TR Second Week of November ?

Speeding north on I-75 just the other side of Chatanooga I
followed a curve down into a valley covered in an early
morning fog and realized that the sun would soon melt the
fog away. For the first time in days I found myself wearing
a wide smile.

The Smokies have lost the brilliant colors of fall by now.
The bright orange and incandescent yellows are mostly gone
replaced by rusty browns and the dull, muted greens of the
pines and the Jeff Miller leafs. (I call them Jeff Miller
leafs because they're so goddamn pertinacious they refuse
to change colors, much less fall off the trees.;-)

I like to stay in Bryson City when I go fishing in Graham
County even though Bryson City is in Swain County and about
an hours drive from Snowbird. (Well, I once made it from
Bryson City to Snowbird in 35 minutes but as a passenger
with a Canadian lunatic doing the driving. ;-) It's the
moo goo gai pan theory. When asked why he'd never live
anywhere other than New York City Woody Allen once replied
it was because in New York City you can go out at 3 in the
morning and get moo goo gai pan. I never have, he continued,
but if I wanted to I could. Bryson City's kinda like that.
There's an ABC store (North Cackalacky for liquor store),
and a pizza place that's open 'til 11, I never did buy any
liquor or pizza, but if I wanted to I could have.

Fished a bit with the 1 wt and an illegal hound on Deep
Creek (dogs aren't allowed on streams in the Park) then
had dinner at The Fryemont Inn. The Fryemont has a relaxed,
casual, sit-in-front-of-the-fire dining room and a really
pedestrian wine list but a four course meal plus dessert
and a glass of wine was only ~$30 with tip. The bar off the
dining room is as comfortable a little bar as you're likely
to find. I asked some of the locals about the missing fly
shop over a post-dinner drink and they didn't know much
other than it's kaput and nobody's opened another fly shop.
(Hey Walt, how's about a satellite location in Bryson City ? ;-)

I could not BELIEVE the weather ! Me & Kipper walked up
Snowbird to Sassafras, fished a bit of Snowbird with the 1 wt
then clambered up Sassafras for a couple of hours where the
1 wt was truly in its element.

The original plan called for the 6 mile round trip to Sassafras,
plus clambering, to be a sort of warm-up for a Tuesday trip down
into Slickrock from Big Fat Gap, but Kipper was too tired.
That's right, the dog was too tired, that's my story and I'm
sticking to it. ;-) So with the 1000ft vertical drop down, (plus
the 1000ft vertical climb out) the Slickrock trip was put on hold
for another time and I decided to take a look at Little Santeetlah.
I'd never fished it before but on the map it looked pretty mellow
and remember the poor dog was pooped. ;-)

Tuesday promised to be just as gorgeous as the day before with
temperatures rising into the 60's by afternoon and a clear, high,
Carolina blue sky. Little Santeetlah looked every bit as nice as
the map promised but soon after we arrived at the Joyce Kilmer
picnic area a goddamned AARP convention broke out. Now, just as
an aside, I cannot believe that an entire forest was named after
a guy who wrote what has to be one of the ten worst popular poems
ever written and who in the same verse committed what is beyond a
doubt the most egregiously awful use of the word "intimately" in
ANY so-called poem EVER written in English. Anyway, car load after
car load of geezers pulled into the lot and it's starting to look
like Little Santeetlah is gonna be covered up with hiking senior
citizens. And some of them even glared at me with obvious contempt.
Now I wonder, to a completely disinterested observer what would be
weirder, a scruffy guy with a two-day growth of beard quaffing a
can of Budweiser at 10 in the morning or a lady with blue hair ?

Anyway, on to Plan B, Santeetlah herownself. I drove just around
the corner to the Rattler's Ford Campground and drove down a dirt
road 'til it dead ended and there, in solitude, we would fish.

I'd fiddled around with Zimbo's boo, a sweet little 6'3" boo that
was built to be a 3wt but that Steve thought turned out to be more
of a 4wt, the night before on the lawn and I'd put a DT5 on it.
SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET. I took that rig to Santeetlah and almost
immediately regretted it. Santeetlah is a big, wide open creek at
that spot and I needed more mending ability than a 6'3" rod could
provide. So I went back to the car and put the same reel on a
Sage 490 LL and cast it a few times on the road. SWEEEEEEEEEEEEET.
I took that rig to Santeetlah and almost immediately regretted it.
Santeetlah can be a bitch to fish with a 9' rod. When the trees
have leafs you notice them for the hazard they are. When there's
nothing but wispy bare, naked branches it's easy to overlook the
snag in the backcast. Santeetlah is one pretty trout stream. She
really is take your breath away beautiful and to spend a day,
especially a lagniappe day during the second week of November,
fishing her waters is food for the soul.

All in all a fine trip, comfortable digs, gorgeous weather, bright
little brookies, eel-like browns, and a happy grinnin' hound dog.
A nice way to end the 2004 season.

--
Ken Fortenberry