By David Hulsey
December fly fishing trips are usually a time of last minute, unplanned, quick excursions to nearby waters. This involves throwing a pile of fishing stuff into the truck and hoping you got something that works as you sling gravel out the driveway. These quick sorties are jammed between holiday get-togethers and shopping mall trips. Inventing excuses that sometimes involve taking your wild and crazy uncle or, worse yet, some relative’s kid named Junior, who really doesn’t want to be fishing. Junior will drive you nuts if he’s not catching fish every five minutes. Junior, or your uncle, also might break the fly rod you let him use. One way to relieve some of the holiday stress is to let your crazy uncle and Junior only use really junky worn out equipment. That way, if it breaks, you can use the old guilt trip on the significant other to get some new stuff that costs at least four times as much. That’s a well-executed plan to get yourself what you really want for Christmas.
The other way to avoid holiday stress is to take your unskilled, fly fishing company to a stream that has lots of eager unskilled fish in it. In the month of December, here in the Southern Appalachians, that means Delayed Harvest regulated streams. These creeks and streams are a wonderful place to find some peace and quiet away from the noise of the folks back at the house. Even if you had to bring Junior, he can usually get enough action to keep him occupied with fishing instead of playing on his iPhone. Regular stockings of nice trout through the fall ensure at least a very good chance of a hookup or two in nearly every pool or riffle.
Equipment needs not to be complicated. Any fly rod from two through six weight will work with a decent floating line on it. Long, beautiful casts aren’t usually necessary. Only show Junior how to roll cast if you want to hold on to at least a few flies for the next trip. If you show him the overhead cast, he’ll be in every tree for a hundred miles and I believe your wife said to bring him back in one piece. Remember, you are escaping stress, not manufacturing it. A short, powerful leader tapered down to 3x or 4x with a big orange Thingamabobber or big bushy dry fly, as an indicator, will give your uncle something to look at as he fishes. Tie a Y2K bug or Olive Wooly Bugger on for him and plant his clueless self in a decent hole. Place the kid in the same hole so he will kinda have adult supervision, and sneak off down or upstream to a better fishing spot. You can be gone for short periods or until you catch a couple of fish because they need practice untangling lines and hopefully landing fish. Just be sure you leave the river in time to arrive for supper and festivities, which should involve several drinks to help you get to sleep to get some much needed rest after the hard day on the creek. If you want to go on your own stress free fishing trip, give us a call at 770-639-4001-you’ll be glad you did! Happy Holidays Everyone!
Give David a call to book a class or trophy trout guide trip at Noontootla Creek Farms. We can make learning to fly fish easy and fun! You can make the switch.