| CAHILL TIME ON THE TACCOA |
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| Friday, 11 April 2008 | |
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A beautiful April 9th found Charles Bagley and I on the Taccoa near Blue Ridge, GA. We had a dual purpose, to fish and to try to find access to a particularly good section of the stream. The day was a success! I was throwing a Sage XP 3wt with a Lamson Force reel—a nice outfit for fishing dries on smaller streams. Charles was using his 5wt Winston with an Orvis reel—a very nice outfit, nicely suited for windy conditions. We finally got onto the water about 1:00PM with an air temp of 74 with a light breeze blowing. It was a beautiful spring day. We were surrounded by budding willows and the mountain sides were cloaked in redbuds. We spied a few midging fish in the slow water and very little activity in the rapids. There was no hatch in progress. I noticed a few size 18 brownish mayflies on the water but could not catch one for an ID. They appeared to be large BWO’s?? The occasional caddis came by but nothing to get the big one’s up and eating. I had tied several cahill emergers (pink body) and had a strike on my first cast but missed him. I picked up two small bows on a #18 PT dropper but action was slow. I saw one aggressive rise and removed the PT dropper and wound on a #16 olive body elk hair caddis. As I worked upstream, I picked up the occasional fish. First on the emerger and next on the caddis. This continued to about 2:00 PM when action really picked-up. I had 7 strikes on 9 casts and landed 5 of these. My next fish attached the emerger and bounced off on the second jump—a plump 14” or so rainbow. After about 10 minutes, the action slowed. As I worked back downstream, I picked up the occasional fish and lost another nice bow on the emerger. The key was a drag free drift though I did catch one brown on a skittered caddis. Well, this is just the beginning. The remainder of Spring will bring the big mayflies and caddis up through the end of June. This is a great time to live in SE Tennessee! |
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