S7, Ep 69: High Water Tactics: Big Fish Frenzy with Mac Brown

EPISODE SUMMARY

Guest: Mac Brown - Fly Fishing Guide and Instructor at Mac Brown Fly Fishing (Bryson City, North Carolina)

In this episode: North Carolina guide Mac Brown shares high water fishing strategies and trophy brown trout tactics for Appalachian waters during storm events. Topics include streamer fishing in turbid conditions, wet fly line control techniques and educational opportunities for advanced anglers.

Key fishing techniques covered: • Black Ghost streamers during rain events • Streamer jigging with jig hooks in high current • Bank fishing techniques in turbid water • Traditional wet fly presentations • Line control methods for moving water

Location focus: Bryson City area, Deep Creek, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Galbraith Creek, Tuckasegee River

Target species: Brown trout (particularly large specimens 6-8 pounds during high water events)

Equipment discussed: Black Ghost streamers (size 8-10 XL hooks), jig hook streamers, traditional wet fly patterns, longer rods for reach

Key questions answered: • How to fish effectively during heavy rain and high water • Where to find trophy brown trout during storm events • What streamers work best in turbid conditions

Best for: Intermediate to advanced anglers interested in high water tactics, streamer fishing strategies, and traditional wet fly techniques

Marvin Cash00:00:03

Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly. We're back with another casting angles with Mac Brown. Mac, how are you?

Mac Brown00:00:10

I'm doing great. How are you doing, Marvin?

Marvin Cash00:00:12

I'm trying to stay out of trouble. It's kind of funny you were telling me you were building Noah's ark in Bryson City.We've had rain here in the Piedmont, but it hadn't really been that bad.

Mac Brown00:00:20

Oh, no, we've had a bunch of, like, deluge floods. So big, big water here like we've had yesterday. I think it was about 4:00'. Clock. Saturday, same thing, and then Friday, same thing.It's like four to six o'. Clock, like three inches of rain. Three inches of rain. We're getting two or three inches every night. So it's been some big water up here.

Marvin Cash00:00:42

Yeah, we've talked about this in the past, you know, about, you know. You know, one secret is to go high in the park.But when you get that much water, sometimes the best thing to do is to stay at home and watch something on Netflix. But then, you know, obviously if you've been getting that much rain, your low elevation rivers like the tuck must be just blown up.

Mac Brown00:01:01

Yeah, the. The tuck is. Yeah, it gets too chocolatey too fast from all the, you know, sediment turbidity that flows in.So probably the best thing that keeps bringing back, and I got to do it once last week during those big brain events is, is run up into the park. And I tell you, it's just a night and day difference when you get those.That's why I was thinking it'd be a great thing to talk about, you know, high water events and going after some, some trophy fish. And you want to do that at the lower elevations, not the high elevations, because is that water's coming up.Like when you get 2 and 3 inches within an hour and a half, you got some really magical opportunities to go after some, some, you know, big brown trout and. And it's just like a frenzy, Marvin. That's what they basically turn into a feeding frenzy when that's happening.So that's the time to grab your rod and go. I know it sounds rough for people to stand out there in the pouring rain, but that's the best time you'll ever see in Appalachia to be on the water.

Marvin Cash00:02:03

Yeah. And to just, you know, help people understand.You know, when the water comes up and it starts moving more quickly, you know, that's going to push fish to the banks and fish to structure, Right.

Mac Brown00:02:14

Yeah. And it. And just having an attractor, you know, some type of a streamer.Like, I used to throw a lot of black ghosts 30, 40 years ago up here in the park. And I still like the Black Ghost. It's one of my favorite, one of my favorite small old school streamers.And I still throw a lot of those, those size, you know, like three XL, number 10 hook, number eight. Eight. You know, black Ghost is like, that's still money.Like this time of year when you get in these big rain events, because you got the yellow, the black silver tinsel, the white wing. It's just there's. There's so much to do with the tractors, like during these rain events. And I thought about it.Today I ran into Jim Estes down here below the driveway and talked to him for about 30 minutes. And he's been going every time we've been getting these big rain events. And I started thinking about, I need to drop.Drop what I'm doing when these things happen, because I've only got to do it once out of the last week. And it's happened every day, seven days in a row.

Marvin Cash00:03:13

Yeah, absolutely. And I would say too, if you're fishing, let's just say kind of some of the newer predator patterns, you know, I love Gray Ghosts.It's one of my favorite, you know, kind of creek, small river patterns for streamers.But if you're fishing some of the more, you know, the predator fly stuff like changers and other things like that, you know, think about, you know, one with a lot of turbidity. You're want to color contrast, right? So you're want probably darker flies with some flash.And then you also might want to think about upsizing those patterns too, because, you know, realism and that kind of water is not quite as important because you really, you're working to get that fly noticed so that the trout will chase it, need it.

Mac Brown00:03:52

That's right. Yeah.And it's just there's so much to do with the period, the period of time when that happens that, that really, I think it's more about periodization when that happens than it is even about pattern. Because there's so many good patterns.Like even the old, you know, the old sculpting patterns that were, that were real common, you know, and like the really, I think for the most part with this, this streamer game is like color contrast, like you say, like having black and white mixed or the colorations that offer contrast to those patterns. But I'll give you a good example, like in the park like I live on Deep Creek. I mean it's not any kind of secret I've been here for.I moved here and built this in 2007 where I live now. So I've been up there a lot though since back in 86 when I lived out in Nantahala Gorge.But there's a period of water right there where the new parking lot is when you drive up into Deep Creek and this happened, this is what Jimmy reminded me of today. It brought back a lot of memories. The bridge that's right there at the new parking lot that's paved.Used to be an old gravel parking lot above it that only held like maybe eight cars.And back in the 80s, I can remember when we'd have these flash events within 50 yards of water above the bridge was always there goes up Galbraith Creek, that water that you would never suspect a fish over 15 inches would live.And you'd get these water events where the water's coming up and literally have three fish miss a streamer that are 6 to 8 pound brown trout in water that you've been through a hundred times that summer. Then it makes you wonder, well, where'd they come from? Where were they all the times at low water, you know. And that.That's kind of the fun part about these water events that are coming up. Like big, big water quick is like used to be one of my favorite. Well, it still is.It's just I don't have the same amount of time as I had when I before. Before kids. But I. I still love it. But I'm saying it used to be always one of my favorite things.You drop everything in life to get up there when the water's coming up.

Marvin Cash00:06:01

Yeah, I would say too. Another trick for folks, particularly if the water is moving with too much push too quickly for you to get in and safely.Wade is a great thing is to take smaller streamers tied on jig hooks and jig them, right?

Mac Brown00:06:15

Oh yeah.

Marvin Cash00:06:15

Because you know, and particularly too like if you've got a longer rod, it's going to give you a little bit more reach. But if you're basically able to work the bank, soft water on the bank.And the reason that that works folks is there's more friction from the bank that helps slow the water down, but also rocks and structure.It allows you to basically jig and hang those flies and those really likely spots that fish are going to hang out because they've got to find somewhere where they don't have to fight the current and they're just going to hang in there. And it's a great way to be able to kind of deliberately and repetitively hit that water.

Mac Brown00:06:46

Yeah, that's, that's a good tactic too. And it's just, yeah, it's, this is a magical time of year, really, with. It's kind of unprecedented.What we've seen for, for July and thus far in August is to have this much water this late in the year. Normally we're in a drought type of season since I've lived here since 85. Normally it's dry starting, you know, back in middle of July.And it stays dry all the way until it gets into October. And this is totally, totally a different pattern, you know, that we're on right now.And this kind of reminds you of the kind of thunderstorms in June, early July, and now we're getting those way into August. And so it's kind of funny how, how it's just such a different pattern.But yeah, that's definitely something to take advantage of for people that are up here visiting instead of saying go high, go low, where the macroinvertebrates are a lot more, you know, a lot more of that down in the lower elevation. And of course, the benefit of all these rains too, Marvin, is the water temperature is, is much, much cooler. So we're, we're like 63 degrees.I hiked up in the park before we did the podcast. It was 63 degree degrees all day today. And that's, that's unprecedented for early August, you know.

Marvin Cash00:08:00

Yeah. And you know, folks, if you just hold on, in about two months they'll be stocking your DH Trout.But you know, one other thing you were telling me, we were talking about classes and class schedules and all that kind of good stuff. You've got some great stuff coming on and it's getting closer and closer.I know you've got a casting school kind of in the middle of September, but you also have a really, really neat event with Davey Watton. I think it's in October down in Arkansas.You want to kind of let folks know kind of, you know, they can always call you and get on the boat or take a lesson, but you know how to do that. But also give them an idea about what you're going to be doing this fall on the instructional side.

Mac Brown00:08:33

Yeah, that'd be great. September 13th and 14th is we still got a couple spots in the two day advanced line control class for casting.And then October 15th to 19th, we have a fly fishing guide school here in Bryson City. That's Got a spot left in it. And then we have the event with Davey down in the White river.And that'll be in Mountain home, Arkansas on October 24th to the 26th. And that's. We're really looking forward to getting back down there. You know, that's the first place.I don't know if we said this on a podcast before, but that's. That's the first place I ever threw a fly in the water.My granddaddy had a house down there in Oakland, Arkansas when I was a kid, and that's who started me doing this when I was a kid in the Ozarks. So that was in many moons ago, Marvin.

Marvin Cash00:09:19

It's been a while, but, you know, the, the interest.A couple things I would say about that class is, you know, first of all, you know, I always joke that you'll forget more about fly fishing than, you know, I'll ever remember. But, you know, Davey will forget more than the two of us put together will ever know. And I think.

Mac Brown00:09:34

Oh, yeah, Yeah. I mean, yeah.

Marvin Cash00:09:36

And so, I mean, he's got a ton of knowledge. But the other thing too is I don't think people truly appreciate. I think people sometimes kind of get turned on to wet flies.But how phenomenally effective a technique.And it kind of ties in a little bit like streamer fishing, because there's a lot of kind of pacing and line control techniques you use with kind of what we'll just call it traditional streamer fishing that you do with wets. Right, right. And so the opportunity to, you know, spend time. I mean, it's always good to spend time with you. Right.But it's also, it's good to spend time with someone like Davey because it's like getting to hang out with Lefty or Dave Whitlock or somebody like that. And that's going to be a really. It's going to be a super special event, right?

Mac Brown00:10:17

Oh, yeah, and it's definitely. Yeah, I think I told you about that last year when we did the class down there for the North Arkansas fly fishers.And you know, I told David, just ride me like a client, you know, when I mess up, tell me. You know what I mean? So.So one thing that was really fascinating about it and I came away realizing, you know, last fall and I, I fished with Davey several times before that, like with, with wet flies.But by far, of all the different techniques that I know of, of all the different tight lining, dry fly drift presentation, streamer fishing, by far, wet fly is the hardest line control stuff to Truly master. And. And when you see the.The methodology of, like, the way that he likes to do it is very different than the traditional methods that we read in, like, Taverner and a lot of the old books. And it takes probably the most line control to pull off, like, what he's talking about. But once it's there, it's. It's such a gift.I mean, it really is. And, like, that happened, you know, before we did the.The club down there at North Arkansas Fly Fishers last year, that it finally really started clicking. By the second day, I started to feel really, you know, totally, totally different about what I.What I thought that I perceived it was and what he's wanting me to do. And it was. It's two totally different. It was two different entities, really. And so I came away.I mean, I was fired up, driving back home going, man, I've really got something now. You know what I mean? Like, something that I never had thought of before. And that's what was really unique about it for me personally.

Marvin Cash00:11:54

Yeah, Very, very neat. And I assume if they go to MacBrownFlyfish.com they can get all the details right?

Mac Brown00:12:00

Yeah, they can find all of it there on the specialty classes on the. Right.

Marvin Cash00:12:04

Well, there you go.And you know, folks, as I always say, this time of year, although we don't really have to say stay cool, because it's actually relatively pleasant right now in the mid Atlantic. But you always do owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Mac.

Mac Brown00:12:17

Tight lines. Marvin.