I decided against all odds to go to the mountains today. I arrived at my selected creek on the Carolina side of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I hiked about a mile and a half and immediately ran in to three others fly fishermen. Oh well, after a brief chat I continued up the trail for about another half a mile. I rigged up and the humidity was unbearable. I had maybe half a dozen strikes from small fish in about two hours of fishing. The gnats were eating my alive, the sweat was pouring down my spine. I just couldn't take it anymore. I decided to drive back to the Tn side to find higher altitude. After an hour of hiking and another half an hour of driving I was back on another stream. It wasn't more than ten minutes or so and the whole misery started again. The heat and humidity was so intense that short of standing in the river with your head under the surface would do. I accepted defeat and decided that I had to live with a skund for the first time on a mountain stream in many many years. What a miserable day to be out.
Enough of the whining, cooler temps are coming and I'm looking forward to it.
