We got up early and hit the local Huddle House for some vittles and grabbed some lunch for later on at a local Sub-Way. Once we were fueled up we hit the road to a local wild steam. I suited up in the waders and hit the trail for a little 1/2 mile hike up to the falls area. The weather was perfect and not a soul to be found on the stream. We had the whole thing to ourselves. We reached the falls area and I proceeded to tie on a punk weenie. With all the leaves in the water I thought I would start out with a bright colored fly so it could easily be seen. I made about 5 casts before a nice little rainbow trout helped himself to my fly. Gave the wife a thumbs up and the fun began. I picked off two more rainbow trout before I decided to head above the falls. I got to the top of the falls and started casting right into the ledger pool and got another rainbow trout. This rainbow trout was little bigger and just what I was looking for. The trail ended at the top of the falls so I ventured further up stream alone as the family stayed and played in a little area above the falls. There were a lot of rainbows in the stream and every pool had at least one good sized rainbow trout in it. I proceeded further up stream and caught one rainbow trout out of every pool. I switched to a green weenie and tried that for awhile and they hit that just as readily as the pink weenie. Further up I caught a few more rainbow trout and wanted to go further upstream, but hunger set in so I headed back to the falls to grab the family and head back to the truck for some lunch.

The roads around Robbinsville are filled with bikers due to the Tail of the Dragon road. While I did want to fish a stream off that road I didn't care for the number of turns it took to get there (318 curves in 11 miles). We stuck around the local streams and had plenty of waters to fish. I was going to do twenty mile creek but we couldn't even find a parking space there it was so crowded, so we headed to more remote regions and had good success doing that instead. After lunch and a wasted visit at twenty mile creek we hit another stream near by with good success catching some browns in the lower elevations and a few brook trout in the higher elevation. I decided to head over to Joyce Kilmer and look around there and see if the stream near there was looking good. I tried an area I have never done before near the lake to see if any trout perhaps had come out of the lake up into the stream. I didn't hike to far before I decided to call it quits for the day. After a long day of fishing and hiking we were ready to head back to the hotel and grab some supper. We hit a BBQ stand some guy had set up beside the hotel. The guy was selling to all the bikers coming through town and at the hotel. We decided to try it and see if it was good. After eating a BBQ sandwich and 10 ribs I gotta say that boy made the best ribs I have ever eatin. I was full of food and ready to relax for the night.

The next morning we got up and did a little hike down around Slick Rock on the back end. We wore off that Huddle House breakfast with easy that morning. After the hike I tried an easier place to fish where the family could walk around and play easier. So I headed over the Nanatahala DH and fished that till later in the evening. The fish were scarce there to say the least. Poachers worked that stream over good. I caught several using a tandam nymph rig with some flies I tied for the fall time. You had to work the water to get the fish to hit. I kept going through the holes several times, mostly due to me hitting the rappids more than the still pools due to the leaves were too much in the still pools. If they were in there I got them on the line though. We did that for awhile and decided to head out for supper. The next morning it was raining and not looking good for a trip over to Noland creek. We arrived after 12PM and I decided to try it since the rain had finally stopped. We hiked up about a 1/2 mile and I slipped down into the stream. The water was much higher due to the rain and it was really strating to flow down stream. The leaves also were more abundent due to the rain knocking them all in the water. Now with high water and the stream starting to turn brown and have a ratio of 50% liquid 50% leaves.....it finally got the best of me and I decided to call it quits. It was a wash out and the leaves were to much. If I were having a contest for most leaves caught I would have won. I decided to put the rod down and pic the camera up for awhile. So we hiked around and shot pictures for the better part of the day. Finally around 3PM we decided to call it and end and head back to the homestead. It was a good trip and got some new streams under my belt for spring time and scouted some new streams for future adventures.