Brook Trout Fishing in NC!

Me, my dad and brother NOT catching any trout at Rainbow Falls outside of Sapphire, NC.

I just had the pleasure of going on a bomb ass family vacation in North Carolina and thought I’d share a little about our amazing trip. My fam booked a 9 day stay at the old “Sweetwater Trout Club” on Airbnb. It’s an amazing property bordering national forest with water falls, rivers, hiking trails, trout holes, and all the wilderness you could handle, all accessible by foot from the cabin.

Anyway, we’d been looking forward to the trip for a long time. Between my dad, brother and I, we had a total of zero experience fishing brook trout or attempting to fish with flies. Still, we were each eager and determined to show the competition up when it came to bringing home dinner.

The first 3 days were discouraging. Dozens of hours of fishing with only a few bites to show for it. It was looking like the trout dinner was never going to happen. We were using a variety of tactics — all on conventional spinning reels. I came with Pistol Pete’s Flies attached to a water bobber (for suspension and most importantly, casting ability). My dad and brother were relying on little grubs tethered to “Trout Magnet” bobbers. With none of this working, the fear of ending our trip fish-less loomed large. That’s when desperation led us to a local trout farm.

So we made our way about 20 miles down the road to Mill’s Trout Farm. The sporting element here is about as pathetic as you could imagine. BUT, I’ll tell you — not only was it actually a lot of fun, but the experience getting countless reps in presentation and being able to see exactly how the trout responded to the action of the lure — the experience was invaluable. We took about 10 cleaned trout from the Farm to serve up for dinner (both grilled AND fried!). Total Deliciousness, but our minds still turned to the rivers and creeks that surrounded us.

This incredible fish dinner was courtesy of our trip to the Mills Trout Farm

We thought up a million reasons for why we weren’t having success in the wild — the water was too warm, water levels too low, overfishing, the fact that we couldn’t even see any trout, not even a shadow, etc. Well, after our visit to the trout farm, our fortunes completely changed. We immediately started catching fish, in the wild, what we deemed impossible just a few hours earlier.

Dad breaking barriers by catching the first wild brook trout!

For the remainder of the trip, we had an absolute blast catching a boat load of wild brook trout (all caught and released). What changed for us was:

1) The aforementioned experience at the trout farm;
2) The realization of just how spooky these fish are. You gotta creep, crawl, stalk, and keep your big mouth shut. If you’re traveling with a group, you need to be especially cautious. And with the larger fish, you’re pretty much never going to see one until it strikes your line.
3) Going further / off the beaten path. This might be common sense, but it’s well worth hiking an extra 20 min through some less-navigable terrain to find a perfect, untouched hole.

My brother stoked to land the elusive wild brook trout!

This trip was awesome and I’d recommend it to any family group looking for an escape. Even those of us that were not interested in fishing found it hard to leave the cabin the last day.