Beech Flats

As planned, I took off from work early today so that I could run my newly built rod through her paces. After getting off, I strapped everything to the bike and took off up the road to Beech Flats, one of favorite places to hit on a day after work. A perfect place for a new 2wt to do her thing in style!
I had a pleasant ride up the road, it was rather warm out, so it made being on the bike very comfortable. I pulled into a large parking area about a mile above Kephart Prong and started to slowly get my things together. After stringing up my rod, it was time to head to the water. A scramble down a rocky slope and I was at the waters edge and ready to do some damage! My setup for the day was a 14 thunderhead with a 16 yellow harey moose as a dropper. Things didn't start off balls to the walls, but rather with me picking up the odd 6" rainbow here and there. Most pools were not yielding fish, only the deeper longer runs seemed to be holding, despite the fact that the water levels are really good for the time of the year.

I continued picking my way upstream hitting plunge pools and deep runs that looked promising. It never ceases to amaze me how beautiful the streams in the park are and how easily solitude can be found in the Park despite the fact we're still in peak season. As I'm working my way upstream, I can hear vehicle traffic and occasionally catch the odor of burning brake pads as tourons eat their breaks up coming down 441 on their way to somewhere. Sadly, most of these people will never know the joy of catching a beautiful ruby gilled bow out of a sparkling pool surrounded by moss covered rock. What a shame.

The day continued on the same pace, I'd catch a few fish and then go 10 or more minutes before I would even get bumped again. To my surprise, I started to catch the occasional brown trout. Could it be possible, am I going to get a Smoky Slam on my new rod, that would be super sweet! Alas, it was not to be, the elusive brookie was not caught today. On the other hand, many bows and browns were caught, so all was not lost. I think I ended up with about a dozen fish caught and released today, although nothing of any size ended up on the line. My biggest fish was probably 8", but most were 6"-7".

So how did the new rod do. Wonderful. It's actually a little softer than my other 2wt (I didn't think that was possible) and she cast more accurately than my previous rod. Needless to say, I'm ecstatic with my new toy! I'm already anticipating years of fishing memories with this stick. It was time for me to be get going, so I mozied up a steep hill to hit the road and was quite surprised to be able to see the bike despite having fished for about three hours. Not a usual thing for me to see after a day of fishing.

The day ended pleasantly with a nice ride home on the Parkway, enjoying the unusually clear evening that afforded great views on the way home.