A pretty stretch of Hazel Creek.

In At the Grave of the Unknown Fisherman John Gierach says, “…the day you actually begin to wonder why you do this is the day you might as well sell your tackle and buy a bigger TV.” As I shivered under the fifth bridge on Hazel Creek sharing a small Nalgene bottle of rum with Jason Kelley while the 8th straight hour of rain, wind and lightening shelled the remote mountain valley, the thought finally bobbed to the surface. Why do I do this? For a moment I worried about myself. Was I too much of a wuss for this type of thing any more? Was I getting too old? Too soft? Should I go home, buy a bigger TV and become a middle-aged alcoholic and fan of reality shows?

Then I realized I wasn’t wondering in quite the way Mr. Gierach meant. Instead of “Why the heck do I put up with this stuff when it’d be a lot more fun watching NASCAR back at home?”, mine was more like “Why do I love this so much?” Since that’s a question Geirach has explored repeatedly, I decided he wouldn’t be too disappointed in me. But I can’t tell you the answer. I just know that I really do love it. And the rum was pretty good, too.

Hazel Creek is one of those iconic streams. You know the type. Usually overrun with people and the fishing not nearly as good as it was in all the old stories. Still you go because, well, maybe you don’t have to but it sure feels like it, and the fishing usually turns out, if not exactly spectacular, not that bad either.

Jason and I had taken the shuttle across Fontana Lake and hiked five miles to a campsite described by one popular Smokies guidebook as “arguably one of the finest campsites in the Smokies.” That may have been the case before the hemlock woolly adelgid began killing all the hemlocks, but not now. To protect backpackers, the park service cut down the huge rotting trees that once sheltered the site, leaving it with the aesthetics of a forlorn logging camp. To be fair, it only takes a bit of imagination to envision how pretty the site must once have been, and it isn’t without its merits for the fly fisher. Situated on a point between Hazel and a pretty little feeder stream, the site provides access to lots of fishy-looking water. Also, not a point to be taken lightly, the neatly cut sections of the fallen trees make fine seats and tables.

One of the better rainbows at right around 10 inches.

One of the small browns I landed.

We lost little time in setting up camp and managed to hit the water with about seven hours of daylight left for fishing. I came on a section of stream that plunged away from the trail and decided to follow it. After doing battle with the deep runs, waterfalls and rhododendron tangles I guessed that this section is lightly fished relative to other stretches of the creek. It proved to be one of the toughest stretches of wading I’ve experienced in the Smokies, and for my efforts I brought to hand a dozen or so fat rainbows and a single small brown. The roughly twice that many missed strikes suggests my hooksetting abilities suffered a setback during the winter.

The fish rose, I wouldn’t say freely, but fairly well to a variety of dries and soft hackle trailers. There were lots of bugs scattered around: a big tan caddis, a smaller caddis of undertermined color bouncing over the riffles, yellow sallies, giant black stoneflies, small black stoneflies, a March brown or two, a few tiny brownish mayflies, and hordes of bouncing midges. None were present in what you’d call a genuine major hatch. As you can tell, my bug ID skills are rather simple, but then again, so is my small stream fishing philosophy, and it all seems to work out often enough.

If the fish are eating brownish-yellow bugs of a certain size with a down wing, well then, I tie on something that looks close to that. But the truth is, most times I have no idea what the fish are eating. I usually look at the water for awhile, typically not finding any practical answers to the fish-catching problem, I see a few bugs around, mostly not being eaten by fish, and then I end up tying on an old standard. For the Smokies that means some form of parachute Adams, a parachute Wulff or a yellow palmer. I rarely start out with a nymph in anything resembling warm weather, but sometimes I will begin with a hare’s ear wet trailed behind the dry.

Tough stream for wading. Here I am fishing a particularly treacherous section. Photo by Jason Kelley.

My new foam flies failed to float as steadfastly as I’d hoped, but a false cast or two whipped them back into grand floating fashion in no time at all. In a moment of weakness, after an hour of unspectacular results, I resorted to trailing a beadhead nymph. I hate casting the things and was almost relieved when I broked it off on bottom. After that I stayed with a single dry the rest of the afternoon, and that’s what all the fish took. The fishing seemed to pick up later in the day.

Jason had found similarly tough wading but not as many fish nearer camp. I found him napping away the perfect pleasantly breezy evening behind the tent mesh where he was safe from the gnats and flies.

The next day we both decided to search for less treacherous waters downstream. I found some, but I also found the crowds I’d always heard about, who descend on Hazel like locusts every spring. I guess that makes Jason and I a couple of those locusts, but as fishermen we justifiably never consider ourselves part of the “crowd.” The stretch I fished featured several nice little runs and pockets from which I managed to pluck a few more rainbows and small browns. The fish demanded a nymph. They didn’t actually tell me this. It was more of a feeling. So I gave them the standard hare’s ear (not a beadhead and easier to cast) trailed behind a tan neversink caddis. After running into a couple other fishermen, I decided to head back to camp and hit a few of the more spectacular trailside runs along the way. This proved fruitful as I hooked four nicer fish, but I failed to land all but one, a fiesty rainbow of 10 inches or so. These spots looked so good that I had assumed the fish would be too smart for me, a result of higher than normal fishing pressure, but sometimes it works out that the best looking spots really are the best. If I recall correctly, all of the fish came on the nymph.

Jason fishing a good run.

I ran into several more fishermen that afternoon as I neared camp. Things were beginning to feel downright congested, so Jason and I decided to pluck around on the little feeder stream for a couple hours. It’s a neat little stream to fish where the casting resembles cane-poling for crappies more than fly fishing for trout and fly selection is happily reduced to a Carolina Wulff or Parachute Adams. I had caught several spunky little rainbows eking out a living in the harsh conditions of the tumbling little stream when I hooked and landed a brookie. When I realized what it was I yelled for Jason and he crashed over to admire it like it was a rare jewel. I suppose it was. It was then that he informed me that I had done it; I had completed a single day Smoky Mountain Slam. Today I had caught a rainbow, a brown and a brookie. It didn’t occur to me until he mentioned it, but that’s the first time it’s ever happened for me.

That evening I caught a trout for supper from the pool near camp. My head tells me that most Smokies streams can stand to have a few fish eaten, but I still feel sadness any time I kill a wild fish. Then again, maybe that’s the way it should be. Despite the sadness, I was thankful and whispered a prayer in his honor. I always think of that scene near the beginning in the movie The Last of the Mohicans, the Daniel Day-Lewis version, just after they kill the elk. That seems a good attitude to me. So we baked the trout wrapped in heavy duty aluminum foil with black and red pepper, salt and dill. He was delicious, and afterward I wished I’d kept enough to cover our entire supper. Sure would’ve beaten the rice and couscous concoctions rounding things out.

Fishing a small feeder stream. This spot here actually provided some open casting room. Photo by Jason Kelley.

There was plenty of time for conversation. Most conversations began with Jason saying something about the fishing or the weather or good liquor and proceeded with me saying, “Huh?” or “What?” The tumbling and crashing of the creek became the only sound there was, drowning out nearly everything else. When Jason spoke I only heard the creek. When the wind blew, it was with the sound of current crashing over boulders. When the birds sang and the flies buzzed, all I heard was falling water. The sound of it filled my consciousness, and I heard it for a good day or two even after returning home. This is not a bad thing, but the constant roar did make for tough communication. Of course it could just be that I’m getting hard-of-hearing.

Saturday’s forecast called for storms and lots of them, but the morning dawned with beautiful clear skies. We decided to fish together, trading pools. We chose the same tough stretch I’d fished the first day since we reckoned no one had messed with it since then. The fish demanded a nymph once again, and I landed several before the skies darkened and the breezes strengthened and cooled. The storms came quickly and had the feeling of setting in for the evening. Before the creek swelled too high and muddy for comfort, the fish really turned on. My last cast brought a nice rainbow to hand that chased my drowned and dragging dry fly.

Cooking a freezer bag dinner under a bridge. It had only been raining for five or six hours at this point...photo by Jason Kelley

That evening found us under the bridge, the only place where we could effectively cook our supper out of the rain. A trio of fishermen from Maryville told us stronger storms were expected later. Only later did we discover that the Southeast was experiencing one of the worst outbreaks of tornadoes in years. All told it rained for nearly twenty hours straight, with the strongest storms charging through a couple hours before daylight. Neither of us slept well with the lightening bombarding the surrounding ridges, but we were happy just to make it through with a dry tent.

The hike back down to Proctor only took an hour and a half, so we explored a bit before the shuttle was due. I made the walk to the Proctor cemetery (no easy stroll, by the way) while Jason enjoyed the area around the Calhoun House. Before Fontana Lake was created the Hazel Creek watershed was heavily settled. The town of Proctor was the largest settlement on the creek and was home to over 1,000 people. They even had a movie theater. The whole area has been pretty much reclaimed by nature with only a few structures remaining. The history of Hazel Creek makes for interesting reading if that sort of thing interests you. Horace Kephart temporarily made his home in a cabin along one of Hazel’s tributaries.

Down at the lake we ran into a couple of fishermen up from Georgia. They were Texans, but like almost everyone else these days, they’d found themselves transplanted to new lands. The day was perfect, sunny and pleasantly breezy, and they shared a couple beers with us while we waited for the shuttle and talked about the fishing, our jobs and families. These fellows had done the standard Hazel Creek trip with lawn cart piled high with provisions: coolers, tarps, lawn chairs, frying pans, etc. Didn’t look like a bad way to go, but it did make me appreciate my simply-loaded 30 lb pack.

I don’t remember who started it, but on the boat ride back to Fontana Marina we got into a conversation about how tough it was to get around on the stream. The creek was high at spring levels, and it seemed every little stretch featured a treacherous channel of deep, swift water blocking upstream movement. One of the guys told how he’d carelessly stepped on a sloping rock that shot him into a chin-deep pool, ruining his iphone. I told how I’d narrowly avoided breaking my ankle when my right foot became wedged between two upwards-slanted rocks during a fall. We spoke of innocent-appearing stretches concealing deadly beds of rocks roughly the size and shape of bowling balls. Yes, it was a darn tough stream, we agreed. In some strange way, that pleased us all.

Take care,
Nathan

A few more pics:

Jason lays down some line in a beautiful pool.

Jason fishes a section of large plunge pools just as the rain began falling.

Jason at the Calhoun House.

Another typical Hazel Creek rainbow trout. Photo by Jason Kelley.

My little brook trout. Photo by Jason Kelley.

Over the last month or so I’ve been gearing up for what I hope to be a big spring of fishing. In late April we’re tackling a 3 night Smokies backpacking trip. In preparation for that, I’ve dusted off the backpacking gear. I bought some new equipment over the winter in the hopes of greatly reducing my pack weight. Earlier in March, Jason Kelley and I took a quick overnight trip down in the Sipsey Wilderness to test out the new gear and make sure we had our system down. We’d hoped to catch some fish as well, but heavy rains during the week had the streams blown out. The Sipsey is the most popular backpacking area in Alabama, and it showed. We figured we’d be mostly alone considering the less than ideal weather, but we were greeted by about 25 vehicles at the trailhead. The wilderness is roughly 25,000 acres of pretty canyons and streams just south of Moulton. It’s worth a visit if you ever get a chance. Requisite photos:

Jason at Ship Rock during a break on the hike in.

Our campsite at a sharp horseshoe bend in the river. That's my new TarpTent Double Rainbow.

Jason casting fruitlessly in a pretty pool near camp.

One of the many waterfalls you'll find in the Sipsey Wilderness.

Since moving to the Huntsville area, I’ve been unable to locate many areas with good wading access. There is a tons of water in the area, but with a few exceptions, it’s best explored by boat. So a lot of water has been out of my reach as a boatless angler. I took the first step to remedying that problem last week. I saved up and bought a Native Manta Ray 11 kayak. It’s plenty small enough for me to handle on my own (I can carry the thing like it’s an 11′ suitcase) but still large enough to handle big water (supposedly even the open ocean) and carry enough gear for a camping trip. I’m pretty excited about the possibilities. Several creeks in the area too deep and with bottoms too muddy for wading are now fair game. It’s even got me contemplating a trip down to the Keys or Everglades, especially after reading about David Knapp’s spring break trip.

I’ve really neglected my fly tying duties over the winter, but I have recently tied several flies in preparation for the April trip. Since one of my goals for the year is to simplify things, I experimented with tying some of my old favorites with a foam body. This accomplishes a couple things for me: if they work, I can leave the floatant at home and I can avoid the inevitable cursing that comes when the parachute adams begins refusing to float. Here are a few of my efforts:

A selection of my newly tied foam-bodied flies. Apologies for poor photo quality. From left: yellow palmer, yellow neversink caddis, olive neversink caddis, foam hare's ear parachute, generic gray mayfly parachute, foam quill gordon parachute.

Last weekend I went on a bass and crappie fishing trip with my dad and brother. It’d been a long time since we’d all been out together. The fly rod stayed at home since I would have killed one of them with it in the small boat. We used conventional gear with artificials for bass and bait for crappie. The fishing wasn’t very good (we caught about a dozen bass), but it was nice to get out. As a bonus we spotted four golden eagles in the North Sauty area. They’re a pretty rare sight in these parts, so we felt it a privilege.

Hope you’re getting out there and catching some fish this spring. Take care,
Nathan

Okay, this trip had nothing to do with fishing, although I did take a rod in the futile hope that I’d find time for some fishing. Last weekend, several of us pooled our resources and rented a cabin near Gatlinburg. Yes, that Gatlinburg. That mother of all tourist traps. We even had to drive through Pigeon Forge to get there, a town I intensely dislike (no offense meant to the good citizens of that town) and that if anything is even more garish than Gatlinburg. I do hold some fondness for Gatlinburg despite its more grotesque aspects. I like that the town is easily walked rather than having to drive from place to place, and there are some nice joints to grab a bite to eat, enjoy a drink or sample excellent pipe tobaccos (the Gatlinburlier in the Mountain Mall is a great pipe and cigar shop). And the town did serve as the base for my first few fly fishing trips to the mountains. We took a look at a few trout streams, and they all looked pretty darn cold, especially up high where some streams were completely frozen over. Maybe they’ll warm up a bit before my first planned fly fishing trip in April. Here’s a quick photo essay:

I'm usually not much on cabins, being more of a camper and cheapskate, but this one had the goods - not to mention it was cheap in the off-season. Here's the game room where Dewayne completely destroyed me at foosball.

And here's the movie theater room, complete with nice chairs and an 11 ft. projection screen.

Most of the group at the Hofbrauhaus Restaurant, an excellent little sandwich shop in Gatlinburg. Get the Reuben or the Hoagie - both fantastic with a cold Beck's.

A stream along the Alum Cave Bluff Trail. We hiked to Arch Rock.

Another shot of the creek along the trail.

Here's Jacqulyn and her sister Gina near the beginning of the trail. We hiked in fairly deep but compacted snow all the way to Arch Rock.

Jacqulyn and yours truly at Arch Rock. The top steps were solid chunks of ice, so we turned back lacking any gear for handling that much slippiness as Bear Grylls would say.

Icicles near Newfound Gap.

Newfound Gap had lots of snow, and it was brutally cold with a strong wind. We didn't stay long.

I wrote this essay about the one good day of fishing we had in Glacier National Park last summer.

I was hiking to fish a high cutthroat lake inside Glacier National Park with my father and my wife. Not the most orthodox of fly fishing parties, but then again I’m not the most orthodox of fishermen and fly fishing’s not the most orthodox of subcultures, so it all seemed natural enough.

When we finally scrambled off the steep hillside and down to the lakeshore, we brushed the limbs to the side for our first close-up look. At least half a dozen cutthroat trout were scattered around lazily sipping something from the surface. Unfortunately for us, a gentleman was already there casting to them. He appeared to be the only other fisherman on the lake, so we worked our way around the west shore, the eastern side being a shear slope of loose talus that we didn’t feel like tackling. Besides, the west side appeared to hold most of the shallow water when we took our first look from high above.

I found it tough to contain the jitters. Every fisherman must know something like this when there are big fish right there, and you don’t know if you can catch them. And I was far from certain. I don’t know why I have so much trouble catching trout from a lake. I mean, my whole life I’ve been catching bass and bluegills from ponds and lakes, and from streams so sluggish they might as well have been lakes. What’s so different about trout?

I suppose a lot of it boils down to me still being a swamp water bass fisherman in fact if not at heart. I just can’t get it out of my head that catching a fish from water that still, shallow and clear is impossible or at least highly unlikely. Most friends would call me an experienced fisherman, but the majority of that experience has taken place on the aforementioned ponds, lakes and muddy streams, and with conventional bass tackle instead of a fly rod. Trout are still a beautiful, exotic species. A handful of trips for trout every year just doesn’t saturate you with the confidence that comes from living and breathing fishing like I did for bass back during my early college years.

And it’s not just the lakes that continue to bother me. What is it about the bugs? I mean, with bass, you just toss something big, gaudy and meaty out there and wind it back any way you want. Eventually you’ll find a bass hungry and mean enough to eat just about anything. I’m beginning to think all that crap about the confident fly fisherman calmly identifying the correct insect, tying on an imitation and catching trout is just that. Crap. Here’s how it happens this time, which is fairly typical of my experience:

I climb out on a rock and look over the lake. There are several fish rising. What are they eating? I don’t see a thing on the water. If I didn’t know better, I’d say these fish had gone mad from hunger and were sipping at nothing, convinced they were dining on fat green drakes. Nothing’s flying in the air either. I try an old trick, that did actually work one magical day on the Lamar River, and brush the grass trying to stir any clinging insects to flight. Nothing other than a few scrawny grasshoppers, and I’m certain the fish aren’t feeding on those. I take my hat and use it like an aquarium net to seine the surface of the water. Nothing shows up in there either. So, I tie on an Adams. (more…)

This is my accounting of the backpacking and fly fishing trip I took on Memorial Day weekend. I wrote it in a different style than normal. Hope you enjoy!

My camp on the river that shall not be named.

It is Memorial Day weekend, and the lower stretches of the watershed along the paved road are glutted with tourists and local families and teenagers and fishermen. Once I turn off the main roadway and onto the gravel Forest Service road, I enter a different atmosphere. For the first three miles I see no one else at all. I roll down the windows to feel the air cool as I climb higher into the mountains. I turn off the radio which had been blaring the latest Brad Paisley country song. I love the sound of a gravel road under the tires of my truck and the deep silence of the ancient mountains beyond, broken only here and there by a lonely song bird. I’m always surprised at the silence of the deep woods. There are many more songbirds in my tiny backyard. A large pileated woodpecker flushes and leads me down a hollow toward the river for a good half mile. To the chorus of the tires and the gravel and the birdsong is added the melody of flowing water, my favorite music.

I don’t see the well-concealed trailhead the first time I pass and end up on an impossibly narrow dirt road, trying to squeeze by another truck whose driver appears unhappy to see me and my big Dodge. I finally find a spot wide enough to turn back toward the river and park at a bridge. I find the trailhead on the right side of the bridge and there meet a golden retriever attended by two humans, a father and son out for a short hike. They will be two of only five people I will see during my three days on the river. Not bad for a holiday weekend, one traditionally viewed as the beginning of summer in these parts.

My pack feels lighter than in the past. I use an old Kelty Trekker external frame pack, both for its efficient load handling and its versatility in strapping on gear. I worked hard this time to eliminate extraneous gear, and I’ve just bought a pair of waist-high waders which weigh about half as much as my old chest-highs. The work is paying off, although I already miss my pipe and my journal. I don’t plan to go far, maybe a mile or two. It’s getting late, I’m not familiar with this trail, and I don’t trust the pack to feel light for long. (more…)

It’s Hawgdaddy Vs The Weather Again, and We All Know How This One Will turn Out

I feel like Charlie Brown, and the weather is Lucy. She’s once again pulling the football out from in front of me just as I’m about to kick it. I don’t know why I keep falling for the same trick time and time again. My backpacking trip to North Georgia this coming weekend is in serious jeopardy. The 10-Day forecast tells the whole sad story:

I guess Hawgdaddy was going fishing again...(image courtesy www.weather.com)

This weather thing has gotten so bad that it’s become cliche among my friends. Any time it rains, someone says, “I guess Hawgdaddy is going fishing again.” It’s not that I mind fishing in the rain. I’ve done it all my life. When you’re Hawgdaddy, you get used to it. In former years, I did most of my fishing on a large reservoir from a bass boat. Lots of rain didn’t really affect the fishing. Even under pretty severe flood conditions, fishing was still there for the taking. In fact, some of the best fishing I’ve ever experienced was during flood conditions, when the bass moved in droves to the newly flooded timber.

Unfortunately, I now live a good distance from my father and his bass boat. My fishing is mostly restricted to small local creeks, and I usually wade them, though I do have a canoe that sees occasional use. It seems that our local bass streams have hit flood stage weekly this spring. Wading has been out of the question. Heck, I tried to fish a pond yesterday, and the water was so high I had trouble finding a place to cast from, and the water looked like chocolate milk.

Now that I’m addicted to fly fishing for mountain trout, I spend a few weekends every year on Appalachian trout streams. Hence my plans to fish a Georgia trout stream this coming weekend. The problem is, heavy rain floods this stream fairly quickly, even under normal conditions. With all the rain we’ve had, the streams up there are already so full that the slightest bit of rain renders them unwadable.

So, all I can do is wait, but I’ll tell you, my spirits are a bit low. I know this is all part of fly fishing, but times like this make me wonder why I didn’t take up something more predictable, like chess. If you’re into chess, you set a date and time, and that’s all there is to it. It’s conceivable that the weather can ruin your chess game, like say if a tornado hits, but it’s really unlikely. Assuming you survive the tornado, you can probably still find a dry spot to play a game. It’s not that simple with fishing. Maybe it’s the unpredictability that draws me back for more. Lately though, not getting to fish has become entirely too predictable.

Am I whining? Yes, without reservation. I suppose I should be thankful that we have plenty of water this year, and truly I am. The past few years of drought were pretty tough on the area. And there is that inescapable logic that you need water to fish, but I can’t help wanting to fish right now. I only have a precious few weekends every year for a trip to the mountains. Losing this weekend makes the other ones even more precious, and me more desperate. The last thing the world needs is a desperate, fishing-deprived Hawgdaddy. Still, fishermen are nothing if not hopeful. Despite my whining, I believe there’s a chance the forecast will clear out enough for my trip. But I can’t get Lucy’s smirk out of my mind, nor Charles Shultz’s determination to never let Charlie Brown kick that football.

Take care,
Nathan

Our friend David Knapp over at The Trout Zone recently had some bear trouble in Smoky Mountain NP. He talks about it on his blog. Pretty scary stuff. If you ever plan to do any camping or backpacking in bear country (black, grizzly or both), you should read this cautionary tale. Please never, ever leave or bury trash in bear country. You’re not only putting yourself at risk but other campers as well. For that matter, you’re also putting the bears at risk. Bears that become accustomed to feeding on trash or handouts often must be put down due to the dangerous behaviors they develop. If you do plan to backpack in the Smokies, make sure you know the regulations. Pay particular attention to Rules 8 and 10. I’m planning a solo backpacking trip to Georgia at the end of May, and you can bet David’s story will be on my mind every time I hear a twig snap or something, who knows what, grunting outside my tent.

If you like to fly fish, you should be a regular reader of David’s blog. In my humble opinion, it’s one of the best out there. David’s quite a fisherman, and you can learn a lot from him. He covers a wide variety of water from tailwaters to mountains to warmwater creeks and ponds. Although he focuses on his home area up in Tennessee, he almost always takes a trip out West every year. And he never seems to fail to catch nice fish. His photos are some of the best you’ll find.

Insane has had some computer hiccups and hasn’t been able to edit the photos from our trip to the ponds I wrote about last week. Hopefully he’ll have them up on Friday. If not, I should have some material from a big group fishing trip we went on last Saturday which resulted in a tasty fish fry, even if I did do the frying.

Take care and stay safe,
Nathan

There is quite a bit of history found in the park.

Despite being considered a North Alabama fishing site, I thought it beneficial to feature some of the more grand areas of interest here in our own back yard. This past weekend, Katie and I were feeling, well a little ‘Insane’, and decided to venture into the woods. There is just something about the peaceful serenity of being in the woods. One place that came to mind was a quaint little nature trail nestled on top of Green Mountain. It had been some time since I had visited there, but I knew it was well worth the drive.

Located in Northern Madison County, the park was born in 1975 (for you history buffs) and is surrounded by 72 acres of beautiful wooded land. In the midst of it all you will find Skye Lake, full of fish, ducks, and geese. Both bass and bream are stacked thicker than the work piling up on my desk as we speak. However, fishing regulations aren’t exactly fisherman friendly. To fish, you must either be wearing diapers or receiving sponge baths from a nurse named Helga. By that I mean over 60 or under 16 (no offense meant to you spry young 60-year-olds out there who can still fish and hike circles around me). Yeah, I was actually a little disappointed thinking I had found pond ‘Y’.

A view of the lake from the main walking trail.

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Gina and Nathan at the Bote Mountain Trail Intersection. This was about the half-way point when we were all still being civil to one another.

A article brought to you by TVangler female correspondent Jacqulyn, who also happens to be my wife (poor thing). It covers the first backpacking trip to which I subjected Jacqulyn and her sister Gina. We took a one night trip to Spence Field in the Great Smoky Mountains during the fall of 2004. Enjoy,

hawgdaddy

I could see it running through Nathan’s head as he looked at the mounds of food, makeup, toilet paper, batteries, first aid kits, clothes and general other things that appeared useless to him for a one night camping trip to the Smokies. It was the look of “What have I gotten myself into and is there anyway to fix it.” Or in other words sheer panic. He began helping us whittle down the piles to what he thought was manageable. My sister Gina and I were excited to be going on our first camping trip. It was hard for me to tell if at that moment Nathan was excited to be taking us though. He gets sort of mechanical during trip preparation.

He began by saying “Remember that you will have to carry everything you take for miles on your back. He graciously offered to carry the majority of the food that we needed with an emphasis on needed. Soon we had all reached a compromise on what to take. Gina and I even got to take a few small luxury items including powder and lipstick. Though I’m not sure lipstick can be considered a luxury item and we argued this point with Nathan very well I think. It went something like this: It could be very helpful in the case where we might need to signal S.O.S. on a big white cloth like they do in the movies(never mind that we weren’t taking a big white cloth, I’m sure if we were in that kind of situation one would present itself like it does in the movies). And in the words of my great Aunt as she would coat her lips with a deep shade of red after dinner, “I can tell bigger tales with my lipstick on.” Telling big tales on camping and fishing trips is an essential part right? I mean if someone asked us on the trail how many fish we had caught or how tough a trail we had walked, I could say wait I got this one….With one fell swoop I would reach into my backpack, pull out the lipstick, make one covering run around my lips and say we walked ten miles up hill both ways at the end only to find a trout stream with fish jumping out of the water begging to be caught. This said in a fashion only shiny malibu mauve could convey would leave the other hikers dumbfounded only to be able to utter wow or some such exclamation. At the end of the explanation Nathan looked glassy eyed and said, “Just take it, it’s small.”

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I love going on backcountry fishing trips, particularly in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina. One thing I learned very quickly was that the lighter the load, the more I enjoyed the hiking. My first true backpacking trip was to the Cataloochee Valley. There were four of us. I imagine the average pack weight was over 50 lbs. One guy’s pack probably weighed near 100 lbs. It was so heavy that some of the buckles broke and had to be rigged back redneck fashion. After that, I began systematically cutting down on pack weight. Here are a few of the things I’ve done.

I have a Kelty external frame backpack. It came with a metal piece sewn inside the main pocket. I think its purpose was to hold the pack open. I found this a useless feature. It took up space and added weight. I cut it out, saving an ounce or two. The pack also came with a huge Kelty label sewn on the outside. I removed that thing as well. Every little bit helps. Take a look at your pack. What’s really necessary? Remove anything that you can’t see a good purpose for. You might want to make a trip first before removing things just to see if you find a use for them. But if you don’t, don’t be afraid to take them off.

On that first trip I took a few canned food items along with some bagged tuna. For future trips, I reduced the number of canned items and items with high water content. I really like Rich Osthoff’s book Fly Fishing the Rocky Mountain Backcountry. He is a proponent of not taking cooking gear and mainly eating out of cans. I highly recommend his book and approach, BUT if you plan to cook on occasion, you need to cut way down on canned items. Buy yourself a good titanium cookware set (much lighter than aluminum) and use lots of freeze-dried meals. These meals from such companies as Mountain House and Backpacker’s Pantry are very good, easy to make, and extremely light. I also recommend a Sierra Zip Stove for your cooking as opposed to gas stoves. First off I really like its simplicity, and second I really think it’ll save you weight over a longer trip. The food and stove are readily available from REI Camping & Hiking

Take yourself a plastic fork and spoon for your silverware and reuse them. Just clean them well after every meal. You can take two of each in case you break one.

Take a small selection of flies. There is little need to carry the full arsenal for the backcountry. Most backcountry trout are not picky. You can reduce a ton of weight by carrying just one good box with some Adams and other basic dries, a few hare’s ears and pheasant tail nymphs, and some basic wet flies and streamers. There is no need to carry a vest either. Just take a shirt with a couple of good pockets. (more…)