TRANSYLVANIA COUNTY TROUT
Richard Warren is one of the guides for Davidson River Outfitters in Pisgah Forest. He states that Transylvania County features one of the state's foremost trout streams.

"The Davidson River is a large wild trout stream where it's not unusual to catch fish 24 and 25 inches (long) in the spring," said Warren. "And the month of April is not only the best time to fish the Davidson in the spring but also for the entire year. The water temperature has risen to 50 to 52 degrees, the stream is full, and the fish are active."

Warren relates that the Davidson is about the width of a two-lane highway, with plenty of sections where the water is 2- to 2 1/2 feet deep. Come April, the trout hold in runs, slicks and current breaks. Interestingly, the guide relates that though northwestern North Carolina often receives a great deal of rain now, the river clears in as little as four hours, thanks to a heavily forested watershed.

Much of the Davidson falls under fly-fishing-only, catch-and-release regulations, although a two-mile or so hatchery-supported section exists in Transylvania. Warren adds that large Size 6 streamers are outstanding patterns for bringing up big browns.

"The fish lose their inhibitions in April on the Davidson," continued Warren. "Cast a streamer downstream at a 90-degree angle, mend it, then start stripping it back, mending every now and then. Sometimes you can just leave the streamer out in the current, mending the fly every now and then.

"The Davidson is a medium gradient stream, and the browns will hold next to the bank and come out and hit a streamer as it hovers in the current. Other times, they will hold next to submerged logs, but when that is the case, you are in real trouble if a big brown hits and then runs under some wood."

Although generic streamers will work just fine, Warren admits to a fondness for size 6 Zonkers in olive, black and white or various combinations thereof. A really good local pattern is another streamer, a Conehead Madonna.

"The Madonna looks a little like a Zonker, but it has a deer hair-like skirt that is really short, sort of like the skirts that the singer Madonna wears," said Warren.

Surface patterns also come to the fore in April and May, continued the guide. The most productive ones are sizes 14 and 16 caddis.

Warren said that a very popular Transylvania County stream for both fly- and spin-fishermen is the East Fork of the French Broad, which comes under the delayed harvest regulation.

"In fact, I would rate the East Fork as one of the top delayed harvest streams in the region," said Warren. "The East Fork has just walls of shaded water and it flows out of the mountains, so it is very cold and clear even in April. Very little of the river flows through farmland, so it remains clear even when we have spring rains."