Went to see Waldo on Tuesday. It was a three hour drive, but the hills
and scenery were terrific. I arrived in Mornganton, NC before he
closed his fly shop. He looked good. He's lost a lot of weight and
still shows the scars on his face from his tangle with me at the Blue
Stone cabin some years ago. (Actually, Walt fell off a bench trying to
hang the Pirate's Colors on the outside wall of the cabin. He slipped
and did a face plant on the wall.) I bet the mark on the cabin wall is
still there.

Walt and Marie joined me for dinner that night, and we ate some
terrific food, both in taste and price. If I had a restaurant like
that near me, I'd eat three meals a day there. Only problem, I was the
youngest person in the restaurant until Walt and Marie arrived. d;o(

I met Scott on Wednesday morning at 8 a.m. and we headed to lower
Wilson Creek. Very pretty water. It was the "delayed harvest" area
and the fish were stocked last fall - catch and release until June. I
don't normally fish for stocked trout, but this was different. Perhaps
it was the setting. There's nothing like that close to home here in
Georgia.

The place was crowded, believe it or not, with two or three cars at all
the pull-offs. Scott found an isolated spot and we started fishing.
It was supposed to be 65 degrees. It was actually about 45 degrees and
I froze my ass off. Scott had an extra sweat shirt which I managed to
get my 208 pounds into, and I was a bit more comfortable.

This was a different type of fishing to me. I had a dry fly tied on an
8 foot leader, with four feet of tippet tied to the hook and a dropper
nymph at the end with split shot added to sink the nymph. After
missing several takes of the dropper, I finally hooked up with a small
brookie, and lost two or three others by missing the take. (If I fish
a dropper, I use only about 18 inches of tippet tied to the dry, and no
weight tied to the *tiny* {size 20} nymph. After fishing this set-up
for awhile, we moved to a different spot. First cast I hooked up with
a decent size brookie on the nymph. That's when I decided to go to a
straight nymphing set up - no dropper, just a PT soft hackle (size 18),
a little weight, and because I was nymphing at a great distance, I tied
on an indicator. I took a few more fish with this set up before we
retired for lunch.

After lunch we moved down stream to a spot that was crowded earlier in
the day. Beautiful water. Managed a fish or two in this water before
it was time to leave.

All in all it was a pretty good trip. I got to see Wally again and
meet Scott whom I know I will fish with again. I wish I could fish
farther up-river for native trout, but from what I hear from Mark,
Jeff, and now Scott, it is a little too difficult for an old codger
with a new hip on one side and a bad one on the other. I enjoyed this
trip more than fishing Duke's Creek which is just around the corner
from me, but it is all I have. Can hardly wait until the last week of
May, and the first three weeks of June on the Rapid. Hopefully I will
be in better shape.

Dave