Cool Running

Two N.C. mountain streams offer some of the best smallmouth bass fishing in the South.

Smallmouth bass caught with a fly rod at a mountain stream. Doesn’t get any better than that. For one thing, smallmouths have a long-standing and well-deserved reputation as great gamefish.

More than 100 years ago, a pioneer of North American bass fishing, Doc Henshall, identified smallmouth bass as “inch for inch and pound for pound, the gamest fish that swims.” And using fly rods enhances the fun because of the gear.

Finally, North Carolina’s mountain streams are among the most beautiful spots in the world.

Here are a couple of the prime spots to try this summer for cool fishing adventures.

Nolichucky / North Toe rivers

Matt Champion and his dad, Rod, ply their craft on the North Toe River near Spruce Pine all the way and into the Nolichucky River.

The North Toe becomes the Nolichucky and flows into Tennessee under that banner. For most of the distance the stream forms the border between Yancey and Mitchell counties.

While the Nolichucky-North Toe is suitable for wading anglers, the Champions prefer to float the river.

“Anglers can wade or float,” Matt Champion said. “We’d rather float.

“Floating provides access to areas that are hard to reach by wading.”

Wading anglers can reach the water at any of the roads adjacent to the river. Check out a DeLorme Atlas for the many roads which cross or parallel this stream.

There are also a number of bridges where wading anglers can get to the water.

“Most of the places we put in are on private property where we have an agreement with the owner,” Champion said.

“We use a wide variety of flies and bugs. We tie our own, so I can’t recommend one brand over another. Our principal smallmouth flies are Clousers, streamers, popping bugs, Sneaky Pete’s and crawfish patterns.”

Clouser patterns were developed by Bob Clouser of Middleburg, Pa., for fishing smallmouth at the Susquehanna River. The Clousers have a dumbbell-shaped weight tied to the shank of the hook near the eye. The weight causes the fly to plummet to the bottom and to ride hook-upright in the water. They come in a variety of colors.

Streamers have long feather or hair wings, parallel to the shank of the hook. Streamers are particularly productive when smallmouth are chasing minnows.

Popping bugs have solid, cupped-face bodies and feather and rubber-strand tails. They’re jerked or popped across the surface.

A Sneaky Pete is a stream smallmouth fly from an earlier era. It has a feather tail and a long, sloping head and darts and slides across the surface.

And it works.

Crawfish patterns usually are tied with stacked deer hair. Separate bunches of hair off the bend of the hook suggest the pinchers of crawfish.

According to Matt Champion, presentation depends on the mood of the fish.

“With the popping bugs, we cast near the shore and move the bug erratically and quickly,” he said. “This presentation is particularly successful when smallmouth are chasing minnows. If this doesn’t work, we let the popper drift against the bank and give it subtle jerks.

“Sneaky Pete works about the same way, but it doesn’t kick up the water like a popper.”

In addition to fishing shoreline cover, Champion said they also hit mid-stream ledges and rock eddies.

Surface presentations work on the North Toe-Nolichucky from late spring through September.

“Mornings and evenings are the prime times for surface action,” Champion said, “particularly when the mayflies are hatching. The mayflies get the smallmouth looking up. That’s when they’re on a surface feed.”

With the crawfish and the Clousers, Champion said they use a standard fishing technique.

“We cast upstream, usually quartering, and let the fly drift with the current,” he said. “With the Clousers, we also strip the fly, suggesting a minnow darting along the bottom.

“The best colors are white, black, yellow and chartreuse. The white suggests minnows of one sort or another. Black is best on the dark days. Yellow and chartreuse are attention-getters when things get slow.

“The key to successful presentation is to let the smallmouth tell you what they want. If they’re not hitting what you’re throwing, they’re trying to tell you something.”

Smallmouths are abundant in the North Toe-Nolichucky, with many fish in the 8- to 10-inch range, Champion said.

“There are bigger ones,” his father said. “We catch some real good fish.”

“We catch some 16- to 18-inch smallmouth on our fly rods,” Champion said. “As a regular matter, we usually don’t think of these fish in terms of pounds, but in terms of inches. River smallmouth tend to be longer and narrower than comparable-length lake fish.”

After years of experience, he has determined some distinctive gear for fly fishing the North Toe-Nolichucky.

“I use a 6-weight rod, maybe sometimes a 7-weight,” the younger guide said. “I use a St. Croix Legend Elite rod. This is a 9- or 8-foot rod. The 8-weight rod certainly can cast bigger bugs, but I usually don’t fish the big, heavyweight flies. The size 4, 6, and 8 bass bugs and Clousers we use aren’t as hard to cast.

“I usually tie on a 9- or 8-foot 3X leader. These are often identified as ‘bass leaders’ in the fly shops. We may go a little lighter is the water is low and clear. Sometimes we go as light as 5X to produce more strikes.

“Fish get spooky when the water is low and clear as is often the case in late summer.”

New River

Marty Shaffner, a fly-rod smallmouth guide, plies his trade at another famous N.C. smallmouth stream that’s supposedly the second-oldest north-flowing river in the world, the New River. The New, split into two “forks” that originate in the highlands of North Carolina near Boone, merges south of the Virginia border, then meanders into that state, then into West Virginia and Ohio, where it finally merges with the Ohio River.

“I fish the New River exclusively, from the confluence with the Little River in Virginia downstream,” Shaffner said. “This is the best smallmouth river in North Carolina, no doubt about it.”

The New River winds back and forth across the N.C.-Va. border. A reciprocal license agreement applies and a permit from either states allows an angler to access the river.

The reciprocal license applies from the confluence of the New River and Little River in Grayson County, Va., to the confluence of the North and South Forks of the New in Allegheny County.

Shaffner said the New also offers places to wade and cast but using some type of flotation seems to offer more flexibility in fishing hard-to-reach spots. It also covers more territory.

“I float the river in a rubber raft with a metal frame,” he said. “It’s 13 by 6 feet with a casting platform fore and aft.”

For anglers who may have seen television shows of trout fishing in the western United States, this rig is popular among fly rodders.

At rivers such as the New, a rubber raft slips over shallow rocks and shoals.

“The rubber raft gets though some shallow spots where the traditional drift boat can’t,” Shaffner said.

The casting platforms provide a stable position for anglers. And the guide can control the position of the boat in the stream. The New River is often 100-yards wide and positioning the boat toward prime smallmouth haunts may be critical to success.

Wading access is readily available at multiple spots where bridges cross the New River. In much of the New River described by Shaffner, a careful wader can cross the river on foot. Obviously there are deep spots, so anglers also should be careful.

“We start fishing the New River in April,” Shaffner said. “We start fly fishing in May.

“The water has to warm up a little for fly fishing. Early (each spring), we have to dredge the bottom, but once the water gets to 60 degrees the fly fishing takes off. We don’t target spawning smallmouth, but we do catch some.”

Shaffner recommended a variety of flies.

“I use lots of different flies,” he said. “For poppers, I use Gaines Dixie Devil #4. I tie my own sliders, large terrestrials and damsel flies.

“A Chernobyl Ant is a great terrestrial pattern.”

A slider is a stacked deer hair pattern trimmed to a bullet-shaped head. Shaffner also recommended Clouser minnows, Woolly Buggers and Whitlock’s Near ’Enuf Crawfish.

“I have my best luck with poppers,” he said. “I usually fish along the banks, under trees hanging over the water.”

Later in the summer, Shaffner said, is the best time to catch smallmouth bass by using poppers.

“August and September … it’s a top-water phenomenon,” he said.

“But some days they just won’t come up. Those are the days the Woolly Bugger or the Whitlock’s Near ‘Enuf Crawfish works. With the Woolly Bugger, you can drift it, jerk it, whatever. It really doesn’t look like anything in particular, but smallmouth can think it’s anything they want to. An angler can make it look like a minnow, a crayfish.”

In addition to the shoreline cover, Shaffner also fishes mid-river ledges and rock eddies.

“We target those spots,” he said. “Topwater and subsurface flies work there.”

Shaffner recommended gear comparable to what most river smallmouth fly rod anglers choose.

“Mostly I use a 9-foot, 6- or 8-weight rod,” he said. “This is a rod stout enough to cast a wind-resistant bass bug. This will turn over a big bug in the air and lots of smaller rods won’t do that.

“I get a lot of clients who are good fly casters, but their experience is with a 4-weight rod and a dry fly. We need stouter gear to cast the flies smallmouth want.”

Shaffner also recommended bass leaders.

“Usually we stick with leader from 8 to 10 feet,” he said. “If the water gets low and clear, we go to what the shops call ‘bonefish leaders,’ they’re about 10-feet long and down to 8 or 10 pounds.

“Last summer there were times we could see fish farther away from the boat than we could cast. The water was so low and clear. Smallmouth get really spooky when that happens.”

Smallmouth bass at the New River at this stretch are abundant. It’s easy to catch a dozen or so during a half-day trip. Most smallmouth are in the 1- to 2-pound range, yet there are larger ones. A 5-pound smallmouth is well within possibility.

N.C. smallmouth rivers

While the North Toe-Nolichucky and New rivers are prime spots for Tar Heel fly-rod anglers seeking smallmouth bass, there are others.

Consider the South Fork of the New River. Access there is particularly good in the area near the New River State Park.

And the French Broad river downstream between Asheville and the N.C.-Tennessee border is prime smallmouth country.

The Little Tennessee River between Franklin and Fontana Reservoir is loaded with smallmouth.

There are dozens of other N.C. mountain streams with abundant smallmouth bass populations. Fly-rod tactics outlined here will work at those streams as well.

Two-rig shuttle, other access techniques

In the event anglers choose not to wade, for whatever reason, boat access is usually available at bridges. Canoes, shallow draft john boats or rubber rafts are the best bet. Going upstream is virtually out of the question.

Once the boat is in the water, plan to take out somewhere downstream. At the New River, there are canoe liveries which will jitney anglers to an access point and pick them up later at a designated time and spot.

If you have your own boat, leave a vehicle at a downstream take-out to provide means to recover the vehicle used to launch the boat.

Chasing smallmouth bass with fly rods amidst beautiful mountain surroundings. For many of us, they provide experiences that have drawn many anglers to the Tar Heel state.

For those who’ve never tried it, they’re missing grand adventures.