Fishing conditions haven’t been ideal this summer. Week-long stretches of 90-degree temperatures, coupled with too little rain, have had a detrimental impact on many trout streams. Low water flow and high temperatures create stressful conditions for trout.
Trout can survive water temperatures in the high 50s or low 60s, but when water heats up to the high 60s and 70s, as has been the case in many of the lower elevation streams, fish, especially larger fish, do not survive.
Steve Moore, a fisheries biologist for the Great Smoky Mountains Park, said the combined result of low water conditions and high water temperatures usually is not fewer fish, just fewer large fish. Most streams in the higher elevations have adequate canopy that keep stream temperatures fairly constant. These are not streams, however, that produce trophy fish. You may have to work hard to find a keeper.
The weather has impacted my own fishing. I go as often as my schedule permits, but I choose my times. Early mornings before the sun gets on the water and evenings just before dark are prime times to fish in late summer.
Even stocked streams such as the Tuckasegee River near my home produce trout long after most fishers quit fishing, complaining that the stream has been fished out. The only times I don’t fish are when the power company is generating or just after a thunderstorm. When the water is running high, the fish don’t bite, and they don’t bite when the water is chocolate brown after a heavy shower.
For big streams, such as the Tuckasegee, I fish the deep pools and close to shady banks where fish go to escape the heat. The Tuckasegee hasn’t been stocked in months, but it still has plenty of trout. You just have to work harder to get them.
When fishing deep pools in the big-water streams, I use spinning lures and streamers, running them close to the bottom. This is where I catch the biggest fish. Elsewhere this time of year, I use flies that have yellow and orange in them, such as a Palmer, Stimulator, Humpy or a Tellico nymph. Other effective late-summer patterns are hoppers, inchworms, ants and Japanese beetles. Trout love the beetles because they are so plentiful this time of year. Open a trout’s stomach in late summer, and it will be packed with the carcasses of beetles. Inchworms, both floating and sinking, and foam ants that float on top or hard-bodied patterns that sink always attract trout in all sizes of streams.
Fishing small streams in late summer requires stealth and finesse. It is not easy fishing. Trout are spookier when water is low. They may have limited vision, but they make up for that handicap with their excellent hearing and sensitivity to movement. If you want an idea of how sound travels in water, stick your head in a stream and bang two rocks together. Trout are naturally sensitive to shadows and movement, traits that help them avoid predators such as kingfishers and herons.
If you wade, move as silently as possible. When I approach a good fishing spot, I stop and wait a few minutes before I cast. Where possible, I walk the streambank rather than wade. I also spend an inordinate amount of time casting from a crouching position — hard on the back, but it gets results.
Keep a low profile and fish upstream so that trout are less likely to see you coming. Use long leaders (9-foot minimum) and make long casts when stream conditions permit. Cast from behind rocks or other natural obstructions. If you see fish darting when you move in the water, forget about that particular stretch of water. No amount of coaxing will result in a strike. Move on to the next stretch.
Cast close to banks under mountain laurel and rhododendron bushes. You will have hang-ups aplenty and lose a few flies, but that’s part of fishing.
Fish the sections of streams that are coolest and have the most oxygen, places that have bubbly, white water, especially little pools below ledges and waterfalls. Let your fly drop naturally into bubbly water or let it drift through riffles. Look for small tributaries that feed cooler water into the main stream. Think like a trout and then fish the areas you’d prefer to be in the heat of the day.
What are the best streams to fish in late summer? Any mountain stream that has trout. Whether you catch fish depends mainly on how you fish not where you fish.
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