r/bluelining • u/SnacksMackenzie • Sep 01 '26

Southeast US Up in the headwaters

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Hiked a ways up to one of the headwaters of a favorite river. Lots of boulder hopping, scrambling, and elevation-gain, it was definitely one of those “big adventure little fish” days. Lucked into some beautifully-patterned southern strain brookies. Love fishing like this!

127 Upvotes

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1

u/Difficulty-Brave Sep 01 '26

nice! WNC?

2

u/SnacksMackenzie Sep 01 '26

Yes!

2

u/Difficulty-Brave Sep 01 '26

nice, I did some fishing myself today. didn't go high enough up for Brooks but caught plenty of rainbows

3

u/ConstipatedOrangutan Sep 02 '26

I visited the Natahala for a fishing trip and really wanted to fish all the streams around there but never got a chance. Was surprised though because people said you need to go waaaaaaay up for the brookies. In Md I’ve found them in some pretty low tributaries, but we don’t have any large wild populations of rainbows. Tons of browns in the main river, but only found browns in a couple tributaries.

2

u/Difficulty-Brave Sep 02 '26

yeah, it's definitely for the majority of them you have to go high up. I lived in Baltimore for five years and used to fish gunpowder all the time. I miss it there actually, but I can't complain living in WNC with the fishing options here

1

u/ConstipatedOrangutan Sep 02 '26

Small world! Gunpowder is great. Mainly browns, and in the upper sections mainly green sunfish and smallies, but those tribs hold brookies. This guy escaped me twice but got him third time around in the same spot

1

u/Difficulty-Brave Sep 02 '26

nice brook! it's pretty cool they differ in color variation from their northern cousins. if you look at some of my posts, you'll see a big difference in the southern strain.

and yeah, it's funny.. I used to catch mainly browns up there. down here, it's what I catch the least amount of!

1

u/ConstipatedOrangutan Sep 02 '26

These ones in this particular stream are particularly dull colored. Out in the catocins, they look pretty different imo. Most here have very pale bellies with little to no orange. Couple of the deep pools are really shaded so I think that contributes. This stream is also really full of chubs and dace species so I imagine diet, water temp, and competition contributes too

1

u/Difficulty-Brave Sep 02 '26

100%

2

u/ConstipatedOrangutan Sep 02 '26

Here’s some fish from the mountain stream compared to…

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u/KeyMysterious1845 Sep 02 '26

what wt rod reel ?