Brown Trout - White Church

One of the first thing that your learn about trout is that they usually live in remote locations. In North Carolina that means National Forest, State Parks, Game Lands and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. On route to these remote locations one notices that the landscape is dotted with small white churches. As the sun rises over the foothills they shine out like beacons for our souls..

On a warm spring day I headed west to see if the trout were rising to any hatches. They were. I caught and released a dozen brown trout, eight to twelve inches long. Some might say that two hundred and twenty five miles, round trip, is too far to drive for a couple of fish.....But that isn't the only reason that I fly fish for trout in the North Carolina mountains. I go for the beauty, the solitude and to feel the cold clear water rushing toward the sea.