By Ken Kastorff
Spring is my favorite angling time of the year here in the southeast. Delayed Harvest Streams are stocked all spring from March through May. Rivers, like the Upper Nantahala, Tuckaseege, and Snowbird Creek will give anglers the opportunity to enjoy some of the best early season trout fishing found anywhere. This is a great time to catch fish on streamers, dry flies and nymphs. Wooly Buggers, girdle bugs, prince nymphs, egg patterns along with dry flies, like black caddis, light cahill, quill gorden, blue wing olives as well as just about anything else, will work on these streams.
General fishing opens up again the first Saturday in April. At the same time scheduled release on the Nantahala River will start for the upcoming season. That means I will be out doing float trips on my favorite river – eight miles of non-stop fishing action on one of the most beautiful rivers in the United States. While fishing the Nantahala is more challenging than the delayed harvest streams, I consider it one of the best trout streams found in our area. The cold water, coming from the bottom of lake Nantahala, makes this the premier late spring, summer, and fall option, for both wading and (especially) floating for great quality Browns and Rainbows.
Fontana Lake will start filling up with the spring rains. Those rains will herald in the spring lake runs of steelhead, white bass, rainbow and brown trout, musky, and walleye. It is not unusual to catch several different species on one trip. I have had some great days catching more that 60 steelhead, exclusively on dry flies. I have never found dry fly fishing anywhere else that comes close to the action you can find in late spring afternoon on any of the tributaries coming into Lake Fontana.
So, the hardest thing about spring fishing in the mountains is getting enough time off work to enjoy all the options! Fish a delayed harvest stream from early morning into the afternoon and then head to a lake tributary for some great early evening dry, fly fishing. You can hardly go wrong at this time of the year.