By Dan Dry
It felt like a good day. A foggy morning on Jonathan Creek in Maggie Valley, North Carolina, and all of the conditions were right. Getting an early start with confidence up, and all is well; or so it seems.
All was well an hour into the trip. I had two Brook Trout on the stringer, the fog had broken, but that’s when things went south. They came out of nowhere. Yes, those pesky biting black gnats! So, I’m trying to get one out of my eye that got under my glasses, a trout hits, jumps out of water on slack line, and gets off. Hmm, I think…well I’ve got two still, and maybe I can get out of this cloud of pesky bugs. I walked another 25 yards, eying a hole that had produced before, trying to maneuver my line around a blackberry vine, and looked down at a 4 foot water snake wrapped around my stringer, trying to eat my trout. Yes, at my feet. I kicked, and finally beat it with my rod to get it off, wondering if it had ruined it or not. Here come the gnats again. “Why me,” I asked?
I Came upon another fisherman behind Elevated Mountain Distillery and asked, “Are these dang bugs getting you”? He agreed and showed me his 3 trout. I walked on thinking, “Well, I’m not the only one”. Still sweating from the snake episode, I did notice both trout were still alive and was thankful it was a water snake but, what a scare!
I eased on down the creek, missed a couple more and came upon a limb sticking out from the bank into the creek. Being in the way, I grabbed it and tried to drag it out when something buzzed by my ear. Well, guess what this pest was? Those dang ground hornets. A couple banged my hip boots, and I knocked one off my sleeve, and eased on.
Sheesh, this is it. This day turned out productive, but Mother Nature had some twists for me. I did escaped with just a couple of itching gnat bites and a broken rod tip from thrashing the snake. Moral of this one…It ain’t always easy! Be careful my friends, and keep your baits wet. Looking forward to the fall fishing and the beauty of our mountains. See you on the waters!
Dan Dry can be reached on Facebook and dandry53@gmail.com.