in the Smokies prior to the creation of the park, and were periodically stocked in these waters thereafter into the 1970s. Massive stockings of as many as 400,000 rainbow trout were continued through 1947. The brook trout, which lost over half of its original range to the loggers, is now losing additional territory to the rainbow trout. Why the brook trout cannot regain its lost range where habitat conditions have returned to near-normal, and what part the rainbow trout plays in this drama, are not fully understood. Several explanations have been offered, and research into the dilemma continues. A moratorium was placed on the killing of brook trout in the park in 1975. Scores of headwater streams were closed for almost three decades to protect the remaining brookies. In 2002 a number of formerly closed brook trout streams were opened to fishing. In addition, several other brook trout streams that had never closed to fishing amended regulations, allowing anglers to keep brook trout of 7 inches or longer.

Considerable debate remains not only over the future of the brook trout in the streams of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but also whether these fish are indeed a unique subspecies of brook trout. It has been the subject of more federally funded research projects than the money spent to land on the moon. Reams of research on the brook trout subject has failed to settle the issue to everyone’s satisfaction. In the world of zoology there are two schools of classification: One group lumps barely indistinguishable subspecies such as the yellow-rumped warbler and Myrtle’s warbler into one subspecies. Conversely, the other school splits things to infinity, noting that the Myrtle’s warbler has tail feather vane lengths of 5.6cm, while the yellow-rumprd warbler has a tail feather vane length of 5.4cm. Need I say that this school of zoology is known as the “splitters.”

After exhaustive, incredibly expensive research, there is general consensus that the brook trout of the Smokies (in fact, southern Appalachian brook trout found south of the New River in Virginia) are genetically different than those same fish found north of this dividing line. Since the 1990s a number of studies are in general agreement that brook trout of southern Appalachia are indeed genetically unique. Pure southern-strain brook trout do exist, and in some locales are doing remarkably well. Where northern brook trout have been introduced, and in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park this covers nearly all watersheds, northern-strain brookies and southern-strain/northern-strain hybrids are common. According to some sources, it is not uncommon for northern-and southern-strain brookies to occupy the same waters.

In an ongoing effort to make sure confusion rules supreme in Bedlam, the latest DNA detective work supposes that not only are the specs of the south unique, but that indeed some streamsheds in the Smokies have brook trout populations different even within this microcosm. There is considerable debate regarding just about everything in connection with the future of the southern brook trout. Their average life expectancy is three years or less, which does not work to their advantage. Whether or not they are being assaulted more these days by factors such as acid rain and global warming, two suggestions I personally do not buy into, is a matter of enlightened conjecture. Pressure from rainbow and brown trout is the primary problem. Citing their desire to save the brook trout of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the National Park Service may ultimately need to take more aggressive management approaches.

The Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss)

THE VERY NAME OF THIS FISH rings out with a surge of raw energy and beauty. The rainbow trout is well known for unsurpassed fighting ability, arching leaps, and superb eating quality. A powerful downstream run by one of these fish that rips the line from your reel will make you feel as if your heart is trying to bypass your Adam’s apple.

The rainbow trout’s original range extended from California to Bristol Bay in Alaska. This fish prefers fast, oxygenated water. Recognizable by its silvery flanks slashed with scarlet and its greenish back, the rainbow trout is a beautiful fish. Predominantly an insect eater, particularly in the streams of the Smokies, the rainbow will, however, strike spinners and minnow imitations with gusto.

Rainbow trout from the Sierra Mountains of California were shipped to Michigan in 1878. In a few years the adaptable Western natives were providing blue-ribbon fishing in a number of Michigan rivers. Anglers from across the eastern part of the country sought the highly touted rainbow to replace the quickly diminishing brook trout. Rainbows are easily reared in hatcheries, but they were discontented in small streams when suitable habitat in larger waters was open to them. The wanderlust problem is of little concern to fisheries personnel in the southern Appalachian Mountains, where fish are confined to small streams and rivers (except for the existence of a few high-elevation impoundments).

Rainbow trout spawn in spring, with runs normally in February. An interesting change has been observed recently in southern rainbows, with a few fish spawning in the fall. I have caught rainbows from the West Prong of the Little Pigeon in October and early November that were decked out in dark spawning hues and full of roe.

The exact date and site of the first stocking of rainbow trout in the Smokies is not known. There is some contention that landowners stocked them in Abrams Creek in 1900, though no records were kept. At least a portion of the original stock of rainbow trout came from California. However, from where, by whom, and when rainbow entered individual watersheds in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park is at best enlightened conjecture. Today, the rainbow trout is the dominant game fish in the park, having extended its range into every stream system.

Most fish average 7 inches in length and generally do not top 9 inches. However, an occasional 12-to 16-inch rainbow is taken. On rare days, 3-to 4-pound fish are caught. Spawning runs from impoundments (Fontana, Cheoah, and Chilhowee Lakes) often bring large fish upstream for short periods of time, but this usually occurs from late December through February. While it is a misnomer, some locals call this a “steelhead” run, similar to the famous one during the 1950s and 1960s up Doe Creek from Watauga Lake over 100 miles north of the Finger Lakes of the Smokies.

It is a bit ironic that a century ago the spunky little stream trout brought here saved sport fishing in the Smokies but is now reviled by the NPS as an unwelcomed interloper exotic species. As much as I love the specs, the ’bow is still welcomed by me.

The Brown Trout (Salmo trutta)

THE BROWN TROUT was brought to this country from Germany in 1883. Eggs shipped across the Atlantic arrived at a New York hatchery, where they were hatched and planted in local waters. Brown trout stock from Scotland arrived the following year. Fish from the German strain were called German browns or Von Behr trout, and those from Scotland were known as Loch Leven browns. For a number of years, records listed the two fish individually. Today, however, all Salmo trutta in this country are referred to as simply brown trout.

Brown trout were introduced into the Tennessee Valley in 1900. Browns in excess of 25 pounds have been caught in this region; the largest brown known to have been taken in the park was a respectable 16-pounder. A 32-inch 15-pounder was taken in October, 2009 by a client angler, according to Steve Claxton, whose guide service is based out of Bryson City. Although browns were never officially stocked in the Smokies, downstream waters were stocked by both Tennessee and North Carolina fish-and-game agencies in the 1950s. Browns began to appear in the waters of the park as early as the 1940s, and by the 1970s brown trout occupied more than 50 miles of park waters.

Brown trout are primarily insect eaters, with adult mayflies being their favorite food. Frederic M. Halford, the famous English angling writer, wrote of the feeding habits of the brown trout: “The nymphs are the brown trout’s beef, and the adult mayfly his caviar.” A carnivorous creature, the brown will use everything in a stream, from tiny plankton to an occasional brother or sister. In park streams, larger members of this clan are nocturnal feeders. The best time to tie into a big brown in the Smokies is at dusk or dawn, or immediately after a rain.

The brown trout can be distinguished by its generally brownish-yellow color with orange spots on the sides—although a few are sometimes a silvery tan with dark brown spots. Brown trout prefer slower water than do rainbows, but have been taken in fast waters up to 4,500 feet in elevation in park streams. They spawn in fall.

There is a simple reason brown trout grow larger in the waters of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The secret is their habitat preference compared to that of a rainbow trout. Browns are predators, more comparable to a large snake or lion, and feed only on large items. After feeding, they then retire to digest their prey while remaining inactive. Rainbows are like chickadees, constantly flirting with the current for food, eating only slightly more than it takes to sustain their bulk. The energy saved by the brown trout is channeled to growth, not day-to-day survival.

The Smallmouth Bass (Micropterus dolomieui)

RIPPING, CARTWHEELING SURFACE antics are Mr. Smalljaw’s calling card. This well-muscled fish’s strength is overshadowed only by its courageous determination to be free and its no-nonsense, aggressive disposition.

The smallmouth bass is a member of the Centrarchidae family of sunfish. Among the thousands who identify themselves as “bass fishermen,” this fighter is their passion, the thing from which sweet dreams are made. The lower reaches of many streams in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park are prime bronzeback country. Recognizing this, the legislature made the smallmouth bass the official fish of the state of Tennessee.

The controversial, world-record smallmouth bass, which weighed 11 pounds, 15 ounces, was caught in Dale Hollow Lake in Tennessee in 1955. Actually, the fish was caught so close to the Kentucky state line that both states claim it. Being a good Volunteer State resident, however, I’ll go with the home team!

The presence of smallmouth bass in the streams of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park comes as a shock to many, including a few lifelong trouters in the region. However, these marvelous game fish, as well as rock bass and even a few largemouth bass, are found in these streams. It is a bit ironic that most fly-fishermen frequenting these streams ignore the brown bass, as it is a far better fighter than any of the trout occurring here.

Part of the reason many fly-fishermen do not pursue the great smallie angling opportunities found in the park is the mistaken impression that these fish can only be caught on hardware such as spinners and small crankbaits. However, nothing could be farther from the truth. Smallmouth bass can be enticed to strike a variety of flies, ranging from streamers to nymphs. For the most part, all of the bass in the Smokies are most common in the lower reaches of the largest streams, such as Deep Creek and the East Prong of Little Pigeon River.

During the early years of the park, fly-fishing for smallmouth bass was almost as common as for trout. Lack of shade on many reaches of water (that are now canopied at least half of the year) resulted in prime smallmouth bass habitat. During those days, fly-fishermen used what was known then as fly-rod baits. In most instances, these were scaled-down versions of proven plugs such as Heddon’s Flaptail or South Bend’s Bass Oreno. These bantam-sized plugs were too light to be cast with any tackle of that era other than a fly rod. Modern ultralight tackle will cast these dainty offerings, which are now highly sought after by collectors of vintage fishing tackle.

The smallmouth bass is a member of the black bass clan, the toughest branch of the scrappy sunfish family. They resemble their larger cousins, the largemouth bass, as well as the Kentucky bass. The most notable differences are in body shape and coloration. Smallies are more streamlined and sport amber-to-bronze coloration. Their flanks have vertical bars, or “tiger stripes,” and their eyes are reddish.

Adult smallmouth bass prefer rock-or gravel-bottomed feeding stations, which characterizes most of their habitat in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Three-to five-pound smallmouth bass are trophies from these waters, while a 12-inch rock bass is a true “eyepopper.” Each season, a few larger bass are taken from park waters. In the loosely knit world of black bass fishing, rock bass are often referred to as the “brook trout” of this far-flung clan of alpha sunfish.

Crawfish, which are common to park streams, are key prey items, along with small fish such as darters and sculpins, spring lizards, insects, and other invertebrates. These fish are slightly more meat-conscious than trout, although they will take small flies.

Fly-fishing specifically for smallmouth bass is a challenging sport, but their abundance in the park makes it worthwhile. I could easily devote an entire book to this subject, as the various techniques and awesome array of fishing situations take years to master.

Experienced park smallie fly-fishermen agree that more consistent results are obtained with light tackle and relatively small baits. I like two-to four-pound test tippets, but some fly-fishermen advocated the use of six-to eight-pound test tippets. On occasion, it is possible to use heavier tippets, but because big bronzebacks are so easily startled, the odds are stacked against success.

Favorite smallmouth fly patters include Muddler Minnows, Joe’s Hopper, large stone fly nymphs, and the Wooly Booger. Presented to the rear of pools, these fly patterns are deadly.

One reason many fly-fishing trouters fail to catch smallmouth and rock bass from the streams of the Smokies is they fail to recognize the distinctly different habitat preferences of the sunfish clan. Trout, and especially rainbows, are far more likely to be caught in modestly swift runs. Smallmouth bass shun fast water, preferring to “lay up” in the rear of pools in shaded areas.

Winter is a fine time to fish for brown bass in the park. December water temperatures and normally abundant rainfall help keep these cool-natured fish active. Streamers cannot be beat during this time, when the metabolism of the fish slows down. Streamers worked slowly over dropoffs, saddles, and bars can bring surprising results. Even during the dead of winter, smallie fishing in the streams of the park can be excellent.

Around late February, smallmouth bass begin getting active, and wander. Bottom fly-fishing rock dropoffs with streamers is an old-time tactic that still works.

March and April are exciting months for tangling with Smoky Mountain brownies. In most streams, they can be found shallow in the slow runs. Two-to four-foot depths are not uncommon. Streamers and nymphs retrieved at a brisk pace are met by violent strikes.

Spawning action can be located along sloping gravel-or rock-bottomed areas. Plastic streamers and nymphs bounced through likely bedding cover can net an irate parent fish or two. Following the spawn, the fish spread out along rocky-bottomed areas. During the May-through-August period, great smallie action is available at Abrams Creek and Little River.

Some of the best smallmouth bass angling is found in Fontana Lake, an impoundment with a national reputation for producing lunker-class brownies. Using hair bugs and poppers, surface action is respectable during the spring and early summer months, especially early in the morning and late evening. Using high-density lines, you can expect brisker action on subsurface offerings than at other times of the year.

The West Prong of the Little Pigeon downstream from Gatlinburg to its mouth at the French Broad easily rates among the country’s top three or four smallmouth bass fisheries.