Greetings, everyone;

Glad to see we have an early interest in having a Smokies Fish-In for 2006. Bryan - thanks for getting the thread going!

I think that most everyone who either attended, or expressed interest, in last year's Fish-In would say that flexibility is the rule! In other words, just about anything would be acceptable as far as date and location, as long as there are places to camp, as well as motels, and that the fishing includes a mix of stocked and wild trout.

We stayed away from the Waynesville area last year because early scouting, starting in late March, showed that the rivers in the swath of country that Bryan has mentioned above were severely damaged by the hurricanes of fall '04., In fact, the bridges over the Pigeon River SE of Waynesville had yet to be repaired by late June! So, with the prospect of having mainly recently stocked trout to fish for there, we decided on far western NC as the venue, and it turned out just fine.

Many of the '05 guys bought yearly NC fishing licenses, and we talked about trying to schedule the '06 Fish-In so as to take advantage of that unexpired portion of the license. That would mean that the Fish-In should happen sometime before the 15th of May, with the week of May 6 (Saturday) through May 14 (Sunday) being ideal. The fishing will be super then, a lot of the early hatches just tapering off, and a lot of the later hatches just beginning. Of course, EVERYTHING depends on the progress of the weather during the early spring months!

As to activities, the hike into the headwaters of Big Snowbird Creek to fish for wild trout was a huge success in '05, and we talked about a hike-in to Slickrock Creek to camp for a few days of fishing as being on the '06 list of things to do. In fact, Ben Webb and I (two old guys!) hiked down the Fat Gap Trail to Slickrock and camped for four days in June, and we had a ball!!! Not only caught wild browns up to 16", but got into the headwaters and caught some wild specks as well!! I highly recommend this as being a part of the '06 agenda, for those interested.

The campground we had as headquarters last year is a super place - tumblingwaters.com - run by a nice family, and this year they will have more inside accommodations (cabins, camping trailers) as well. I was going to suggest that we use this place again this year, but as I stated earlier, flexibility is the key to a successful Fish-In. The one inviolate rule, however, is that there have to be fish to catch, and I don't mean following the hatchery truck to catch(?) colorless, odorless hatchery fish (I don't mean to degrade stocked fish - I fish the Nantahala at least twice every spring and once in the fall, and there are a lot of hold-over hatchery fish in there that have grown to huge sizes that are a lot of fun to catch. And, if nothing is happening anywhere else, the Nan is a great resource to have available. It's also a great place to start a Fish-In, so that those attendees who don't have a lot of experience can have some initial success).

Just my thoughts, and a short compilation of the discussions we had last year. I'd be happy to help out in any fashion this year, and if someone wants to honcho up the time, place and action, I'll be there.

Dave Cassens
FlyintheSalt
uc35ip@yahoo.com

PS - any interest in Islamorada in April? The tides look to be favorable the first and third weeks - Chuck and I intend to head down there with our boats, and I can get something together if anyone's interested.