Yesterday, Monty (of the shop), two brothers - Jess & JB (two local boys
taking up this fine passion), and myself motored up to Foscoe to fish the
Watauga after store closing at noon.

Before I start with the TR..... Zac, the personable tall skinny young man
who helps me out at the shop, has been going through a couple of very bad
weeks. His momma, Judy, who suffers from emphasema, came down with a cold
and is in very bad condition. She is now up at the hospital in Asheville and
it is day to day. We've all been praying for Judy and the family, we all
sure hope she recovers and does well.

After that said, it seems irrelevant to post a TR...... but I should, life
indeed goes on.

The four of us arrived at the somewhat crowded delayed-harvest-stretch
behind the church at Hounds Ear. This is a great place for beginners to work
on their casting skills and have a shot at some trout. The fishing was a
little slow, I attribute that to the pressure, and maybe the cold front that
passed through. Anyways, Monty and I caught a few fish, Jess lost a nice
one, and JB retired back to the jeep after only about 30-45 minutes of
fishing.

JB, who is recovering from a bad motorcycle accident, wasn't feeling too
well. His jaw is wired and I think he is still tiring easy. Since the
conditions were kind of slow and the waters were brim-full of anglers, I
decided to load the boys into the jeep and head over to some less crowded
"private" waters where I'm tolerated, somewhat.

These waters offer the members some big fish. The fish, which are fed, can
grow up to 35+ inches and if you happen to hook into one of them denizens,
well, just laugh and enjoy.... cuz we NC boyos don't experience that on our
wild streams.

Theboy, my connection to the place, told us that in the morning a couple of
anglers were catching some nice fish on buggers, slowly drifted and
twitched. That's all I needed to hear and I tied on an Ollie Smith of Foscoe
favorite, a bead-head yellow woolly-bugger.

Monty and Jess tied on dries for an upstream fish and JB, who still wasn't
feeling well, decided to relax in the jeep, so I headed
downstream to uncharted waters swinging the bugger.

I covered about fifty yards or so without any takes and came to a nice
riffle curve that fed into a pool. I cast my 7.5' 4wt XP (by the way, an
awesome rod for our stream fishing) across and started swinging the bugger
slowly across the faster water. Wham! A nice 'bow of about 16 inches slammed
the fly and was leaping and running all over the pool. After release, I
fished the middle and tail of the run but no more luck.

I moved down to the next pool and was rewarded with a huge take by a
monster. After about a 10 minute or so battle that included an amazing run
that had a leap of 10 or so feet, I brought the 22 or so inch fish to hand
and gingerly released him back to his home. I settled onto a rock for a
smoke and thoughts, but mainly to disperse the adrenaline coarsing through
my veins.... what a rush.

Without going into much more detail of the rest of my fishing, which was
excellent the rest of the afternoon, after another fine fish released I
decided to to head up and find Monty and Jess to see how they were doing and
also to check in on JB to see if he was feeling better and wanted to try a
cast or two.

I found the two a ways upstream and Monty had caught a few, lost a few, but
nothing big. Jess had a few takes, but no fish.

I coersed the two, JB still wanted to relax, to come back downstream and
toss some buggers. I put them on the pool where I took the first fish.....
a nice pool that I was sure I had seen a really nice fish move when I was
fighting the other fish earlier.

After some casting, Monty hooked into the bad boy and after a drawn out
battle with some spectacular leaps and runs, the 22-24 inch fish was brought
to hand and released.

OK..... c'mon Jess. After numerous casts, right at dusk, Jess hooked and
landed the only Brown Trout taken on this day. It wasn't a very large fish
by earlier standards, 12 inches or so, but he definetly wore the largest
smile of any of us this fine day.

All in all.... a pleasant day astream.

Please Lord, help Judy get well, we love her. Amen.

--Walt